But like it or not, this is going to be a race between Biden and Trump — and somehow the lucid, well-informed candidate is getting more heat over his age than his ranting, factually challenged opponent.
As I said, until just the other day I was feeling somewhat optimistic. But now I’m deeply troubled about our nation’s future.
Krugman, NY Times
I think Biden's too old, I thought he was too old in 2020 as well. How people get from there to voting for Trump is completely beyond me.
There is something deeply wrong with America that a charlatan, liar, crook, and probable rapist, who is clearly rapidly aging himself, and who adheres to America's enemies and rages at its allies is likely to be elected if Biden and Trump remain the candidates.
Frankly even if Trump is defeated, and I really do pray that is the case, a country where Trump is even in the running is in terminal decline. If America doesn't elect Trump in 2024 maybe they'll elect someone even worse in 2028 or 2032. If I was American I'd be thinking very hard about leaving if Trump is re-elected.
But like it or not, this is going to be a race between Biden and Trump — and somehow the lucid, well-informed candidate is getting more heat over his age than his ranting, factually challenged opponent.
As I said, until just the other day I was feeling somewhat optimistic. But now I’m deeply troubled about our nation’s future.
Krugman, NY Times
The NYT focus group with swing voters also deeply troubling.
Krugman is a fucking idiot. Biden is not ‘lucid’
The democrats are not helped by this imbecilic level of denial
Sometimes the same people who said Biden's age was a problem during the primaries in 2020 are now saying it's not a problem...
Has their ever been an unofficial survey of wealth / class / age / voting intention on this platform of its users? Because some of the stuff people are saying here about how the Tories are so lefty and how right wing stuff has never been tried seems... wildly out of joint with the material reality of lots of people on the ground, in a way I just find extremely difficult to comprehend. Like let alone the same country - I'm starting to worry I don't live on the same planet as many of you.
You often refer to controlling borders as "border fascism", so I guess you see favouring low immigration as a right-wing position. What has the level of immigration been like under the current government?
I mean, I consider the method we currently use to manage the border as border fascism. The numbers that pass the border have little to do with how I judge the regime that the state implements at the border. This government would be happy if every small boat sank into the Channel with everyone on board as long as the papers didn't care about it. The idea of immigrants or refugees as this big social drain, of an existential threat, is common in government discussions on the topic. The bureaucracy of immiseration - moving people from place to place, putting them in small rooms or boats, giving them a weekly allowance of under £10, all in the attempt to make things so awful that people stop coming here - to stop a process that is as natural as humans drinking water - over an imagined border. It is border fascism even if everyone was granted asylum who asked for it - not because of the outcome but because of the process of purposeful dehumanisation and hatred the government aims to enforce.
So people moving from place to place is as natural as drinking water, but people seeking to protect their property is an unnatural product of capitalism?
Private property and personal property are different things... Marx literally talked about that. It isn't a new part of leftist theory. It does sometimes hurt my brain when people only have a straw man view of what leftist thought is.
Was the enclosures of the commons something that naturally happened, or was it enforced on most people against their will under the threat of violence to the benefit of the wealthy? The understanding we have of private property has evolved from that. Indeed, mass ownership of land is a relatively new development - if we're talking about human nature. We can look at a number of cultures that, until relatively recently (really the last couple of hundred years when Westerners turned up), had a completely different understanding of land ownership all together - with many of them outright not having a concept of an individual who owns a patch of land and many things, arguably most things, held in common.
For nomadic, pastoral societies, owning land is as absurd as owning sea or air. Your wealth is your flocks and herds.
Land ownership becomes logical once people settle.
So why didn't the Native Americans develop the idea, Sean? They weren't all nomadic.
Has their ever been an unofficial survey of wealth / class / age / voting intention on this platform of its users? Because some of the stuff people are saying here about how the Tories are so lefty and how right wing stuff has never been tried seems... wildly out of joint with the material reality of lots of people on the ground, in a way I just find extremely difficult to comprehend. Like let alone the same country - I'm starting to worry I don't live on the same planet as many of you.
You often refer to controlling borders as "border fascism", so I guess you see favouring low immigration as a right-wing position. What has the level of immigration been like under the current government?
I mean, I consider the method we currently use to manage the border as border fascism. The numbers that pass the border have little to do with how I judge the regime that the state implements at the border. This government would be happy if every small boat sank into the Channel with everyone on board as long as the papers didn't care about it. The idea of immigrants or refugees as this big social drain, of an existential threat, is common in government discussions on the topic. The bureaucracy of immiseration - moving people from place to place, putting them in small rooms or boats, giving them a weekly allowance of under £10, all in the attempt to make things so awful that people stop coming here - to stop a process that is as natural as humans drinking water - over an imagined border. It is border fascism even if everyone was granted asylum who asked for it - not because of the outcome but because of the process of purposeful dehumanisation and hatred the government aims to enforce.
So people moving from place to place is as natural as drinking water, but people seeking to protect their property is an unnatural product of capitalism?
Private property and personal property are different things... Marx literally talked about that. It isn't a new part of leftist theory. It does sometimes hurt my brain when people only have a straw man view of what leftist thought is.
Was the enclosures of the commons something that naturally happened, or was it enforced on most people against their will under the threat of violence to the benefit of the wealthy? The understanding we have of private property has evolved from that. Indeed, mass ownership of land is a relatively new development - if we're talking about human nature. We can look at a number of cultures that, until relatively recently (really the last couple of hundred years when Westerners turned up), had a completely different understanding of land ownership all together - with many of them outright not having a concept of an individual who owns a patch of land and many things, arguably most things, held in common.
For nomadic, pastoral societies, owning land is as absurd as owning sea or air. Your wealth is your flocks and herds.
Land ownership becomes logical once people settle.
So why didn't the Native Americans develop the idea, Sean? They weren't all nomadic.
Some of them did develop the idea of owning land.
John Locke was wrong.
Land ownership comes with agrarian farming. If you are ploughing, planting, weeding and fertilising a bit of land for your crop everyone else had better keep off. You've done the work, you get the crop. Simples. Over time the idea that you have the right to a particular piece of land that you have been cultivating will gradually turn into what we call ownership.
They may not have registered title but pretty much every society with an agrarian base will go down that path.
For a lot of history - this was not true. The person who owned the land was the king or the duke or the lord or whatever. You were permitted to live on the land because you, as a serf, were viewed as much a part of the land as the trees or the deer. When you farmed the crops you had to give 70-80% of the crops to your feudal lord, or they would come around with swords and burn down your house and rape your women and what not. That was how property relations were maintained.
That’s a fair description of parts of 18th century Poland or Russia.
But not really of England in c1300, where free tenancy was quite common, and villeinage was a lot less burdensome than that.
But, I’d accept that feudalism is like being part of a mafia family. The Boss will protect you from other predators (you’re his income source after all), but he gets the lion’s share.
It also ignores the law records - quite a lot of inferiors suing their feudal superiors for not doing their legally required bit. Including lawsuits by people right at the bottom of the heap.
The fighting there predicted the drone/long-range artillery ground war that has since become familiar in Ukraine. The ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh and the way the world has ignored it reminds of how often the West just ignores such events. We should all pay more attention to the region.
Bit of an awkward one for the west because Aliyev and Erdogan (Leader of crucial NATO nation Turkey) are best pals whereas Armenia is/was (Though it's cooled due to Putin not really giving a hoot about them fancying being embarrassed on the battlefield by overt support/committed to his own war ) an ally of Russia.
While the Rochdale event is clearly damaging to Labour, I'm not sure that the charge that Starmer was very slow to act is that powerful. The story broke on Saturday night/Sunday morning; Azhar Ali was disowned last night, I think. I know a couple of days seems like an eternity in the modern news cycle, but actually he was suspended pretty quickly. I suspect it will be forgotten about in a week or two, unless other similar candidates emerge from the woodwork.
The big story for the press and Tory party to use, not without reason, is not delay in action, it is the revelation of the nature of party membership and the attitudes within it. This is all after the purge of anti-Semites and all that. It reflects the possibility that there is a party within the party colluding with extremists and nutters, and able to exclude good candidates and promote bad ones.
The press and the Tory party will have masses of ammunition for the right time stored up. The target for both sides is the crucial voters: the ones who normally vote Tory and plan not to this time. None of these voters are attracted to Islamist conspiracy theories.
Also very few elected politicos: I count El Capitano (LD), Andy Cooke (LD), Nick Palmer (Lab) and yours truly (Con) as Councillors, and no declared MPs.
Bartholomew Roberts is a Con councillor I think? I've been a councillor (LD then Green), and a parliamentary candidate (LD, LD, Green), but currently out of circulation
But like it or not, this is going to be a race between Biden and Trump — and somehow the lucid, well-informed candidate is getting more heat over his age than his ranting, factually challenged opponent.
As I said, until just the other day I was feeling somewhat optimistic. But now I’m deeply troubled about our nation’s future.
Krugman, NY Times
I think Biden's too old, I thought he was too old in 2020 as well. How people get from there to voting for Trump is completely beyond me.
There is something deeply wrong with America that a charlatan, liar, crook, and probable rapist, who is clearly rapidly aging himself, and who adheres to America's enemies and rages at its allies is likely to be elected if Biden and Trump remain the candidates.
Frankly even if Trump is defeated, and I really do pray that is the case, a country where Trump is even in the running is in terminal decline. If America doesn't elect Trump in 2024 maybe they'll elect someone even worse in 2028 or 2032. If I was American I'd be thinking very hard about leaving if Trump is re-elected.
Yeah cause Biden’s been great. Just a massive European war, the debacle of Afghanistan and now turmoil in the Middle East
Whereas under Trump foreign policy was not an issue
I’m not even sure Biden is that good domestically. As is often claimed on here. Illegal migration has tripled to 3m on his watch, absolutely unprecedented
Also very few elected politicos: I count El Capitano (LD), Andy Cooke (LD), Nick Palmer (Lab) and yours truly (Con) as Councillors, and no declared MPs.
It woud be quite "brave" for a declared MP to regularly post here.
I agree...but for a shortish period between 2005-10, we had both Nick Palmer and Stewart Jackson posting here; the latter flounced spectacularly and, to be honest, wasn't greatly missed (particularly by the then 'dominant' pbTories!).
2010-15 was peak PB, I think
Very varied contributors, much less polarised, a shared sense of humour, fewer lawyers and accountants (or they were more diluted), - nice balance of barbed insults and genuine wit, and a proper conviviality
When did it end? Like so much, perhaps around the time of the Scottish indyref
If I had to pinpoint THE time when the world went mad, a state from which it has never recovered, and it may in fact still be worsening, it is then. Indyref. The UK nearly broke up FFS
The planet has not been the same since
Your exertion to avoid identifying Brexit as the cause is hilarious.
Not at all. I would certainly include Brexit in my list of mad things that should not really have happened - along with Trump, global plague, massive European war, and much else
I’m just trying to pinpoint when this Era of Weirdness began, and sindyref is for me a good place to start. Something unthinkable -the UK splitting - came horribly close to happening - and also it was our first taste in the Uk of brutally polarised politics, especially online - the cybernats
So, no, I’m not ignoring Brexit. It simply wasn’t the start of the Madness
It was a black man getting elected US president. That's where the Tea Party started. It's probably what radicalised Trump.
Had a brief but intense thunderstorm today. 500,000 without power. An entire transport network collapsed.
Chastening. It's not the gradual rise in temperatures, or the slow change in local climates. These extreme weather events might be the story of the next 50 years, and I don't think people back home in the UK appreciate how disruptive they are.
Your australian friends certainly need to reduce their carbon footprint at a whopping 15 tons per person per year.
We do. We've just hit 1.5C for 2023 - a few years ahead of schedule - and the scientists were right.
We really do need to accelerate the electrification of everything and shift it onto renewables asap. This isn't a left-wing or a right-wing thing; it's an engineering challenge to decarbonise our energy generation and consumption in a way that doesn't treat the atmosphere like a sewer. And, on top, we'll need to do direct air capture and storage of what we've already chucked up their on top too.
It would really help if the ecomarxist activists could STFU about all their grand schemes to remake society of the back of it because that just makes it 10 x harder to achieve a consensus.
Has their ever been an unofficial survey of wealth / class / age / voting intention on this platform of its users? Because some of the stuff people are saying here about how the Tories are so lefty and how right wing stuff has never been tried seems... wildly out of joint with the material reality of lots of people on the ground, in a way I just find extremely difficult to comprehend. Like let alone the same country - I'm starting to worry I don't live on the same planet as many of you.
Collectively we are richer than the UK norm, with some over the £1million mark, around three around the £10million mark, and I think one around the £50million mark. We are predominantly male, with a few women. I think we may be gayer than average, but that's tentative. I couldn't guess at the ethnic/racial mix: I'd hazard mostly agnostic, with some Christians, Muslims and Hindus. There are some around the median wealth or lower, but the presence and volubility of the rich makes it seem a bit less lopsided. In terms of age we do have a larger number of old and retired people, some of which are probably in their last decade or less. I think we're slightly older than the UK population, but given how that skews we may be simply representative. We have many professionals and skilled trades (lawyers, doctors, a couple of warfighters, and at least two statisticians ) and others in the managerial class. We do skew towards the educated and I think the number of postgrads is higher than normal.
Given our profile and engagement I assume we're an advertiser's dream...
Okay. So as someone in my early 30s who earns less than £2k a month, no wonder I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb.
If it makes you feel any better, I'm in my early-40s, living with my wife's parents, and just been told that I can't get life insurance (and therefore: no mortgage, no buying a house).
Not sure how your living circs affect your ability to get insurance, unless your in laws are serial killers.
Ah, what have we here? It's yet another "They're on the Left but not giving all their money away" hypocrite shocker!
Aka PB Tories who can't argue rationally against a point instead targeting the personal circumstances of the person making it.
It's of course much more comfortable to those rich lefties to try to deflect such an argument. I mean you worked hard for your possessions you aren't about to give them away for some absurd political ideology, now, are you.
lol - "rich lefty, poor lefty, lefty in between"
Brilliant. I thought I'd made the point well enough but it's nice to have it reinforced so neatly.
As I said easy to laugh at the notion that those with abnormal wealth should make an abnormal contribution because you are campaigning for all of society to change and would happily pay more in such a society.
"Would happily pay more". But not of course "are actually paying more regardless of which government is in power".
Amiright.
Topping, I can't untangle that even after my 3rd coffee. Who's doing all this laughing at such an impeccable notion?
Then I think (but this is only tentative) you're asking me if there's some sort of 'lefty premium' in the UK tax regime?
Well, no. It works off your numbers not your political views. I guess you could change it along those lines but there are some obvious issues with that.
A man of your tremendous intellect should have little trouble deciphering what I'm banging on about. Perhaps it's wilful misunderestimating on your part. Who knows, eh.
Not to worry then. The big picture is plain enough. No probs seeing that. It's you seeking to delegitimize somebody's left wing political views because they're not poor enough for you.
The argument from @TOPPING seems to be, if I understand it correctly, "how dare you argue for something that would only work in a systemic manner (wealth redistribution) when you don't do that individually (citation needed) within the system you are criticising as not working".
Again, giving all my money to the next homeless person I see wouldn't solve the problem - the issue is that the state is currently the only mechanism by which to take some from those who have the most to give to those who have none.
If, on the other hand, you're saying you would agree it is my moral imperative to start kidnapping the richest people alive and threatening to unalive them (not sure if I can say the K word here, so will use the language of the youth) unless they gave away all their worldly possessions - all I can say is stand and deliver.
You could just ask me what I am saying. I've said it enough times. It is that you literally (!) said that we should dispossess people who have inherited stuff and yet you are the beneficiary of inherited stuff and afaics have no plans to change that.
And then you wrote 1,500 words about why it is not the same thing.
Also very few elected politicos: I count El Capitano (LD), Andy Cooke (LD), Nick Palmer (Lab) and yours truly (Con) as Councillors, and no declared MPs.
It woud be quite "brave" for a declared MP to regularly post here.
I agree...but for a shortish period between 2005-10, we had both Nick Palmer and Stewart Jackson posting here; the latter flounced spectacularly and, to be honest, wasn't greatly missed (particularly by the then 'dominant' pbTories!).
2010-15 was peak PB, I think
Very varied contributors, much less polarised, a shared sense of humour, fewer lawyers and accountants (or they were more diluted), - nice balance of barbed insults and genuine wit, and a proper conviviality
When did it end? Like so much, perhaps around the time of the Scottish indyref
If I had to pinpoint THE time when the world went mad, a state from which it has never recovered, and it may in fact still be worsening, it is then. Indyref. The UK nearly broke up FFS
The planet has not been the same since
Your exertion to avoid identifying Brexit as the cause is hilarious.
Not at all. I would certainly include Brexit in my list of mad things that should not really have happened - along with Trump, global plague, massive European war, and much else
I’m just trying to pinpoint when this Era of Weirdness began, and sindyref is for me a good place to start. Something unthinkable -the UK splitting - came horribly close to happening - and also it was our first taste in the Uk of brutally polarised politics, especially online - the cybernats
So, no, I’m not ignoring Brexit. It simply wasn’t the start of the Madness
It was a black man getting elected US president. That's where the Tea Party started. It's probably what radicalised Trump.
I think April 30th, 2011 was when Trump changed from apolitical to the whole villain arc.
But like it or not, this is going to be a race between Biden and Trump — and somehow the lucid, well-informed candidate is getting more heat over his age than his ranting, factually challenged opponent.
As I said, until just the other day I was feeling somewhat optimistic. But now I’m deeply troubled about our nation’s future.
Krugman, NY Times
The NYT focus group with swing voters also deeply troubling.
Krugman is a fucking idiot. Biden is not ‘lucid’
The democrats are not helped by this imbecilic level of denial
Sometimes the same people who said Biden's age was a problem during the primaries in 2020 are now saying it's not a problem...
He won the election so apparently the voters were OK with it? I know he's even older this time around but it's not much as a percentage change...
Ah, what have we here? It's yet another "They're on the Left but not giving all their money away" hypocrite shocker!
Aka PB Tories who can't argue rationally against a point instead targeting the personal circumstances of the person making it.
It's of course much more comfortable to those rich lefties to try to deflect such an argument. I mean you worked hard for your possessions you aren't about to give them away for some absurd political ideology, now, are you.
lol - "rich lefty, poor lefty, lefty in between"
Brilliant. I thought I'd made the point well enough but it's nice to have it reinforced so neatly.
As I said easy to laugh at the notion that those with abnormal wealth should make an abnormal contribution because you are campaigning for all of society to change and would happily pay more in such a society.
"Would happily pay more". But not of course "are actually paying more regardless of which government is in power".
Amiright.
Topping, I can't untangle that even after my 3rd coffee. Who's doing all this laughing at such an impeccable notion?
Then I think (but this is only tentative) you're asking me if there's some sort of 'lefty premium' in the UK tax regime?
Well, no. It works off your numbers not your political views. I guess you could change it along those lines but there are some obvious issues with that.
A man of your tremendous intellect should have little trouble deciphering what I'm banging on about. Perhaps it's wilful misunderestimating on your part. Who knows, eh.
Not to worry then. The big picture is plain enough. No probs seeing that. It's you seeking to delegitimize somebody's left wing political views because they're not poor enough for you.
He said he wanted to dispossess people who had inherited stuff and he is benefiting from inheriting stuff.
This is hardly stuff of Riemannian complexity.
It is hypocritical. But also entirely human.
Similar, perhaps more egregious than your situation. Worked hard for tremendous riches and are only hoping for a government which taxes you more but in the meantime don't plan on donating your surplus wealth to any of several charities. Queers for Palestine, perhaps.
I see Andrew Sullivan is now joining the cult of Trump (and US isolationism).
Is he? That's not my reading of the interview at all. He is not voting for him and sees him as a massive threat to rule of law.
It's when you get right to the end, after explaining how bad Trump is:
FS: And would you be one of that large number of Americans? [ie those who would happily see Ukraine partitioned, and China occupy Taiwan].
AS: I’d be pretty close to them, yes. I don’t think there is a desire in the United States, nor has there really been for the last 20 years, for long engagement in conflicts far away. The people whose kids go to fight those wars don’t want their kids to go fight those wars. And a lot of people just simply look at the state of the US-Mexico border and say: why are we spending billions of dollars on the border between the Russian-dominated provinces in Ukraine and the rest of it? Why, when we can’t do it for our own border? That’s an incredibly potent argument.
FS: The world order is certainly going through a seismic shift, one that may involve war or will conflict being evaded and a deal being struck. The argument of those who support Trump would be that he’s not so deeply ideological, he likes a deal and, as you say, he’s not seriously attached to a particular set of principles. And they say: that’s the kind of leader we need right now to smooth things over.
AS: Yes. There are plenty of reasons, policy-wise, why I’d be happier with a Trump administration than a Biden one. There’s immigration, which I think the Democrats have completely screwed up. The numbers of people coming over are extraordinary at this point. And I think if he got a majority in the House and the Senate, he could easily pass immigration reform, and this time, unlike in 2016, he won’t be bamboozled by people like Paul Ryan into thinking that the most important thing is a tax cut for the super-wealthy.
I also think that regarding the wokeness stuff, even though I really find Trump horrid on so many levels, if he’s the only thing that can stop this stuff from being imposed across the country and across the United States Government, then you can see why I might prefer him over Biden, who is giving in to woke at every level. The federal government is involved in systematic DEI: in all of its capacities it now has putting equity at the heart of everything as a policy. He would remove that and there would be support for ending DEI in corporate America and in universities. He’s clearly taken out a position — even if he’s not interested in that stuff, he’ll find someone who is. And that’s a huge thing for the base. It would happen, I think.
I suspect if I were in America (and knowing they can be a deeply conservative people and at times rather qualified in their humour, expecting a bit of deference and not much bawdiness) I would draw a very large and carefully detailed phallus on the ballot paper.
Also very few elected politicos: I count El Capitano (LD), Andy Cooke (LD), Nick Palmer (Lab) and yours truly (Con) as Councillors, and no declared MPs.
It woud be quite "brave" for a declared MP to regularly post here.
I agree...but for a shortish period between 2005-10, we had both Nick Palmer and Stewart Jackson posting here; the latter flounced spectacularly and, to be honest, wasn't greatly missed (particularly by the then 'dominant' pbTories!).
2010-15 was peak PB, I think
Very varied contributors, much less polarised, a shared sense of humour, fewer lawyers and accountants (or they were more diluted), - nice balance of barbed insults and genuine wit, and a proper conviviality
When did it end? Like so much, perhaps around the time of the Scottish indyref
If I had to pinpoint THE time when the world went mad, a state from which it has never recovered, and it may in fact still be worsening, it is then. Indyref. The UK nearly broke up FFS
The planet has not been the same since
Your exertion to avoid identifying Brexit as the cause is hilarious.
Not at all. I would certainly include Brexit in my list of mad things that should not really have happened - along with Trump, global plague, massive European war, and much else
I’m just trying to pinpoint when this Era of Weirdness began, and sindyref is for me a good place to start. Something unthinkable -the UK splitting - came horribly close to happening - and also it was our first taste in the Uk of brutally polarised politics, especially online - the cybernats
So, no, I’m not ignoring Brexit. It simply wasn’t the start of the Madness
It was a black man getting elected US president. That's where the Tea Party started. It's probably what radicalised Trump.
I think April 30th, 2011 was when Trump changed from apolitical to the whole villain arc.
Wasn't Trump a prominent Birther before that, though?
So we've apparently been in a recession during which unemployment has fallen significantly, pay growth has been positive, the population has expanded and even the PMIs have been pretty good.
Either we're in some weird new economic paradigm, there's a mixture of minor factors (reducing work hours among the well paid over 50s perhaps) or somewhere the data is wrong.
Paper economy vs real economy.
The real economy is great for lots of people.
And bad for many others.
I do wonder if economic mobility has declined.
Which would be odd as there are so many job and training opportunities and thanks to the internet its much easier to improve your skillset now that in previous decades.
Perhaps there's too many young workers trapped in some student debt, unaffordable housing economic stasis.
That's exactly it in one.
The prior generation(s) which had few elderly people to support in retirement (or healthcare), free tuition and affordable (often discounted) homes have pulled the ladder up on the younger generations who are expected to not just pay extortionate rents, get into debt in order to be educated but are also burdened with paying for the pensions and healthcare of their elders too.
The biggest dichotomy in the economy no longer seems to be class but age.
Ah, what have we here? It's yet another "They're on the Left but not giving all their money away" hypocrite shocker!
Aka PB Tories who can't argue rationally against a point instead targeting the personal circumstances of the person making it.
It's of course much more comfortable to those rich lefties to try to deflect such an argument. I mean you worked hard for your possessions you aren't about to give them away for some absurd political ideology, now, are you.
lol - "rich lefty, poor lefty, lefty in between"
Brilliant. I thought I'd made the point well enough but it's nice to have it reinforced so neatly.
As I said easy to laugh at the notion that those with abnormal wealth should make an abnormal contribution because you are campaigning for all of society to change and would happily pay more in such a society.
"Would happily pay more". But not of course "are actually paying more regardless of which government is in power".
Amiright.
Topping, I can't untangle that even after my 3rd coffee. Who's doing all this laughing at such an impeccable notion?
Then I think (but this is only tentative) you're asking me if there's some sort of 'lefty premium' in the UK tax regime?
Well, no. It works off your numbers not your political views. I guess you could change it along those lines but there are some obvious issues with that.
A man of your tremendous intellect should have little trouble deciphering what I'm banging on about. Perhaps it's wilful misunderestimating on your part. Who knows, eh.
Not to worry then. The big picture is plain enough. No probs seeing that. It's you seeking to delegitimize somebody's left wing political views because they're not poor enough for you.
The argument from @TOPPING seems to be, if I understand it correctly, "how dare you argue for something that would only work in a systemic manner (wealth redistribution) when you don't do that individually (citation needed) within the system you are criticising as not working".
Again, giving all my money to the next homeless person I see wouldn't solve the problem - the issue is that the state is currently the only mechanism by which to take some from those who have the most to give to those who have none.
If, on the other hand, you're saying you would agree it is my moral imperative to start kidnapping the richest people alive and threatening to unalive them (not sure if I can say the K word here, so will use the language of the youth) unless they gave away all their worldly possessions - all I can say is stand and deliver.
You could just ask me what I am saying. I've said it enough times. It is that you literally (!) said that we should dispossess people who have inherited stuff and yet you are the beneficiary of inherited stuff and afaics have no plans to change that.
And then you wrote 1,500 words about why it is not the same thing.
I don't have the means to distribute the outcomes of inherited wealth because I didn't inherit it. But also - short of Bill Gates - one individual doing an act of charity doesn't make any difference to the entire social issue that wealth redistribution is aimed at tackling. Again, there are things individuals can do, but like there isn't an easy way to voluntarily pay more taxes; and even if there was the leverage I have is minimal compared to someone else. If I ever do inherit assets, liquid or otherwise, then I will think about how I can do that in line within my own political and moral framework.
Yeah cause Biden’s been great. Just a massive European war, the debacle of Afghanistan and now turmoil in the Middle East
Whereas under Trump foreign policy was not an issue
I’m not even sure Biden is that good domestically. As is often claimed on here. Illegal migration has tripled to 3m on his watch, absolutely unprecedented
Biden is not a great President. But if the choice is a ho-hum President or a lunatic, you make do with Biden.
Anyone arguing "Biden's rubbish so I'm voting Trump" is a fool. Trump's not fixing to sort out America's problems, he's damn near promising to start fucking things up on day one of his next term.
Malmesbury's experience with his home reminds me of a thought I have had for some time: In some climates, it might be a good idea to have roofs that changed with the temperature, reflective when it's hot, absorbent when it's cold.
(I can think of several ways to do that, but have never tried to even guess at the costs for each way.)
Ah, what have we here? It's yet another "They're on the Left but not giving all their money away" hypocrite shocker!
Aka PB Tories who can't argue rationally against a point instead targeting the personal circumstances of the person making it.
It's of course much more comfortable to those rich lefties to try to deflect such an argument. I mean you worked hard for your possessions you aren't about to give them away for some absurd political ideology, now, are you.
lol - "rich lefty, poor lefty, lefty in between"
Brilliant. I thought I'd made the point well enough but it's nice to have it reinforced so neatly.
As I said easy to laugh at the notion that those with abnormal wealth should make an abnormal contribution because you are campaigning for all of society to change and would happily pay more in such a society.
"Would happily pay more". But not of course "are actually paying more regardless of which government is in power".
Amiright.
Topping, I can't untangle that even after my 3rd coffee. Who's doing all this laughing at such an impeccable notion?
Then I think (but this is only tentative) you're asking me if there's some sort of 'lefty premium' in the UK tax regime?
Well, no. It works off your numbers not your political views. I guess you could change it along those lines but there are some obvious issues with that.
A man of your tremendous intellect should have little trouble deciphering what I'm banging on about. Perhaps it's wilful misunderestimating on your part. Who knows, eh.
Not to worry then. The big picture is plain enough. No probs seeing that. It's you seeking to delegitimize somebody's left wing political views because they're not poor enough for you.
He said he wanted to dispossess people who had inherited stuff and he is benefiting from inheriting stuff.
This is hardly stuff of Riemannian complexity.
It is hypocritical. But also entirely human.
Similar, perhaps more egregious than your situation. Worked hard for tremendous riches and are only hoping for a government which taxes you more but in the meantime don't plan on donating your surplus wealth to any of several charities. Queers for Palestine, perhaps.
I literally said if the government wanted to shake my dad down for his assets, I'm more than happy with that. What more can I do? I can't forcibly take his stuff and give it to others. I take house guests, typically people I know on low income who want to stay for a few years to build up savings, I don't charge them rent, and neither he nor I make profit on that. That is the most I can leverage this asset in a way in line with my politics.
Also very few elected politicos: I count El Capitano (LD), Andy Cooke (LD), Nick Palmer (Lab) and yours truly (Con) as Councillors, and no declared MPs.
It woud be quite "brave" for a declared MP to regularly post here.
I agree...but for a shortish period between 2005-10, we had both Nick Palmer and Stewart Jackson posting here; the latter flounced spectacularly and, to be honest, wasn't greatly missed (particularly by the then 'dominant' pbTories!).
2010-15 was peak PB, I think
Very varied contributors, much less polarised, a shared sense of humour, fewer lawyers and accountants (or they were more diluted), - nice balance of barbed insults and genuine wit, and a proper conviviality
When did it end? Like so much, perhaps around the time of the Scottish indyref
If I had to pinpoint THE time when the world went mad, a state from which it has never recovered, and it may in fact still be worsening, it is then. Indyref. The UK nearly broke up FFS
The planet has not been the same since
Your exertion to avoid identifying Brexit as the cause is hilarious.
Not at all. I would certainly include Brexit in my list of mad things that should not really have happened - along with Trump, global plague, massive European war, and much else
I’m just trying to pinpoint when this Era of Weirdness began, and sindyref is for me a good place to start. Something unthinkable -the UK splitting - came horribly close to happening - and also it was our first taste in the Uk of brutally polarised politics, especially online - the cybernats
So, no, I’m not ignoring Brexit. It simply wasn’t the start of the Madness
I would date the era of weirdness from 9/11 2001, with locally a harbinger in the foot and mouth outbreak in early 2001.
The new millennium was going OK till then. Since which, Afghanistan, Iraq, GFC, Indy ref, Brexit ref, Covid, Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza and the rise of authoritarianism and the lack of decent leaders. And continuing daily.
But like it or not, this is going to be a race between Biden and Trump — and somehow the lucid, well-informed candidate is getting more heat over his age than his ranting, factually challenged opponent.
As I said, until just the other day I was feeling somewhat optimistic. But now I’m deeply troubled about our nation’s future.
Krugman, NY Times
I think Biden's too old, I thought he was too old in 2020 as well. How people get from there to voting for Trump is completely beyond me.
There is something deeply wrong with America that a charlatan, liar, crook, and probable rapist, who is clearly rapidly aging himself, and who adheres to America's enemies and rages at its allies is likely to be elected if Biden and Trump remain the candidates.
Frankly even if Trump is defeated, and I really do pray that is the case, a country where Trump is even in the running is in terminal decline. If America doesn't elect Trump in 2024 maybe they'll elect someone even worse in 2028 or 2032. If I was American I'd be thinking very hard about leaving if Trump is re-elected.
Yeah cause Biden’s been great. Just a massive European war, the debacle of Afghanistan and now turmoil in the Middle East
Whereas under Trump foreign policy was not an issue
I’m not even sure Biden is that good domestically. As is often claimed on here. Illegal migration has tripled to 3m on his watch, absolutely unprecedented
In the real world and not your Putinist bubble, Biden has been great.
Afghanistan was Trump (and George W Bush's) mess, Biden just got left to clean it up. What should he have done, cancelled Trump's agreement to pull out? What's done was done.
The war in Europe is Putin's responsibility, but Biden along with Boris and now Sunak and other leaders has been great at putting forth aid to Ukraine. Shame the Trump-led GOP is now trying to block further aid.
While Hamas being shits has nothing to do with any US politics.
Net migration into the USA is at one of the lowest percentage rates its been in the past fifty years, but even that is too much for you.
Ah, what have we here? It's yet another "They're on the Left but not giving all their money away" hypocrite shocker!
Aka PB Tories who can't argue rationally against a point instead targeting the personal circumstances of the person making it.
It's of course much more comfortable to those rich lefties to try to deflect such an argument. I mean you worked hard for your possessions you aren't about to give them away for some absurd political ideology, now, are you.
lol - "rich lefty, poor lefty, lefty in between"
Brilliant. I thought I'd made the point well enough but it's nice to have it reinforced so neatly.
As I said easy to laugh at the notion that those with abnormal wealth should make an abnormal contribution because you are campaigning for all of society to change and would happily pay more in such a society.
"Would happily pay more". But not of course "are actually paying more regardless of which government is in power".
Amiright.
Topping, I can't untangle that even after my 3rd coffee. Who's doing all this laughing at such an impeccable notion?
Then I think (but this is only tentative) you're asking me if there's some sort of 'lefty premium' in the UK tax regime?
Well, no. It works off your numbers not your political views. I guess you could change it along those lines but there are some obvious issues with that.
A man of your tremendous intellect should have little trouble deciphering what I'm banging on about. Perhaps it's wilful misunderestimating on your part. Who knows, eh.
Not to worry then. The big picture is plain enough. No probs seeing that. It's you seeking to delegitimize somebody's left wing political views because they're not poor enough for you.
The argument from @TOPPING seems to be, if I understand it correctly, "how dare you argue for something that would only work in a systemic manner (wealth redistribution) when you don't do that individually (citation needed) within the system you are criticising as not working".
Again, giving all my money to the next homeless person I see wouldn't solve the problem - the issue is that the state is currently the only mechanism by which to take some from those who have the most to give to those who have none.
If, on the other hand, you're saying you would agree it is my moral imperative to start kidnapping the richest people alive and threatening to unalive them (not sure if I can say the K word here, so will use the language of the youth) unless they gave away all their worldly possessions - all I can say is stand and deliver.
You could just ask me what I am saying. I've said it enough times. It is that you literally (!) said that we should dispossess people who have inherited stuff and yet you are the beneficiary of inherited stuff and afaics have no plans to change that.
And then you wrote 1,500 words about why it is not the same thing.
I don't have the means to distribute the outcomes of inherited wealth because I didn't inherit it. But also - short of Bill Gates - one individual doing an act of charity doesn't make any difference to the entire social issue that wealth redistribution is aimed at tackling. Again, there are things individuals can do, but like there isn't an easy way to voluntarily pay more taxes; and even if there was the leverage I have is minimal compared to someone else. If I ever do inherit assets, liquid or otherwise, then I will think about how I can do that in line within my own political and moral framework.
Has their ever been an unofficial survey of wealth / class / age / voting intention on this platform of its users? Because some of the stuff people are saying here about how the Tories are so lefty and how right wing stuff has never been tried seems... wildly out of joint with the material reality of lots of people on the ground, in a way I just find extremely difficult to comprehend. Like let alone the same country - I'm starting to worry I don't live on the same planet as many of you.
You often refer to controlling borders as "border fascism", so I guess you see favouring low immigration as a right-wing position. What has the level of immigration been like under the current government?
I mean, I consider the method we currently use to manage the border as border fascism. The numbers that pass the border have little to do with how I judge the regime that the state implements at the border. This government would be happy if every small boat sank into the Channel with everyone on board as long as the papers didn't care about it. The idea of immigrants or refugees as this big social drain, of an existential threat, is common in government discussions on the topic. The bureaucracy of immiseration - moving people from place to place, putting them in small rooms or boats, giving them a weekly allowance of under £10, all in the attempt to make things so awful that people stop coming here - to stop a process that is as natural as humans drinking water - over an imagined border. It is border fascism even if everyone was granted asylum who asked for it - not because of the outcome but because of the process of purposeful dehumanisation and hatred the government aims to enforce.
So people moving from place to place is as natural as drinking water, but people seeking to protect their property is an unnatural product of capitalism?
Private property and personal property are different things... Marx literally talked about that. It isn't a new part of leftist theory. It does sometimes hurt my brain when people only have a straw man view of what leftist thought is.
Was the enclosures of the commons something that naturally happened, or was it enforced on most people against their will under the threat of violence to the benefit of the wealthy? The understanding we have of private property has evolved from that. Indeed, mass ownership of land is a relatively new development - if we're talking about human nature. We can look at a number of cultures that, until relatively recently (really the last couple of hundred years when Westerners turned up), had a completely different understanding of land ownership all together - with many of them outright not having a concept of an individual who owns a patch of land and many things, arguably most things, held in common.
For nomadic, pastoral societies, owning land is as absurd as owning sea or air. Your wealth is your flocks and herds.
Land ownership becomes logical once people settle.
Also, it should be noted, such societies were not and are not utopian paradises of peace, equality and love.
They were deeply tribal, autocratic, and unstable with high rates of violent deaths amongst males and frequent plagues and famines.
Had a brief but intense thunderstorm today. 500,000 without power. An entire transport network collapsed.
Chastening. It's not the gradual rise in temperatures, or the slow change in local climates. These extreme weather events might be the story of the next 50 years, and I don't think people back home in the UK appreciate how disruptive they are.
Your australian friends certainly need to reduce their carbon footprint at a whopping 15 tons per person per year.
We do. We've just hit 1.5C for 2023 - a few years ahead of schedule - and the scientists were right.
We really do need to accelerate the electrification of everything and shift it onto renewables asap. This isn't a left-wing or a right-wing thing; it's an engineering challenge to decarbonise our energy generation and consumption in a way that doesn't treat the atmosphere like a sewer. And, on top, we'll need to do direct air capture and storage of what we've already chucked up their on top too.
It would really help if the ecomarxist activists could STFU about all their grand schemes to remake society of the back of it because that just makes it 10 x harder to achieve a consensus.
Tbf, we will remake society to some extent on the back of it - as capitalist America is doing.
But you're absolutely right: irrespective of political views, anyone who is not a fool should support the project.
Has their ever been an unofficial survey of wealth / class / age / voting intention on this platform of its users? Because some of the stuff people are saying here about how the Tories are so lefty and how right wing stuff has never been tried seems... wildly out of joint with the material reality of lots of people on the ground, in a way I just find extremely difficult to comprehend. Like let alone the same country - I'm starting to worry I don't live on the same planet as many of you.
You often refer to controlling borders as "border fascism", so I guess you see favouring low immigration as a right-wing position. What has the level of immigration been like under the current government?
I mean, I consider the method we currently use to manage the border as border fascism. The numbers that pass the border have little to do with how I judge the regime that the state implements at the border. This government would be happy if every small boat sank into the Channel with everyone on board as long as the papers didn't care about it. The idea of immigrants or refugees as this big social drain, of an existential threat, is common in government discussions on the topic. The bureaucracy of immiseration - moving people from place to place, putting them in small rooms or boats, giving them a weekly allowance of under £10, all in the attempt to make things so awful that people stop coming here - to stop a process that is as natural as humans drinking water - over an imagined border. It is border fascism even if everyone was granted asylum who asked for it - not because of the outcome but because of the process of purposeful dehumanisation and hatred the government aims to enforce.
So people moving from place to place is as natural as drinking water, but people seeking to protect their property is an unnatural product of capitalism?
Private property and personal property are different things... Marx literally talked about that. It isn't a new part of leftist theory. It does sometimes hurt my brain when people only have a straw man view of what leftist thought is.
Was the enclosures of the commons something that naturally happened, or was it enforced on most people against their will under the threat of violence to the benefit of the wealthy? The understanding we have of private property has evolved from that. Indeed, mass ownership of land is a relatively new development - if we're talking about human nature. We can look at a number of cultures that, until relatively recently (really the last couple of hundred years when Westerners turned up), had a completely different understanding of land ownership all together - with many of them outright not having a concept of an individual who owns a patch of land and many things, arguably most things, held in common.
For nomadic, pastoral societies, owning land is as absurd as owning sea or air. Your wealth is your flocks and herds.
Land ownership becomes logical once people settle.
I mean, it does if you're the person with the biggest stick and can claim you now own the land and therefore extract rents from it. Not so much if you're the guy who just happened to be living on it at the time they do that.
Some kind of tenure is required to any kind of agriculture. Farming is not just for Summer. It's an all seasons sport.
There's a lot of flexibility though. Common land was incredibly, well, common. Likewise, agriculture didn't result in private land ownership in North America, until European settlers arrived.
But there could still be circumstances where conflicts over land would result in violence, so they're was some kind of tenure, even if it wasn't the freehold private ownership we are used to today.
There were plenty of civilisations in North and South (and Central) America that had land ownership. Including varieties of private land ownership, feudal tenancy systems etc.
Not every Native American was an Apache.
We can idolise what came before the fall from paradise.
In reality, most of those Native American tribes were in regular and violent conflict with each other.
Yeah cause Biden’s been great. Just a massive European war, the debacle of Afghanistan and now turmoil in the Middle East
Whereas under Trump foreign policy was not an issue
I’m not even sure Biden is that good domestically. As is often claimed on here. Illegal migration has tripled to 3m on his watch, absolutely unprecedented
Biden is not a great President. But if the choice is a ho-hum President or a lunatic, you make do with Biden.
Anyone arguing "Biden's rubbish so I'm voting Trump" is a fool. Trump's not fixing to sort out America's problems, he's damn near promising to start fucking things up on day one of his next term.
I would vote for Biden, given this choice, but I would do it with a sense of utter despair
Amazing that Andrew Sullivan says he supports many of Trump's policies, while still not able to vote for him for other reasons.
Not remotely amazing at all.
A belief in democracy has to trump (small-t) any policies.
Forced choice I would vote for any democrat (small-d) who will respect democracy who has policies I abhor over an authoritarian who wants to undermine democracy with policies I support.
Has their ever been an unofficial survey of wealth / class / age / voting intention on this platform of its users? Because some of the stuff people are saying here about how the Tories are so lefty and how right wing stuff has never been tried seems... wildly out of joint with the material reality of lots of people on the ground, in a way I just find extremely difficult to comprehend. Like let alone the same country - I'm starting to worry I don't live on the same planet as many of you.
You often refer to controlling borders as "border fascism", so I guess you see favouring low immigration as a right-wing position. What has the level of immigration been like under the current government?
I mean, I consider the method we currently use to manage the border as border fascism. The numbers that pass the border have little to do with how I judge the regime that the state implements at the border. This government would be happy if every small boat sank into the Channel with everyone on board as long as the papers didn't care about it. The idea of immigrants or refugees as this big social drain, of an existential threat, is common in government discussions on the topic. The bureaucracy of immiseration - moving people from place to place, putting them in small rooms or boats, giving them a weekly allowance of under £10, all in the attempt to make things so awful that people stop coming here - to stop a process that is as natural as humans drinking water - over an imagined border. It is border fascism even if everyone was granted asylum who asked for it - not because of the outcome but because of the process of purposeful dehumanisation and hatred the government aims to enforce.
So people moving from place to place is as natural as drinking water, but people seeking to protect their property is an unnatural product of capitalism?
I don't know about natural vs unnatural but human migration is certainly older and more intrinsic to the species than private property is. I should add, I am not against private property.
Is that really true? Even many non-human species understand the concept of possession and territory.
Private property and personal property are, again, not the same thing. Animals obviously have dominance hierarchies, and many of those involve some form of giving resources to the most dominant within the species - but I don't quite know if I'd go full Jordan Peterson and think that would therefore provide any evidence for the natural order of rent payments.
It's a distinction without a difference. Is your laptop private property or personal property?
In Marxist theory, private property typically refers to capital or the means of production, while personal property refers to consumer and non-capital goods and services.
I would say if the primary way you interact with and conceive of the item is to use it, it is personal property. If the primary way you interact with or conceive of the item is as an asset it is private property.
I see Andrew Sullivan is now joining the cult of Trump (and US isolationism).
Is he? That's not my reading of the interview at all. He is not voting for him and sees him as a massive threat to rule of law.
It's when you get right to the end, after explaining how bad Trump is:
FS: And would you be one of that large number of Americans? [ie those who would happily see Ukraine partitioned, and China occupy Taiwan].
AS: I’d be pretty close to them, yes. I don’t think there is a desire in the United States, nor has there really been for the last 20 years, for long engagement in conflicts far away. The people whose kids go to fight those wars don’t want their kids to go fight those wars. And a lot of people just simply look at the state of the US-Mexico border and say: why are we spending billions of dollars on the border between the Russian-dominated provinces in Ukraine and the rest of it? Why, when we can’t do it for our own border? That’s an incredibly potent argument.
FS: The world order is certainly going through a seismic shift, one that may involve war or will conflict being evaded and a deal being struck. The argument of those who support Trump would be that he’s not so deeply ideological, he likes a deal and, as you say, he’s not seriously attached to a particular set of principles. And they say: that’s the kind of leader we need right now to smooth things over.
AS: Yes. There are plenty of reasons, policy-wise, why I’d be happier with a Trump administration than a Biden one. There’s immigration, which I think the Democrats have completely screwed up. The numbers of people coming over are extraordinary at this point. And I think if he got a majority in the House and the Senate, he could easily pass immigration reform, and this time, unlike in 2016, he won’t be bamboozled by people like Paul Ryan into thinking that the most important thing is a tax cut for the super-wealthy.
I also think that regarding the wokeness stuff, even though I really find Trump horrid on so many levels, if he’s the only thing that can stop this stuff from being imposed across the country and across the United States Government, then you can see why I might prefer him over Biden, who is giving in to woke at every level. The federal government is involved in systematic DEI: in all of its capacities it now has putting equity at the heart of everything as a policy. He would remove that and there would be support for ending DEI in corporate America and in universities. He’s clearly taken out a position — even if he’s not interested in that stuff, he’ll find someone who is. And that’s a huge thing for the base. It would happen, I think.
I suspect if I were in America (and knowing they can be a deeply conservative people and at times rather qualified in their humour, expecting a bit of deference and not much bawdiness) I would draw a very large and carefully detailed phallus on the ballot paper.
For climate reasons alone, you should vote for the Democrat. Trump has declared that he would actively attempt to sabotage the move to renewables.
One of my great friends at Uni was in the RCP. V active, troops out, the lot.
It was before William, Harry, etc and at that time they were somewhere reasonably high up the line of succession (non top 30 but somewhere outside that) and we used to enjoy staying at their house and slotting in with the guided tours when the fancy took us.
Ah, what have we here? It's yet another "They're on the Left but not giving all their money away" hypocrite shocker!
Aka PB Tories who can't argue rationally against a point instead targeting the personal circumstances of the person making it.
It's of course much more comfortable to those rich lefties to try to deflect such an argument. I mean you worked hard for your possessions you aren't about to give them away for some absurd political ideology, now, are you.
lol - "rich lefty, poor lefty, lefty in between"
Brilliant. I thought I'd made the point well enough but it's nice to have it reinforced so neatly.
As I said easy to laugh at the notion that those with abnormal wealth should make an abnormal contribution because you are campaigning for all of society to change and would happily pay more in such a society.
"Would happily pay more". But not of course "are actually paying more regardless of which government is in power".
Amiright.
Topping, I can't untangle that even after my 3rd coffee. Who's doing all this laughing at such an impeccable notion?
Then I think (but this is only tentative) you're asking me if there's some sort of 'lefty premium' in the UK tax regime?
Well, no. It works off your numbers not your political views. I guess you could change it along those lines but there are some obvious issues with that.
A man of your tremendous intellect should have little trouble deciphering what I'm banging on about. Perhaps it's wilful misunderestimating on your part. Who knows, eh.
Not to worry then. The big picture is plain enough. No probs seeing that. It's you seeking to delegitimize somebody's left wing political views because they're not poor enough for you.
The argument from @TOPPING seems to be, if I understand it correctly, "how dare you argue for something that would only work in a systemic manner (wealth redistribution) when you don't do that individually (citation needed) within the system you are criticising as not working".
Again, giving all my money to the next homeless person I see wouldn't solve the problem - the issue is that the state is currently the only mechanism by which to take some from those who have the most to give to those who have none.
If, on the other hand, you're saying you would agree it is my moral imperative to start kidnapping the richest people alive and threatening to unalive them (not sure if I can say the K word here, so will use the language of the youth) unless they gave away all their worldly possessions - all I can say is stand and deliver.
You could just ask me what I am saying. I've said it enough times. It is that you literally (!) said that we should dispossess people who have inherited stuff and yet you are the beneficiary of inherited stuff and afaics have no plans to change that.
And then you wrote 1,500 words about why it is not the same thing.
I don't have the means to distribute the outcomes of inherited wealth because I didn't inherit it. But also - short of Bill Gates - one individual doing an act of charity doesn't make any difference to the entire social issue that wealth redistribution is aimed at tackling. Again, there are things individuals can do, but like there isn't an easy way to voluntarily pay more taxes; and even if there was the leverage I have is minimal compared to someone else. If I ever do inherit assets, liquid or otherwise, then I will think about how I can do that in line within my own political and moral framework.
1,625
Okay - what is your solution to my supposed quandary? If you held the positions I do, what do you think is a reasonable set of actions?
Also very few elected politicos: I count El Capitano (LD), Andy Cooke (LD), Nick Palmer (Lab) and yours truly (Con) as Councillors, and no declared MPs.
It woud be quite "brave" for a declared MP to regularly post here.
I agree...but for a shortish period between 2005-10, we had both Nick Palmer and Stewart Jackson posting here; the latter flounced spectacularly and, to be honest, wasn't greatly missed (particularly by the then 'dominant' pbTories!).
2010-15 was peak PB, I think
Very varied contributors, much less polarised, a shared sense of humour, fewer lawyers and accountants (or they were more diluted), - nice balance of barbed insults and genuine wit, and a proper conviviality
When did it end? Like so much, perhaps around the time of the Scottish indyref
If I had to pinpoint THE time when the world went mad, a state from which it has never recovered, and it may in fact still be worsening, it is then. Indyref. The UK nearly broke up FFS
The planet has not been the same since
Your exertion to avoid identifying Brexit as the cause is hilarious.
Not at all. I would certainly include Brexit in my list of mad things that should not really have happened - along with Trump, global plague, massive European war, and much else
I’m just trying to pinpoint when this Era of Weirdness began, and sindyref is for me a good place to start. Something unthinkable -the UK splitting - came horribly close to happening - and also it was our first taste in the Uk of brutally polarised politics, especially online - the cybernats
So, no, I’m not ignoring Brexit. It simply wasn’t the start of the Madness
It was a black man getting elected US president. That's where the Tea Party started. It's probably what radicalised Trump.
Much less tendentiously, it was the financial crisis and the response to it.
Also very few elected politicos: I count El Capitano (LD), Andy Cooke (LD), Nick Palmer (Lab) and yours truly (Con) as Councillors, and no declared MPs.
Bartholomew Roberts is a Con councillor I think? I've been a councillor (LD then Green), and a parliamentary candidate (LD, LD, Green), but currently out of circulation
Never been elected, beyond Student Union politics at University.
Also not a Con anyway since Sunak increased National Insurance.
Has their ever been an unofficial survey of wealth / class / age / voting intention on this platform of its users? Because some of the stuff people are saying here about how the Tories are so lefty and how right wing stuff has never been tried seems... wildly out of joint with the material reality of lots of people on the ground, in a way I just find extremely difficult to comprehend. Like let alone the same country - I'm starting to worry I don't live on the same planet as many of you.
You often refer to controlling borders as "border fascism", so I guess you see favouring low immigration as a right-wing position. What has the level of immigration been like under the current government?
I mean, I consider the method we currently use to manage the border as border fascism. The numbers that pass the border have little to do with how I judge the regime that the state implements at the border. This government would be happy if every small boat sank into the Channel with everyone on board as long as the papers didn't care about it. The idea of immigrants or refugees as this big social drain, of an existential threat, is common in government discussions on the topic. The bureaucracy of immiseration - moving people from place to place, putting them in small rooms or boats, giving them a weekly allowance of under £10, all in the attempt to make things so awful that people stop coming here - to stop a process that is as natural as humans drinking water - over an imagined border. It is border fascism even if everyone was granted asylum who asked for it - not because of the outcome but because of the process of purposeful dehumanisation and hatred the government aims to enforce.
So people moving from place to place is as natural as drinking water, but people seeking to protect their property is an unnatural product of capitalism?
I don't know about natural vs unnatural but human migration is certainly older and more intrinsic to the species than private property is. I should add, I am not against private property.
Is that really true? Even many non-human species understand the concept of possession and territory.
Private property and personal property are, again, not the same thing. Animals obviously have dominance hierarchies, and many of those involve some form of giving resources to the most dominant within the species - but I don't quite know if I'd go full Jordan Peterson and think that would therefore provide any evidence for the natural order of rent payments.
It's a distinction without a difference. Is your laptop private property or personal property?
In Marxist theory, private property typically refers to capital or the means of production, while personal property refers to consumer and non-capital goods and services.
I would say if the primary way you interact with and conceive of the item is to use it, it is personal property. If the primary way you interact with or conceive of the item is as an asset it is private property.
So it's private property? You use it as a means of intellectual production.
Ah, what have we here? It's yet another "They're on the Left but not giving all their money away" hypocrite shocker!
Aka PB Tories who can't argue rationally against a point instead targeting the personal circumstances of the person making it.
It's of course much more comfortable to those rich lefties to try to deflect such an argument. I mean you worked hard for your possessions you aren't about to give them away for some absurd political ideology, now, are you.
lol - "rich lefty, poor lefty, lefty in between"
Brilliant. I thought I'd made the point well enough but it's nice to have it reinforced so neatly.
As I said easy to laugh at the notion that those with abnormal wealth should make an abnormal contribution because you are campaigning for all of society to change and would happily pay more in such a society.
"Would happily pay more". But not of course "are actually paying more regardless of which government is in power".
Amiright.
Topping, I can't untangle that even after my 3rd coffee. Who's doing all this laughing at such an impeccable notion?
Then I think (but this is only tentative) you're asking me if there's some sort of 'lefty premium' in the UK tax regime?
Well, no. It works off your numbers not your political views. I guess you could change it along those lines but there are some obvious issues with that.
A man of your tremendous intellect should have little trouble deciphering what I'm banging on about. Perhaps it's wilful misunderestimating on your part. Who knows, eh.
Not to worry then. The big picture is plain enough. No probs seeing that. It's you seeking to delegitimize somebody's left wing political views because they're not poor enough for you.
The argument from @TOPPING seems to be, if I understand it correctly, "how dare you argue for something that would only work in a systemic manner (wealth redistribution) when you don't do that individually (citation needed) within the system you are criticising as not working".
Again, giving all my money to the next homeless person I see wouldn't solve the problem - the issue is that the state is currently the only mechanism by which to take some from those who have the most to give to those who have none.
If, on the other hand, you're saying you would agree it is my moral imperative to start kidnapping the richest people alive and threatening to unalive them (not sure if I can say the K word here, so will use the language of the youth) unless they gave away all their worldly possessions - all I can say is stand and deliver.
You could just ask me what I am saying. I've said it enough times. It is that you literally (!) said that we should dispossess people who have inherited stuff and yet you are the beneficiary of inherited stuff and afaics have no plans to change that.
And then you wrote 1,500 words about why it is not the same thing.
I don't have the means to distribute the outcomes of inherited wealth because I didn't inherit it. But also - short of Bill Gates - one individual doing an act of charity doesn't make any difference to the entire social issue that wealth redistribution is aimed at tackling. Again, there are things individuals can do, but like there isn't an easy way to voluntarily pay more taxes; and even if there was the leverage I have is minimal compared to someone else. If I ever do inherit assets, liquid or otherwise, then I will think about how I can do that in line within my own political and moral framework.
1,625
Okay - what is your solution to my supposed quandary? If you held the positions I do, what do you think is a reasonable set of actions?
I would jettison my entire political belief system because I would have direct personal experience that it doesn't work in practice.
Also very few elected politicos: I count El Capitano (LD), Andy Cooke (LD), Nick Palmer (Lab) and yours truly (Con) as Councillors, and no declared MPs.
It woud be quite "brave" for a declared MP to regularly post here.
Aaron Bell posted under his own name for years, then changed it to Tissue Price when he switched to a political career. This was understandable, but probably unnecessary. His postings here have not, I believe, ever landed him in any difficulty.
He has posted occasionally since becoming an MP, and would probably do so more if he were not so busy.
If he were my MP I would vote for him in a trice, but I'm afraid my endorsement is unlikely to save him from the coming cull.
It's not a secret and I doubt he denies it, but please don't doxx people. It's bad enough when people volunteer their real names unprompted without other people doing it. Yes, we know who many people are - Charles posted his father's obituary which had me screaming at the screen - but there's no need to advertise it.
Except for Sunil, who's real identity as The God Of Trains is known to his many acolytes at their secret altars.
I have successfully lost so much weight some clothes don’t fit me. My once slender fitting and pricey paul smith jeans now look like baggy dad jeans. An unexpected downside
Ok they probably looked like dad jeans anyway but now they look like grandad jeans. Fucking pyjamas
I have successfully lost so much weight some clothes don’t fit me. My once slender fitting and pricey paul smith jeans now look like baggy dad jeans. An unexpected downside
Ok they probably looked like dad jeans anyway but now they look like grandad jeans. Fucking pyjamas
Also very few elected politicos: I count El Capitano (LD), Andy Cooke (LD), Nick Palmer (Lab) and yours truly (Con) as Councillors, and no declared MPs.
It woud be quite "brave" for a declared MP to regularly post here.
I agree...but for a shortish period between 2005-10, we had both Nick Palmer and Stewart Jackson posting here; the latter flounced spectacularly and, to be honest, wasn't greatly missed (particularly by the then 'dominant' pbTories!).
2010-15 was peak PB, I think
Very varied contributors, much less polarised, a shared sense of humour, fewer lawyers and accountants (or they were more diluted), - nice balance of barbed insults and genuine wit, and a proper conviviality
When did it end? Like so much, perhaps around the time of the Scottish indyref
If I had to pinpoint THE time when the world went mad, a state from which it has never recovered, and it may in fact still be worsening, it is then. Indyref. The UK nearly broke up FFS
The planet has not been the same since
Your exertion to avoid identifying Brexit as the cause is hilarious.
Not at all. I would certainly include Brexit in my list of mad things that should not really have happened - along with Trump, global plague, massive European war, and much else
I’m just trying to pinpoint when this Era of Weirdness began, and sindyref is for me a good place to start. Something unthinkable -the UK splitting - came horribly close to happening - and also it was our first taste in the Uk of brutally polarised politics, especially online - the cybernats
So, no, I’m not ignoring Brexit. It simply wasn’t the start of the Madness
I would date the era of weirdness from 9/11 2001, with locally a harbinger in the foot and mouth outbreak in early 2001.
The new millennium was going OK till then. Since which, Afghanistan, Iraq, GFC, Indy ref, Brexit ref, Covid, Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza and the rise of authoritarianism and the lack of decent leaders. And continuing daily.
Maybe there is a gradual continuum but I didn't notice much weirdness in the 2000s.
I was thinking back to the Olympic summer of 2012 and how different everything felt then (despite a couple of years of austerity) compared to today. I thought there would be a 'feel good' glow after the Olympics, which would feed through into a gradual recovery, but instead everything has just gone downhill since then.
I can't pick a single event that is the turning point (the Scottish referendum isn't it) but it had all gone wrong by the Brexit referendum, and with hindsight the result reflected that.
Also very few elected politicos: I count El Capitano (LD), Andy Cooke (LD), Nick Palmer (Lab) and yours truly (Con) as Councillors, and no declared MPs.
It woud be quite "brave" for a declared MP to regularly post here.
I agree...but for a shortish period between 2005-10, we had both Nick Palmer and Stewart Jackson posting here; the latter flounced spectacularly and, to be honest, wasn't greatly missed (particularly by the then 'dominant' pbTories!).
2010-15 was peak PB, I think
Very varied contributors, much less polarised, a shared sense of humour, fewer lawyers and accountants (or they were more diluted), - nice balance of barbed insults and genuine wit, and a proper conviviality
When did it end? Like so much, perhaps around the time of the Scottish indyref
If I had to pinpoint THE time when the world went mad, a state from which it has never recovered, and it may in fact still be worsening, it is then. Indyref. The UK nearly broke up FFS
The planet has not been the same since
Your exertion to avoid identifying Brexit as the cause is hilarious.
Not at all. I would certainly include Brexit in my list of mad things that should not really have happened - along with Trump, global plague, massive European war, and much else
I’m just trying to pinpoint when this Era of Weirdness began, and sindyref is for me a good place to start. Something unthinkable -the UK splitting - came horribly close to happening - and also it was our first taste in the Uk of brutally polarised politics, especially online - the cybernats
So, no, I’m not ignoring Brexit. It simply wasn’t the start of the Madness
It was a black man getting elected US president. That's where the Tea Party started. It's probably what radicalised Trump.
Much less tendentiously, it was the financial crisis and the response to it.
Or it was the advent of the smartphone and instant access to social media and the entire internet and endless endless arguments?
Had a brief but intense thunderstorm today. 500,000 without power. An entire transport network collapsed.
Chastening. It's not the gradual rise in temperatures, or the slow change in local climates. These extreme weather events might be the story of the next 50 years, and I don't think people back home in the UK appreciate how disruptive they are.
Your australian friends certainly need to reduce their carbon footprint at a whopping 15 tons per person per year.
We do. We've just hit 1.5C for 2023 - a few years ahead of schedule - and the scientists were right.
We really do need to accelerate the electrification of everything and shift it onto renewables asap. This isn't a left-wing or a right-wing thing; it's an engineering challenge to decarbonise our energy generation and consumption in a way that doesn't treat the atmosphere like a sewer. And, on top, we'll need to do direct air capture and storage of what we've already chucked up their on top too.
It would really help if the ecomarxist activists could STFU about all their grand schemes to remake society of the back of it because that just makes it 10 x harder to achieve a consensus.
Tbf, we will remake society to some extent on the back of it - as capitalist America is doing.
But you're absolutely right: irrespective of political views, anyone who is not a fool should support the project.
I see them as disconnected.
We have essentially halved our carbon emissions since 1990 whilst doubling our nominal GDP. As new technology comes online it offers more options and decarbonising will actually save people money.
Decarbonising our energy supply is a pure engineering challenge and doesn't intrinsically hold any political baggage, unless we want it to of course.
Amazing that Andrew Sullivan says he supports many of Trump's policies, while still not able to vote for him for other reasons.
Not remotely amazing at all.
A belief in democracy has to trump (small-t) any policies.
Forced choice I would vote for any democrat (small-d) who will respect democracy who has policies I abhor over an authoritarian who wants to undermine democracy with policies I support.
Even just being elected Trump will do real harm. Having said what he has about NATO he's undermined it even if he does nothing, because he has cemented existing doubts about the US commitment to NATO mutual defence. Trump could sing NATO's praises and people would think "we know what he really thinks". I think in any previous Presidential campaign since WW II Trump's comments would have decisively ended his run. Instead GOP cowards who are terrified of MAGA are out there defending him.
Also very few elected politicos: I count El Capitano (LD), Andy Cooke (LD), Nick Palmer (Lab) and yours truly (Con) as Councillors, and no declared MPs.
It woud be quite "brave" for a declared MP to regularly post here.
I agree...but for a shortish period between 2005-10, we had both Nick Palmer and Stewart Jackson posting here; the latter flounced spectacularly and, to be honest, wasn't greatly missed (particularly by the then 'dominant' pbTories!).
2010-15 was peak PB, I think
Very varied contributors, much less polarised, a shared sense of humour, fewer lawyers and accountants (or they were more diluted), - nice balance of barbed insults and genuine wit, and a proper conviviality
When did it end? Like so much, perhaps around the time of the Scottish indyref
If I had to pinpoint THE time when the world went mad, a state from which it has never recovered, and it may in fact still be worsening, it is then. Indyref. The UK nearly broke up FFS
The planet has not been the same since
Your exertion to avoid identifying Brexit as the cause is hilarious.
Not at all. I would certainly include Brexit in my list of mad things that should not really have happened - along with Trump, global plague, massive European war, and much else
I’m just trying to pinpoint when this Era of Weirdness began, and sindyref is for me a good place to start. Something unthinkable -the UK splitting - came horribly close to happening - and also it was our first taste in the Uk of brutally polarised politics, especially online - the cybernats
So, no, I’m not ignoring Brexit. It simply wasn’t the start of the Madness
I would date the era of weirdness from 9/11 2001, with locally a harbinger in the foot and mouth outbreak in early 2001.
The new millennium was going OK till then. Since which, Afghanistan, Iraq, GFC, Indy ref, Brexit ref, Covid, Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza and the rise of authoritarianism and the lack of decent leaders. And continuing daily.
Yes the pits of burning cow carcasses does feel weirdly prophetic in retrospect. I found it rather disturbing at the time.
I have successfully lost so much weight some clothes don’t fit me. My once slender fitting and pricey paul smith jeans now look like baggy dad jeans. An unexpected downside
Ok they probably looked like dad jeans anyway but now they look like grandad jeans. Fucking pyjamas
Don't you remove your pyjamas for that ?
It's keeping your socks on that's deeply wrong, on so many levels.
Amazing that Andrew Sullivan says he supports many of Trump's policies, while still not able to vote for him for other reasons.
Not remotely amazing at all.
A belief in democracy has to trump (small-t) any policies.
Forced choice I would vote for any democrat (small-d) who will respect democracy who has policies I abhor over an authoritarian who wants to undermine democracy with policies I support.
Even just being elected Trump will do real harm. Having said what he has about NATO he's undermined it even if he does nothing, because he has cemented existing doubts about the US commitment to NATO mutual defence. Trump could sing NATO's praises and people would think "we know what he really thinks". I think in any previous Presidential campaign since WW II Trump's comments would have decisively ended his run. Instead GOP cowards who are terrified of MAGA are out there defending him.
Totally agreed.
Lincoln will have been rolling in his grave for ages now seeing what has happened to his party, Reagan will be now too.
Its an utter shame to see the party of Reagan, the party of "bring down that wall" that helped win the Cold War, is now so far up a Russian dictators arse.
Has their ever been an unofficial survey of wealth / class / age / voting intention on this platform of its users? Because some of the stuff people are saying here about how the Tories are so lefty and how right wing stuff has never been tried seems... wildly out of joint with the material reality of lots of people on the ground, in a way I just find extremely difficult to comprehend. Like let alone the same country - I'm starting to worry I don't live on the same planet as many of you.
You often refer to controlling borders as "border fascism", so I guess you see favouring low immigration as a right-wing position. What has the level of immigration been like under the current government?
I mean, I consider the method we currently use to manage the border as border fascism. The numbers that pass the border have little to do with how I judge the regime that the state implements at the border. This government would be happy if every small boat sank into the Channel with everyone on board as long as the papers didn't care about it. The idea of immigrants or refugees as this big social drain, of an existential threat, is common in government discussions on the topic. The bureaucracy of immiseration - moving people from place to place, putting them in small rooms or boats, giving them a weekly allowance of under £10, all in the attempt to make things so awful that people stop coming here - to stop a process that is as natural as humans drinking water - over an imagined border. It is border fascism even if everyone was granted asylum who asked for it - not because of the outcome but because of the process of purposeful dehumanisation and hatred the government aims to enforce.
So people moving from place to place is as natural as drinking water, but people seeking to protect their property is an unnatural product of capitalism?
I don't know about natural vs unnatural but human migration is certainly older and more intrinsic to the species than private property is. I should add, I am not against private property.
Is that really true? Even many non-human species understand the concept of possession and territory.
Private property and personal property are, again, not the same thing. Animals obviously have dominance hierarchies, and many of those involve some form of giving resources to the most dominant within the species - but I don't quite know if I'd go full Jordan Peterson and think that would therefore provide any evidence for the natural order of rent payments.
It's a distinction without a difference. Is your laptop private property or personal property?
In Marxist theory, private property typically refers to capital or the means of production, while personal property refers to consumer and non-capital goods and services.
I would say if the primary way you interact with and conceive of the item is to use it, it is personal property. If the primary way you interact with or conceive of the item is as an asset it is private property.
So it's private property? You use it as a means of intellectual production.
Lol - no; that’s not what means of production means and if you’re going to continue to cultivate such ignorance I have no desire to continue talking on the issue.
Of course, according to some on PB, this was all simply faux outrage from diehard Tories after all Louise Ellman was tweeting in support of the hapless Ali.
“ Keir Starmer is guilty of two kinds of flip-flop. The first kind is from positions he adopted in order to win the leadership of a party still in the grip of Corbynism. Those U-turns showed a cynicism that sometimes took the breath away, but the logic of “what it takes” was irresistible.”
I think I agree
Well there's a surprise. A few weeks ago you claimed you despised Starmer so much you wanted to "bash him".
Now Starmer has made a real dog's dinner over Rochdale and you are right to condemn his perceived by Tories and Tory shills anti-Semitism in this instance, and more generally his perceived by Corbynistas and Corbynista shills his Islamophobia, through his Jewish family. Hated by left and right alike he is a poor politician.
Nonetheless the accusation more generally of flip-flopping is ironic coming from a Prime Minister who has flip flopped on Rwanda, on HS2 and a whole bunch of other issues without recourse. Yes, Rishi's a great guy, but the criticism is not consistent with his own behaviour.
As to your assertion that Starmer is politically, rather than ideologically motivated, for goodness sake man, you supported and still support Alexander Johnson. Johnson, a man who would most likely have sold Granny De Pfeffel in his quest to reach the top of the greasy pole.
Ah, what have we here? It's yet another "They're on the Left but not giving all their money away" hypocrite shocker!
Aka PB Tories who can't argue rationally against a point instead targeting the personal circumstances of the person making it.
It's of course much more comfortable to those rich lefties to try to deflect such an argument. I mean you worked hard for your possessions you aren't about to give them away for some absurd political ideology, now, are you.
lol - "rich lefty, poor lefty, lefty in between"
Brilliant. I thought I'd made the point well enough but it's nice to have it reinforced so neatly.
As I said easy to laugh at the notion that those with abnormal wealth should make an abnormal contribution because you are campaigning for all of society to change and would happily pay more in such a society.
"Would happily pay more". But not of course "are actually paying more regardless of which government is in power".
Amiright.
Topping, I can't untangle that even after my 3rd coffee. Who's doing all this laughing at such an impeccable notion?
Then I think (but this is only tentative) you're asking me if there's some sort of 'lefty premium' in the UK tax regime?
Well, no. It works off your numbers not your political views. I guess you could change it along those lines but there are some obvious issues with that.
A man of your tremendous intellect should have little trouble deciphering what I'm banging on about. Perhaps it's wilful misunderestimating on your part. Who knows, eh.
Not to worry then. The big picture is plain enough. No probs seeing that. It's you seeking to delegitimize somebody's left wing political views because they're not poor enough for you.
The argument from @TOPPING seems to be, if I understand it correctly, "how dare you argue for something that would only work in a systemic manner (wealth redistribution) when you don't do that individually (citation needed) within the system you are criticising as not working".
Again, giving all my money to the next homeless person I see wouldn't solve the problem - the issue is that the state is currently the only mechanism by which to take some from those who have the most to give to those who have none.
If, on the other hand, you're saying you would agree it is my moral imperative to start kidnapping the richest people alive and threatening to unalive them (not sure if I can say the K word here, so will use the language of the youth) unless they gave away all their worldly possessions - all I can say is stand and deliver.
You could just ask me what I am saying. I've said it enough times. It is that you literally (!) said that we should dispossess people who have inherited stuff and yet you are the beneficiary of inherited stuff and afaics have no plans to change that.
And then you wrote 1,500 words about why it is not the same thing.
I don't have the means to distribute the outcomes of inherited wealth because I didn't inherit it. But also - short of Bill Gates - one individual doing an act of charity doesn't make any difference to the entire social issue that wealth redistribution is aimed at tackling. Again, there are things individuals can do, but like there isn't an easy way to voluntarily pay more taxes; and even if there was the leverage I have is minimal compared to someone else. If I ever do inherit assets, liquid or otherwise, then I will think about how I can do that in line within my own political and moral framework.
1,625
Okay - what is your solution to my supposed quandary? If you held the positions I do, what do you think is a reasonable set of actions?
I would jettison my entire political belief system because I would have direct personal experience that it doesn't work in practice.
1) just because I am less worse off than many others I wouldn’t argue it “worked” for me - I was homeless, sofa surfing and staying with friends, before I could convince my dad to let me into his house.
2) Can you literally not conceive of a system that may benefit you in a small way, but hinder you elsewhere? Like, wealth redistribution would be good for me because I would benefit from more public services and other people having more.
3) See my Discworld quote from earlier. If your entire position is “it doesn’t make sense to be against something that harms the majority of people if it also helps you somewhat” then I can only see you as that kind of person.
I see Andrew Sullivan is now joining the cult of Trump (and US isolationism).
Is he? That's not my reading of the interview at all. He is not voting for him and sees him as a massive threat to rule of law.
It's when you get right to the end, after explaining how bad Trump is:
FS: And would you be one of that large number of Americans? [ie those who would happily see Ukraine partitioned, and China occupy Taiwan].
AS: I’d be pretty close to them, yes. I don’t think there is a desire in the United States, nor has there really been for the last 20 years, for long engagement in conflicts far away. The people whose kids go to fight those wars don’t want their kids to go fight those wars. And a lot of people just simply look at the state of the US-Mexico border and say: why are we spending billions of dollars on the border between the Russian-dominated provinces in Ukraine and the rest of it? Why, when we can’t do it for our own border? That’s an incredibly potent argument.
FS: The world order is certainly going through a seismic shift, one that may involve war or will conflict being evaded and a deal being struck. The argument of those who support Trump would be that he’s not so deeply ideological, he likes a deal and, as you say, he’s not seriously attached to a particular set of principles. And they say: that’s the kind of leader we need right now to smooth things over.
AS: Yes. There are plenty of reasons, policy-wise, why I’d be happier with a Trump administration than a Biden one. There’s immigration, which I think the Democrats have completely screwed up. The numbers of people coming over are extraordinary at this point. And I think if he got a majority in the House and the Senate, he could easily pass immigration reform, and this time, unlike in 2016, he won’t be bamboozled by people like Paul Ryan into thinking that the most important thing is a tax cut for the super-wealthy.
I also think that regarding the wokeness stuff, even though I really find Trump horrid on so many levels, if he’s the only thing that can stop this stuff from being imposed across the country and across the United States Government, then you can see why I might prefer him over Biden, who is giving in to woke at every level. The federal government is involved in systematic DEI: in all of its capacities it now has putting equity at the heart of everything as a policy. He would remove that and there would be support for ending DEI in corporate America and in universities. He’s clearly taken out a position — even if he’s not interested in that stuff, he’ll find someone who is. And that’s a huge thing for the base. It would happen, I think.
I suspect if I were in America (and knowing they can be a deeply conservative people and at times rather qualified in their humour, expecting a bit of deference and not much bawdiness) I would draw a very large and carefully detailed phallus on the ballot paper.
For climate reasons alone, you should vote for the Democrat. Trump has declared that he would actively attempt to sabotage the move to renewables.
There's no way I'd vote for the Democrats with their policies on EDI, open borders, rampant Wokery, post Brexit hostility to the UK and really dumb foreign policy fubars over the past years.
I also wouldn't vote for Trump for his demagogury, lack of respect for the law, reckless attitude to NATO, dismissal of climate change and rampant unpredictability.
I am not obliged to pick one and would vote for neither.
Had a brief but intense thunderstorm today. 500,000 without power. An entire transport network collapsed.
Chastening. It's not the gradual rise in temperatures, or the slow change in local climates. These extreme weather events might be the story of the next 50 years, and I don't think people back home in the UK appreciate how disruptive they are.
Your australian friends certainly need to reduce their carbon footprint at a whopping 15 tons per person per year.
We do. We've just hit 1.5C for 2023 - a few years ahead of schedule - and the scientists were right.
We really do need to accelerate the electrification of everything and shift it onto renewables asap. This isn't a left-wing or a right-wing thing; it's an engineering challenge to decarbonise our energy generation and consumption in a way that doesn't treat the atmosphere like a sewer. And, on top, we'll need to do direct air capture and storage of what we've already chucked up their on top too.
It would really help if the ecomarxist activists could STFU about all their grand schemes to remake society of the back of it because that just makes it 10 x harder to achieve a consensus.
Tbf, we will remake society to some extent on the back of it - as capitalist America is doing.
But you're absolutely right: irrespective of political views, anyone who is not a fool should support the project.
I see them as disconnected.
We have essentially halved our carbon emissions since 1990 whilst doubling our nominal GDP. As new technology comes online it offers more options and decarbonising will actually save people money.
Decarbonising our energy supply is a pure engineering challenge and doesn't intrinsically hold any political baggage, unless we want it to of course.
I wasn't really talking about political baggage. But in practical terms it will likely refashion society - just as did, for example, the switch from coal to oil at the beginnng of the last century.
Amazing that Andrew Sullivan says he supports many of Trump's policies, while still not able to vote for him for other reasons.
Not remotely amazing at all.
A belief in democracy has to trump (small-t) any policies.
Forced choice I would vote for any democrat (small-d) who will respect democracy who has policies I abhor over an authoritarian who wants to undermine democracy with policies I support.
Even just being elected Trump will do real harm. Having said what he has about NATO he's undermined it even if he does nothing, because he has cemented existing doubts about the US commitment to NATO mutual defence. Trump could sing NATO's praises and people would think "we know what he really thinks". I think in any previous Presidential campaign since WW II Trump's comments would have decisively ended his run. Instead GOP cowards who are terrified of MAGA are out there defending him.
NATO is nothing to do with "mutual" defence because the US doesn't need any of the other members except Canada and that relationship is codified through NORAD.
And down three is well, well within that MoE. Down 4 is also within a 3% margin of error too since the MoE spreads in both directions. If eg the true figure is say 42% then 42% plus or minus 3% could be 45% one poll and 39% the next, or anywhere in-between without ever leaving the bounds of the margin of error.
Amazing that Andrew Sullivan says he supports many of Trump's policies, while still not able to vote for him for other reasons.
Not remotely amazing at all.
A belief in democracy has to trump (small-t) any policies.
Forced choice I would vote for any democrat (small-d) who will respect democracy who has policies I abhor over an authoritarian who wants to undermine democracy with policies I support.
Even just being elected Trump will do real harm. Having said what he has about NATO he's undermined it even if he does nothing, because he has cemented existing doubts about the US commitment to NATO mutual defence. Trump could sing NATO's praises and people would think "we know what he really thinks". I think in any previous Presidential campaign since WW II Trump's comments would have decisively ended his run. Instead GOP cowards who are terrified of MAGA are out there defending him.
Totally agreed.
Lincoln will have been rolling in his grave for ages now seeing what has happened to his party, Reagan will be now too.
Its an utter shame to see the party of Reagan, the party of "bring down that wall" that helped win the Cold War, is now so far up a Russian dictators arse.
He's been rolling for many decades - since they embraced the 'southern strategy'.
Had a brief but intense thunderstorm today. 500,000 without power. An entire transport network collapsed.
Chastening. It's not the gradual rise in temperatures, or the slow change in local climates. These extreme weather events might be the story of the next 50 years, and I don't think people back home in the UK appreciate how disruptive they are.
Your australian friends certainly need to reduce their carbon footprint at a whopping 15 tons per person per year.
We do. We've just hit 1.5C for 2023 - a few years ahead of schedule - and the scientists were right.
We really do need to accelerate the electrification of everything and shift it onto renewables asap. This isn't a left-wing or a right-wing thing; it's an engineering challenge to decarbonise our energy generation and consumption in a way that doesn't treat the atmosphere like a sewer. And, on top, we'll need to do direct air capture and storage of what we've already chucked up their on top too.
It would really help if the ecomarxist activists could STFU about all their grand schemes to remake society of the back of it because that just makes it 10 x harder to achieve a consensus.
Tbf, we will remake society to some extent on the back of it - as capitalist America is doing.
But you're absolutely right: irrespective of political views, anyone who is not a fool should support the project.
I see them as disconnected.
We have essentially halved our carbon emissions since 1990 whilst doubling our nominal GDP. As new technology comes online it offers more options and decarbonising will actually save people money.
Decarbonising our energy supply is a pure engineering challenge and doesn't intrinsically hold any political baggage, unless we want it to of course.
Amazing that Andrew Sullivan says he supports many of Trump's policies, while still not able to vote for him for other reasons.
Not remotely amazing at all.
A belief in democracy has to trump (small-t) any policies.
Forced choice I would vote for any democrat (small-d) who will respect democracy who has policies I abhor over an authoritarian who wants to undermine democracy with policies I support.
Even just being elected Trump will do real harm. Having said what he has about NATO he's undermined it even if he does nothing, because he has cemented existing doubts about the US commitment to NATO mutual defence. Trump could sing NATO's praises and people would think "we know what he really thinks". I think in any previous Presidential campaign since WW II Trump's comments would have decisively ended his run. Instead GOP cowards who are terrified of MAGA are out there defending him.
NATO is nothing to do with "mutual" defence because the US doesn't need any of the other members except Canada and that relationship is codified through NORAD.
Amazing that Andrew Sullivan says he supports many of Trump's policies, while still not able to vote for him for other reasons.
Not remotely amazing at all.
A belief in democracy has to trump (small-t) any policies.
Forced choice I would vote for any democrat (small-d) who will respect democracy who has policies I abhor over an authoritarian who wants to undermine democracy with policies I support.
Even just being elected Trump will do real harm. Having said what he has about NATO he's undermined it even if he does nothing, because he has cemented existing doubts about the US commitment to NATO mutual defence. Trump could sing NATO's praises and people would think "we know what he really thinks". I think in any previous Presidential campaign since WW II Trump's comments would have decisively ended his run. Instead GOP cowards who are terrified of MAGA are out there defending him.
NATO is nothing to do with "mutual" defence because the US doesn't need any of the other members except Canada and that relationship is codified through NORAD.
Utter rot from our secondary Putinist shill.
The US gets a lot of defence value from European airspace and other things even without considering hard assets.
I have successfully lost so much weight some clothes don’t fit me. My once slender fitting and pricey paul smith jeans now look like baggy dad jeans. An unexpected downside
Ok they probably looked like dad jeans anyway but now they look like grandad jeans. Fucking pyjamas
Don't you remove your pyjamas for that ?
It's keeping your socks on that's deeply wrong, on so many levels.
Which of us has not, on occasion, got cold feet at the prospect ?
Has their ever been an unofficial survey of wealth / class / age / voting intention on this platform of its users? Because some of the stuff people are saying here about how the Tories are so lefty and how right wing stuff has never been tried seems... wildly out of joint with the material reality of lots of people on the ground, in a way I just find extremely difficult to comprehend. Like let alone the same country - I'm starting to worry I don't live on the same planet as many of you.
Collectively we are richer than the UK norm, with some over the £1million mark, around three around the £10million mark, and I think one around the £50million mark. We are predominantly male, with a few women. I think we may be gayer than average, but that's tentative. I couldn't guess at the ethnic/racial mix: I'd hazard mostly agnostic, with some Christians, Muslims and Hindus. There are some around the median wealth or lower, but the presence and volubility of the rich makes it seem a bit less lopsided. In terms of age we do have a larger number of old and retired people, some of which are probably in their last decade or less. I think we're slightly older than the UK population, but given how that skews we may be simply representative. We have many professionals and skilled trades (lawyers, doctors, a couple of warfighters, and at least two statisticians ) and others in the managerial class. We do skew towards the educated and I think the number of postgrads is higher than normal.
Given our profile and engagement I assume we're an advertiser's dream...
I tend to agree with that, but I think we are a bit more extreme on both the wealth and age. I think the average is quite a bit older than the population as a whole and on that basis and with the huge education bias of the average poster here I think the average poster is a lot more wealthy than the average person in the population. I would guess that there are rather a lot over the £1 million mark, particularly those from London and the South East, and more than a few at the £3 - £5 million plus.
You seem to have been able to identify 3 at £10 million and one at £50 million. Not disputing it but how did you deduce that @viewcode? And can I have an introduction?
Also very few elected politicos: I count El Capitano (LD), Andy Cooke (LD), Nick Palmer (Lab) and yours truly (Con) as Councillors, and no declared MPs.
It woud be quite "brave" for a declared MP to regularly post here.
I agree...but for a shortish period between 2005-10, we had both Nick Palmer and Stewart Jackson posting here; the latter flounced spectacularly and, to be honest, wasn't greatly missed (particularly by the then 'dominant' pbTories!).
2010-15 was peak PB, I think
Very varied contributors, much less polarised, a shared sense of humour, fewer lawyers and accountants (or they were more diluted), - nice balance of barbed insults and genuine wit, and a proper conviviality
When did it end? Like so much, perhaps around the time of the Scottish indyref
If I had to pinpoint THE time when the world went mad, a state from which it has never recovered, and it may in fact still be worsening, it is then. Indyref. The UK nearly broke up FFS
The planet has not been the same since
Your exertion to avoid identifying Brexit as the cause is hilarious.
Not at all. I would certainly include Brexit in my list of mad things that should not really have happened - along with Trump, global plague, massive European war, and much else
I’m just trying to pinpoint when this Era of Weirdness began, and sindyref is for me a good place to start. Something unthinkable -the UK splitting - came horribly close to happening - and also it was our first taste in the Uk of brutally polarised politics, especially online - the cybernats
So, no, I’m not ignoring Brexit. It simply wasn’t the start of the Madness
It was a black man getting elected US president. That's where the Tea Party started. It's probably what radicalised Trump.
Much less tendentiously, it was the financial crisis and the response to it.
That’s certainly a credible hypothesis. The 2008 crisis revealed that western prosperity was, to a significant extent, fuelled by debt - personal, corporate, and governmental. The response to 2008 (ZIR, QE) was effective in patching things over in the short term, at the expense of leaving the underlying issues mostly unresolved, meanwhile fuelling an explosion in asset prices that has exacerbated inequality and brought social mobility to a standstill, on top of which followed the austerity that has hollowed out our public services.
The reality of democratic politics is that it is short-termist and tends to protect the winners, leaving very many people now aware that so many things are broken, but unable to see any realistic path toward getting things fixed. While, all around us, anti-democratic forces seek to take advantage of the predicament we are in.
I have successfully lost so much weight some clothes don’t fit me. My once slender fitting and pricey paul smith jeans now look like baggy dad jeans. An unexpected downside
Ok they probably looked like dad jeans anyway but now they look like grandad jeans. Fucking pyjamas
Pyjamas? I guessed you take the service bus to Asda in lounge wear.
I see Andrew Sullivan is now joining the cult of Trump (and US isolationism).
Is he? That's not my reading of the interview at all. He is not voting for him and sees him as a massive threat to rule of law.
It's when you get right to the end, after explaining how bad Trump is:
FS: And would you be one of that large number of Americans? [ie those who would happily see Ukraine partitioned, and China occupy Taiwan].
AS: I’d be pretty close to them, yes. I don’t think there is a desire in the United States, nor has there really been for the last 20 years, for long engagement in conflicts far away. The people whose kids go to fight those wars don’t want their kids to go fight those wars. And a lot of people just simply look at the state of the US-Mexico border and say: why are we spending billions of dollars on the border between the Russian-dominated provinces in Ukraine and the rest of it? Why, when we can’t do it for our own border? That’s an incredibly potent argument.
FS: The world order is certainly going through a seismic shift, one that may involve war or will conflict being evaded and a deal being struck. The argument of those who support Trump would be that he’s not so deeply ideological, he likes a deal and, as you say, he’s not seriously attached to a particular set of principles. And they say: that’s the kind of leader we need right now to smooth things over.
AS: Yes. There are plenty of reasons, policy-wise, why I’d be happier with a Trump administration than a Biden one. There’s immigration, which I think the Democrats have completely screwed up. The numbers of people coming over are extraordinary at this point. And I think if he got a majority in the House and the Senate, he could easily pass immigration reform, and this time, unlike in 2016, he won’t be bamboozled by people like Paul Ryan into thinking that the most important thing is a tax cut for the super-wealthy.
I also think that regarding the wokeness stuff, even though I really find Trump horrid on so many levels, if he’s the only thing that can stop this stuff from being imposed across the country and across the United States Government, then you can see why I might prefer him over Biden, who is giving in to woke at every level. The federal government is involved in systematic DEI: in all of its capacities it now has putting equity at the heart of everything as a policy. He would remove that and there would be support for ending DEI in corporate America and in universities. He’s clearly taken out a position — even if he’s not interested in that stuff, he’ll find someone who is. And that’s a huge thing for the base. It would happen, I think.
I suspect if I were in America (and knowing they can be a deeply conservative people and at times rather qualified in their humour, expecting a bit of deference and not much bawdiness) I would draw a very large and carefully detailed phallus on the ballot paper.
For climate reasons alone, you should vote for the Democrat. Trump has declared that he would actively attempt to sabotage the move to renewables.
There's no way I'd vote for the Democrats with their policies on EDI, open borders, rampant Wokery, post Brexit hostility to the UK and really dumb foreign policy fubars over the past years.
I also wouldn't vote for Trump for his demagogury, lack of respect for the law, reckless attitude to NATO, dismissal of climate change and rampant unpredictability.
I am not obliged to pick one and would vote for neither.
And of course, they’re the republican party - and you can’t be seen to support anyone who’s happy with their history of defying the King.
And down three is well, well within that MoE. Down 4 is also within a 3% margin of error too since the MoE spreads in both directions. If eg the true figure is say 42% then 42% plus or minus 3% could be 45% one poll and 39% the next, or anywhere in-between without ever leaving the bounds of the margin of error.
Yeah but then you’re the fucking idiot that told me last summer (right after my visit to Ukraine) that my personal subjective eyewitness sense that Ukraine was in danger of running out of soldiers was ‘total bollocks’
Not sure why a MoE poll, showing the Tories below 30% and Labour with a double-digit lead is what Sunak needs?
It’s not a MOE poll. Labour are down three. IIRC that is outside MOE?
11 less is just 2 away from 9! Etc
The Tories are drowning. This is a straw
Three percent is, I think, the margin of error on a measurement in a bogstandard UK opinion poll. So Lab 40 means "probably about 40, but don't be shocked if it's actually 37 or 43".
So the 43 last time is probably about 43, but the plausible range is 40-46.
So it might be a Labour fall, possibly more likely than not, but also possibly isn't. Rule of thumb for combining two error-prone measurements (either a poll to poll change or a lead) is to multiply the quoted MOE by 1.4, might as well call it 1.5. So you'd need a 4-5 percent switch to be really interesting.
But yeah. It's a rather soggy straw. Like the "oooh, Rochdale is the end of the beginning, the fightback starts now" stuff. Chances are that it lasts until early Friday morning.
After all, is anyone expecting anything other than two no-stress Labour wins?
Has their ever been an unofficial survey of wealth / class / age / voting intention on this platform of its users? Because some of the stuff people are saying here about how the Tories are so lefty and how right wing stuff has never been tried seems... wildly out of joint with the material reality of lots of people on the ground, in a way I just find extremely difficult to comprehend. Like let alone the same country - I'm starting to worry I don't live on the same planet as many of you.
You often refer to controlling borders as "border fascism", so I guess you see favouring low immigration as a right-wing position. What has the level of immigration been like under the current government?
I mean, I consider the method we currently use to manage the border as border fascism. The numbers that pass the border have little to do with how I judge the regime that the state implements at the border. This government would be happy if every small boat sank into the Channel with everyone on board as long as the papers didn't care about it. The idea of immigrants or refugees as this big social drain, of an existential threat, is common in government discussions on the topic. The bureaucracy of immiseration - moving people from place to place, putting them in small rooms or boats, giving them a weekly allowance of under £10, all in the attempt to make things so awful that people stop coming here - to stop a process that is as natural as humans drinking water - over an imagined border. It is border fascism even if everyone was granted asylum who asked for it - not because of the outcome but because of the process of purposeful dehumanisation and hatred the government aims to enforce.
So people moving from place to place is as natural as drinking water, but people seeking to protect their property is an unnatural product of capitalism?
I don't know about natural vs unnatural but human migration is certainly older and more intrinsic to the species than private property is. I should add, I am not against private property.
Is that really true? Even many non-human species understand the concept of possession and territory.
Private property and personal property are, again, not the same thing. Animals obviously have dominance hierarchies, and many of those involve some form of giving resources to the most dominant within the species - but I don't quite know if I'd go full Jordan Peterson and think that would therefore provide any evidence for the natural order of rent payments.
It's a distinction without a difference. Is your laptop private property or personal property?
In Marxist theory, private property typically refers to capital or the means of production, while personal property refers to consumer and non-capital goods and services.
I would say if the primary way you interact with and conceive of the item is to use it, it is personal property. If the primary way you interact with or conceive of the item is as an asset it is private property.
So it's private property? You use it as a means of intellectual production.
Lol - no; that’s not what means of production means and if you’re going to continue to cultivate such ignorance I have no desire to continue talking on the issue.
Why does it not count as production? Does a writer not produce anything?
Are there only certains goods that you classify as production?
Of course, according to some on PB, this was all simply faux outrage from diehard Tories after all Louise Ellman was tweeting in support of the hapless Ali.
“ Keir Starmer is guilty of two kinds of flip-flop. The first kind is from positions he adopted in order to win the leadership of a party still in the grip of Corbynism. Those U-turns showed a cynicism that sometimes took the breath away, but the logic of “what it takes” was irresistible.”
I think I agree
Well there's a surprise. A few weeks ago you claimed you despised Starmer so much you wanted to "bash him".
Now Starmer has made a real dog's dinner over Rochdale and you are right to condemn his perceived by Tories and Tory shills anti-Semitism in this instance, and more generally his perceived by Corbynistas and Corbynista shills his Islamophobia, through his Jewish family. Hated by left and right alike he is a poor politician.
Nonetheless the accusation more generally of flip-flopping is ironic coming from a Prime Minister who has flip flopped on Rwanda, on HS2 and a whole bunch of other issues without recourse. Yes, Rishi's a great guy, but the criticism is not consistent with his own behaviour.
As to your assertion that Starmer is politically, rather than ideologically motivated, for goodness sake man, you supported and still support Alexander Johnson. Johnson, a man who would most likely have sold Granny De Pfeffel in his quest to reach the top of the greasy pole.
But everyone says St Keir is Mr Integrity, and he always bangs on about doing things on ‘point of principle’ . My main accusation is that he has neither integrity nor principles, yet is feted as some kind of upstanding moral compass
By the way, it was James O’Brien that I said I’d like to bash up, not Sir Keir. Second time you’ve thrown that false allegation at me I believe
I see Andrew Sullivan is now joining the cult of Trump (and US isolationism).
Is he? That's not my reading of the interview at all. He is not voting for him and sees him as a massive threat to rule of law.
It's when you get right to the end, after explaining how bad Trump is:
FS: And would you be one of that large number of Americans? [ie those who would happily see Ukraine partitioned, and China occupy Taiwan].
AS: I’d be pretty close to them, yes. I don’t think there is a desire in the United States, nor has there really been for the last 20 years, for long engagement in conflicts far away. The people whose kids go to fight those wars don’t want their kids to go fight those wars. And a lot of people just simply look at the state of the US-Mexico border and say: why are we spending billions of dollars on the border between the Russian-dominated provinces in Ukraine and the rest of it? Why, when we can’t do it for our own border? That’s an incredibly potent argument.
FS: The world order is certainly going through a seismic shift, one that may involve war or will conflict being evaded and a deal being struck. The argument of those who support Trump would be that he’s not so deeply ideological, he likes a deal and, as you say, he’s not seriously attached to a particular set of principles. And they say: that’s the kind of leader we need right now to smooth things over.
AS: Yes. There are plenty of reasons, policy-wise, why I’d be happier with a Trump administration than a Biden one. There’s immigration, which I think the Democrats have completely screwed up. The numbers of people coming over are extraordinary at this point. And I think if he got a majority in the House and the Senate, he could easily pass immigration reform, and this time, unlike in 2016, he won’t be bamboozled by people like Paul Ryan into thinking that the most important thing is a tax cut for the super-wealthy.
I also think that regarding the wokeness stuff, even though I really find Trump horrid on so many levels, if he’s the only thing that can stop this stuff from being imposed across the country and across the United States Government, then you can see why I might prefer him over Biden, who is giving in to woke at every level. The federal government is involved in systematic DEI: in all of its capacities it now has putting equity at the heart of everything as a policy. He would remove that and there would be support for ending DEI in corporate America and in universities. He’s clearly taken out a position — even if he’s not interested in that stuff, he’ll find someone who is. And that’s a huge thing for the base. It would happen, I think.
I suspect if I were in America (and knowing they can be a deeply conservative people and at times rather qualified in their humour, expecting a bit of deference and not much bawdiness) I would draw a very large and carefully detailed phallus on the ballot paper.
For climate reasons alone, you should vote for the Democrat. Trump has declared that he would actively attempt to sabotage the move to renewables.
There's no way I'd vote for the Democrats with their policies on EDI, open borders, rampant Wokery, post Brexit hostility to the UK and really dumb foreign policy fubars over the past years.
I also wouldn't vote for Trump for his demagogury, lack of respect for the law, reckless attitude to NATO, dismissal of climate change and rampant unpredictability.
I am not obliged to pick one and would vote for neither.
You and I are never going to see eye-to-eye on EDI or Wokery, but I'm kind of curious about the others.
What post-Brexit hostility to the UK? There were very limited remarks post-referendum but pre-Brexit (typically magnified 1000x by FBPE types) but not very much of any substance whatseover. The NYT is far more critical of the UK than the Democrats are.
Foreign policy I mentioned above, but Biden has been far better than the GOP in supporting aid to Ukraine and NATO etc
As for "open borders", unlike in the UK net migration into America is currently at the lowest percentage rate its been for fifty years. The migration rate into America currently under Biden is lower than it was under Reagan, Bush I or Bush II. Not sure about Trump due to Covid etc messing with things.
Has their ever been an unofficial survey of wealth / class / age / voting intention on this platform of its users? Because some of the stuff people are saying here about how the Tories are so lefty and how right wing stuff has never been tried seems... wildly out of joint with the material reality of lots of people on the ground, in a way I just find extremely difficult to comprehend. Like let alone the same country - I'm starting to worry I don't live on the same planet as many of you.
Collectively we are richer than the UK norm, with some over the £1million mark, around three around the £10million mark, and I think one around the £50million mark. We are predominantly male, with a few women. I think we may be gayer than average, but that's tentative. I couldn't guess at the ethnic/racial mix: I'd hazard mostly agnostic, with some Christians, Muslims and Hindus. There are some around the median wealth or lower, but the presence and volubility of the rich makes it seem a bit less lopsided. In terms of age we do have a larger number of old and retired people, some of which are probably in their last decade or less. I think we're slightly older than the UK population, but given how that skews we may be simply representative. We have many professionals and skilled trades (lawyers, doctors, a couple of warfighters, and at least two statisticians ) and others in the managerial class. We do skew towards the educated and I think the number of postgrads is higher than normal.
Given our profile and engagement I assume we're an advertiser's dream...
I tend to agree with that, but I think we are a bit more extreme on both the wealth and age. I think the average is quite a bit older than the population as a whole and on that basis and with the huge education bias of the average poster here I think the average poster is a lot more wealthy than the average person in the population. I would guess that there are rather a lot over the £1 million mark, particularly those from London and the South East, and more than a few at the £3 - £5 million plus.
You seem to have been able to identify 3 at £10 million and one at £50 million. Not disputing it but how did you deduce that @viewcode? And can I have an introduction?
I can't prove it: it's basically from memory and remarks over the years. Bear in mind that all I know about people is what they tell me. Some give away a lot, some nothing. But people talk to each other and about each other and eventually a picture builds up. Happy to be totally contradicted if wrong, but unless we all start filling out forms I think this is the best we can get.
I see Andrew Sullivan is now joining the cult of Trump (and US isolationism).
Is he? That's not my reading of the interview at all. He is not voting for him and sees him as a massive threat to rule of law.
It's when you get right to the end, after explaining how bad Trump is:
FS: And would you be one of that large number of Americans? [ie those who would happily see Ukraine partitioned, and China occupy Taiwan].
AS: I’d be pretty close to them, yes. I don’t think there is a desire in the United States, nor has there really been for the last 20 years, for long engagement in conflicts far away. The people whose kids go to fight those wars don’t want their kids to go fight those wars. And a lot of people just simply look at the state of the US-Mexico border and say: why are we spending billions of dollars on the border between the Russian-dominated provinces in Ukraine and the rest of it? Why, when we can’t do it for our own border? That’s an incredibly potent argument.
FS: The world order is certainly going through a seismic shift, one that may involve war or will conflict being evaded and a deal being struck. The argument of those who support Trump would be that he’s not so deeply ideological, he likes a deal and, as you say, he’s not seriously attached to a particular set of principles. And they say: that’s the kind of leader we need right now to smooth things over.
AS: Yes. There are plenty of reasons, policy-wise, why I’d be happier with a Trump administration than a Biden one. There’s immigration, which I think the Democrats have completely screwed up. The numbers of people coming over are extraordinary at this point. And I think if he got a majority in the House and the Senate, he could easily pass immigration reform, and this time, unlike in 2016, he won’t be bamboozled by people like Paul Ryan into thinking that the most important thing is a tax cut for the super-wealthy.
I also think that regarding the wokeness stuff, even though I really find Trump horrid on so many levels, if he’s the only thing that can stop this stuff from being imposed across the country and across the United States Government, then you can see why I might prefer him over Biden, who is giving in to woke at every level. The federal government is involved in systematic DEI: in all of its capacities it now has putting equity at the heart of everything as a policy. He would remove that and there would be support for ending DEI in corporate America and in universities. He’s clearly taken out a position — even if he’s not interested in that stuff, he’ll find someone who is. And that’s a huge thing for the base. It would happen, I think.
I suspect if I were in America (and knowing they can be a deeply conservative people and at times rather qualified in their humour, expecting a bit of deference and not much bawdiness) I would draw a very large and carefully detailed phallus on the ballot paper.
For climate reasons alone, you should vote for the Democrat. Trump has declared that he would actively attempt to sabotage the move to renewables.
There's no way I'd vote for the Democrats with their policies on EDI, open borders, rampant Wokery, post Brexit hostility to the UK and really dumb foreign policy fubars over the past years.
I also wouldn't vote for Trump for his demagogury, lack of respect for the law, reckless attitude to NATO, dismissal of climate change and rampant unpredictability.
I am not obliged to pick one and would vote for neither.
Same here.
My voting record, were I American, would have been Dem through and through but I honestly think that if the nominee was anyone other than Trump I would vote Rep for the first time this time.
“We originally intended to withdraw support immediately, but unfortunately slipped and fell onto a smartphone, accidentally sending a press release defending Mr Ali and whatsapping several shadow cabinet members to go out in support of him”
Of course, according to some on PB, this was all simply faux outrage from diehard Tories after all Louise Ellman was tweeting in support of the hapless Ali.
“ Keir Starmer is guilty of two kinds of flip-flop. The first kind is from positions he adopted in order to win the leadership of a party still in the grip of Corbynism. Those U-turns showed a cynicism that sometimes took the breath away, but the logic of “what it takes” was irresistible.”
I think I agree
Well there's a surprise. A few weeks ago you claimed you despised Starmer so much you wanted to "bash him".
Now Starmer has made a real dog's dinner over Rochdale and you are right to condemn his perceived by Tories and Tory shills anti-Semitism in this instance, and more generally his perceived by Corbynistas and Corbynista shills his Islamophobia, through his Jewish family. Hated by left and right alike he is a poor politician.
Nonetheless the accusation more generally of flip-flopping is ironic coming from a Prime Minister who has flip flopped on Rwanda, on HS2 and a whole bunch of other issues without recourse. Yes, Rishi's a great guy, but the criticism is not consistent with his own behaviour.
As to your assertion that Starmer is politically, rather than ideologically motivated, for goodness sake man, you supported and still support Alexander Johnson. Johnson, a man who would most likely have sold Granny De Pfeffel in his quest to reach the top of the greasy pole.
But everyone says St Keir is Mr Integrity, and he always bangs on about doing things on ‘point of principle’ . My main accusation is that he has neither integrity nor principles, yet is feted as some kind of upstanding moral compass
By the way, it was James O’Brien that I said I’d like to bash up, not Sir Keir. Second time you’ve thrown that false allegation at me I believe
And down three is well, well within that MoE. Down 4 is also within a 3% margin of error too since the MoE spreads in both directions. If eg the true figure is say 42% then 42% plus or minus 3% could be 45% one poll and 39% the next, or anywhere in-between without ever leaving the bounds of the margin of error.
Yeah but then you’re the fucking idiot that told me last summer (right after my visit to Ukraine) that my personal subjective eyewitness sense that Ukraine was in danger of running out of soldiers was ‘total bollocks’
Because Putin is also struggling to find new men too.
I said to you on the day that to post one thing without the countervailing balance is meaningless. I was right then, I'm still right now. Putin hasn't got an inexhaustible supply of people to send to the meat grinder, Russia isn't that much bigger than Ukraine.
Of course, according to some on PB, this was all simply faux outrage from diehard Tories after all Louise Ellman was tweeting in support of the hapless Ali.
“ Keir Starmer is guilty of two kinds of flip-flop. The first kind is from positions he adopted in order to win the leadership of a party still in the grip of Corbynism. Those U-turns showed a cynicism that sometimes took the breath away, but the logic of “what it takes” was irresistible.”
I think I agree
Well there's a surprise. A few weeks ago you claimed you despised Starmer so much you wanted to "bash him".
Now Starmer has made a real dog's dinner over Rochdale and you are right to condemn his perceived by Tories and Tory shills anti-Semitism in this instance, and more generally his perceived by Corbynistas and Corbynista shills his Islamophobia, through his Jewish family. Hated by left and right alike he is a poor politician.
Nonetheless the accusation more generally of flip-flopping is ironic coming from a Prime Minister who has flip flopped on Rwanda, on HS2 and a whole bunch of other issues without recourse. Yes, Rishi's a great guy, but the criticism is not consistent with his own behaviour.
As to your assertion that Starmer is politically, rather than ideologically motivated, for goodness sake man, you supported and still support Alexander Johnson. Johnson, a man who would most likely have sold Granny De Pfeffel in his quest to reach the top of the greasy pole.
But everyone says St Keir is Mr Integrity, and he always bangs on about doing things on ‘point of principle’ . My main accusation is that he has neither integrity nor principles, yet is feted as some kind of upstanding moral compass
By the way, it was James O’Brien that I said I’d like to bash up, not Sir Keir. Second time you’ve thrown that false allegation at me I believe
Starmer is an insincere, ruthless liar but that doesn't matter as he has skilful command of the narrative.
Has their ever been an unofficial survey of wealth / class / age / voting intention on this platform of its users? Because some of the stuff people are saying here about how the Tories are so lefty and how right wing stuff has never been tried seems... wildly out of joint with the material reality of lots of people on the ground, in a way I just find extremely difficult to comprehend. Like let alone the same country - I'm starting to worry I don't live on the same planet as many of you.
You often refer to controlling borders as "border fascism", so I guess you see favouring low immigration as a right-wing position. What has the level of immigration been like under the current government?
I mean, I consider the method we currently use to manage the border as border fascism. The numbers that pass the border have little to do with how I judge the regime that the state implements at the border. This government would be happy if every small boat sank into the Channel with everyone on board as long as the papers didn't care about it. The idea of immigrants or refugees as this big social drain, of an existential threat, is common in government discussions on the topic. The bureaucracy of immiseration - moving people from place to place, putting them in small rooms or boats, giving them a weekly allowance of under £10, all in the attempt to make things so awful that people stop coming here - to stop a process that is as natural as humans drinking water - over an imagined border. It is border fascism even if everyone was granted asylum who asked for it - not because of the outcome but because of the process of purposeful dehumanisation and hatred the government aims to enforce.
So people moving from place to place is as natural as drinking water, but people seeking to protect their property is an unnatural product of capitalism?
Private property and personal property are different things... Marx literally talked about that. It isn't a new part of leftist theory. It does sometimes hurt my brain when people only have a straw man view of what leftist thought is.
Was the enclosures of the commons something that naturally happened, or was it enforced on most people against their will under the threat of violence to the benefit of the wealthy? The understanding we have of private property has evolved from that. Indeed, mass ownership of land is a relatively new development - if we're talking about human nature. We can look at a number of cultures that, until relatively recently (really the last couple of hundred years when Westerners turned up), had a completely different understanding of land ownership all together - with many of them outright not having a concept of an individual who owns a patch of land and many things, arguably most things, held in common.
For nomadic, pastoral societies, owning land is as absurd as owning sea or air. Your wealth is your flocks and herds.
Land ownership becomes logical once people settle.
I mean, it does if you're the person with the biggest stick and can claim you now own the land and therefore extract rents from it. Not so much if you're the guy who just happened to be living on it at the time they do that.
Some kind of tenure is required to any kind of agriculture. Farming is not just for Summer. It's an all seasons sport.
There's a lot of flexibility though. Common land was incredibly, well, common. Likewise, agriculture didn't result in private land ownership in North America, until European settlers arrived.
But there could still be circumstances where conflicts over land would result in violence, so they're was some kind of tenure, even if it wasn't the freehold private ownership we are used to today.
There were plenty of civilisations in North and South (and Central) America that had land ownership. Including varieties of private land ownership, feudal tenancy systems etc.
Not every Native American was an Apache.
We can idolise what came before the fall from paradise.
In reality, most of those Native American tribes were in regular and violent conflict with each other.
C’mon guys, stop exterminating each other, that’s our job (and we’ll be much better at it).
Poland is at the top, at 3.9%, the US is second at 3.49%, the UK is at 2.07%, and Luxembourg, as usual, is last, at .72%.
To be fair to Luxembourg, there's little point; even if they spent 5% it'd still be 5% of sod all.
If anything serious kicked off they'd be doormatted inside a single morning, so they have to put their faith in the big players.
Each individual grain of sand on a beach is small, but you'd still suffer if the whole lot was dumped on your head at once.
Luxembourg should, of course, fulfill the commitment they've made to spend 2%, even if that only amounts to a fraction of one deployable brigade, in partnership with one of their neighbours, or some engineering and logistics assets.
Has their ever been an unofficial survey of wealth / class / age / voting intention on this platform of its users? Because some of the stuff people are saying here about how the Tories are so lefty and how right wing stuff has never been tried seems... wildly out of joint with the material reality of lots of people on the ground, in a way I just find extremely difficult to comprehend. Like let alone the same country - I'm starting to worry I don't live on the same planet as many of you.
You often refer to controlling borders as "border fascism", so I guess you see favouring low immigration as a right-wing position. What has the level of immigration been like under the current government?
I mean, I consider the method we currently use to manage the border as border fascism. The numbers that pass the border have little to do with how I judge the regime that the state implements at the border. This government would be happy if every small boat sank into the Channel with everyone on board as long as the papers didn't care about it. The idea of immigrants or refugees as this big social drain, of an existential threat, is common in government discussions on the topic. The bureaucracy of immiseration - moving people from place to place, putting them in small rooms or boats, giving them a weekly allowance of under £10, all in the attempt to make things so awful that people stop coming here - to stop a process that is as natural as humans drinking water - over an imagined border. It is border fascism even if everyone was granted asylum who asked for it - not because of the outcome but because of the process of purposeful dehumanisation and hatred the government aims to enforce.
So people moving from place to place is as natural as drinking water, but people seeking to protect their property is an unnatural product of capitalism?
I don't know about natural vs unnatural but human migration is certainly older and more intrinsic to the species than private property is. I should add, I am not against private property.
Is that really true? Even many non-human species understand the concept of possession and territory.
Private property and personal property are, again, not the same thing. Animals obviously have dominance hierarchies, and many of those involve some form of giving resources to the most dominant within the species - but I don't quite know if I'd go full Jordan Peterson and think that would therefore provide any evidence for the natural order of rent payments.
It's a distinction without a difference. Is your laptop private property or personal property?
In Marxist theory, private property typically refers to capital or the means of production, while personal property refers to consumer and non-capital goods and services.
I would say if the primary way you interact with and conceive of the item is to use it, it is personal property. If the primary way you interact with or conceive of the item is as an asset it is private property.
So it's private property? You use it as a means of intellectual production.
Lol - no; that’s not what means of production means and if you’re going to continue to cultivate such ignorance I have no desire to continue talking on the issue.
Why does it not count as production? Does a writer not produce anything?
Are there only certains goods that you classify as production?
If I write a book the means of production is the physical publication of the books - you as the writer are another worker; writing is labour. You aren’t always a wage worker, your conditions may be better than the worker who chops down the tree or makes the paper or prints the book. But you don’t own the means of production. Now - the intellectual property that comes out of that; yes that is an asset and private property (which is why I and many others on the left don’t really believe in copyright and such).
But seriously; instead of taking a small bit of what I say, taking it in the least charitable way possible and framing questions in the most polemic way you know how - just read some theory. Like - private versus personal property is explained by a lot of leftist theorists. It is easy to find information about this.
Of course, according to some on PB, this was all simply faux outrage from diehard Tories after all Louise Ellman was tweeting in support of the hapless Ali.
“ Keir Starmer is guilty of two kinds of flip-flop. The first kind is from positions he adopted in order to win the leadership of a party still in the grip of Corbynism. Those U-turns showed a cynicism that sometimes took the breath away, but the logic of “what it takes” was irresistible.”
I think I agree
Well there's a surprise. A few weeks ago you claimed you despised Starmer so much you wanted to "bash him".
Now Starmer has made a real dog's dinner over Rochdale and you are right to condemn his perceived by Tories and Tory shills anti-Semitism in this instance, and more generally his perceived by Corbynistas and Corbynista shills his Islamophobia, through his Jewish family. Hated by left and right alike he is a poor politician.
Nonetheless the accusation more generally of flip-flopping is ironic coming from a Prime Minister who has flip flopped on Rwanda, on HS2 and a whole bunch of other issues without recourse. Yes, Rishi's a great guy, but the criticism is not consistent with his own behaviour.
As to your assertion that Starmer is politically, rather than ideologically motivated, for goodness sake man, you supported and still support Alexander Johnson. Johnson, a man who would most likely have sold Granny De Pfeffel in his quest to reach the top of the greasy pole.
But everyone says St Keir is Mr Integrity, and he always bangs on about doing things on ‘point of principle’ . My main accusation is that he has neither integrity nor principles, yet is feted as some kind of upstanding moral compass
By the way, it was James O’Brien that I said I’d like to bash up, not Sir Keir. Second time you’ve thrown that false allegation at me I believe
Apologies if I mis- attributed your violent intentions to Starmer rather than O'Brien. My bad.
By the way you still haven't removed that erroneous and mischievous " troll flag" yet.
Poland is at the top, at 3.9%, the US is second at 3.49%, the UK is at 2.07%, and Luxembourg, as usual, is last, at .72%.
To be fair to Luxembourg, there's little point; even if they spent 5% it'd still be 5% of sod all.
If anything serious kicked off they'd be doormatted inside a single morning, so they have to put their faith in the big players.
Each individual grain of sand on a beach is small, but you'd still suffer if the whole lot was dumped on your head at once.
Luxembourg should, of course, fulfill the commitment they've made to spend 2%, even if that only amounts to a fraction of one deployable brigade, in partnership with one of their neighbours, or some engineering and logistics assets.
The difference between what they're spending, and what they said they would spend, is about US$1bn. It's not nothing.
Three leftist senators also voted against aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan: Jeff Merkley Ore. (D), Bernie Sanders Vt. independent), Peter Welch Vt. (D).
(I continue to be amused by the way Sanders has changed from attacking millionaires and billionaires, to just attacking billionaires -- now that he is a millionaire. Politics has been very profitable for him.
Don't know whether he sitll attacking the housing shortage, now hat he owns three homes.)
“We originally intended to withdraw support immediately, but unfortunately slipped and fell onto a smartphone, accidentally sending a press release defending Mr Ali and whatsapping several shadow cabinet members to go out in support of him”
It’s not a MOE poll. Labour are down three. IIRC that is outside MOE?
[Rolls up sleeves]
There was an argument between the pollsters and the academics for years. Polls these days are self-selecting panels with digfferential non-response which has to be weighted. Because of this they do not meet the requirements for a calculation of the MOE from theory. Note that the YouGov article is from 2011 (https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/2497-understanding-margin-error) predating the argument.
"All polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error. On the basis of the historical record of the polls at recent general elections, there is a 9 in 10 chance that the true value of a party’s support lies within 4 points of the estimates provided by this poll, and a 2 in 3 chance that they lie within 2 points".
Ken, your criminal defense lawyers are calling to suggest you spend less time pushing Russian propaganda and more time defending longstanding felony charges against you in Houston, as well as ongoing federal grand jury proceedings in San Antonio that will probably result in further criminal charges. https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/1757412800488407479
Comments
There is something deeply wrong with America that a charlatan, liar, crook, and probable rapist, who is clearly rapidly aging himself, and who adheres to America's enemies and rages at its allies is likely to be elected if Biden and Trump remain the candidates.
Frankly even if Trump is defeated, and I really do pray that is the case, a country where Trump is even in the running is in terminal decline. If America doesn't elect Trump in 2024 maybe they'll elect someone even worse in 2028 or 2032. If I was American I'd be thinking very hard about leaving if Trump is re-elected.
The press and the Tory party will have masses of ammunition for the right time stored up. The target for both sides is the crucial voters: the ones who normally vote Tory and plan not to this time. None of these voters are attracted to Islamist conspiracy theories.
Whereas under Trump foreign policy was not an issue
I’m not even sure Biden is that good domestically. As is often claimed on here. Illegal migration has tripled to 3m on his watch, absolutely unprecedented
We really do need to accelerate the electrification of everything and shift it onto renewables asap. This isn't a left-wing or a right-wing thing; it's an engineering challenge to decarbonise our energy generation and consumption in a way that doesn't treat the atmosphere like a sewer. And, on top, we'll need to do direct air capture and storage of what we've already chucked up their on top too.
It would really help if the ecomarxist activists could STFU about all their grand schemes to remake society of the back of it because that just makes it 10 x harder to achieve a consensus.
And then you wrote 1,500 words about why it is not the same thing.
This is hardly stuff of Riemannian complexity.
It is hypocritical. But also entirely human.
Similar, perhaps more egregious than your situation. Worked hard for tremendous riches and are only hoping for a government which taxes you more but in the meantime don't plan on donating your surplus wealth to any of several charities. Queers for Palestine, perhaps.
The prior generation(s) which had few elderly people to support in retirement (or healthcare), free tuition and affordable (often discounted) homes have pulled the ladder up on the younger generations who are expected to not just pay extortionate rents, get into debt in order to be educated but are also burdened with paying for the pensions and healthcare of their elders too.
The biggest dichotomy in the economy no longer seems to be class but age.
Anyone arguing "Biden's rubbish so I'm voting Trump" is a fool. Trump's not fixing to sort out America's problems, he's damn near promising to start fucking things up on day one of his next term.
(I can think of several ways to do that, but have never tried to even guess at the costs for each way.)
The new millennium was going OK till then. Since which, Afghanistan, Iraq, GFC, Indy ref, Brexit ref, Covid, Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza and the rise of authoritarianism and the lack of decent leaders. And continuing daily.
Afghanistan was Trump (and George W Bush's) mess, Biden just got left to clean it up. What should he have done, cancelled Trump's agreement to pull out? What's done was done.
The war in Europe is Putin's responsibility, but Biden along with Boris and now Sunak and other leaders has been great at putting forth aid to Ukraine. Shame the Trump-led GOP is now trying to block further aid.
While Hamas being shits has nothing to do with any US politics.
Net migration into the USA is at one of the lowest percentage rates its been in the past fifty years, but even that is too much for you.
They were deeply tribal, autocratic, and unstable with high rates of violent deaths amongst males and frequent plagues and famines.
But you're absolutely right: irrespective of political views, anyone who is not a fool should support the project.
In reality, most of those Native American tribes were in regular and violent conflict with each other.
A belief in democracy has to trump (small-t) any policies.
Forced choice I would vote for any democrat (small-d) who will respect democracy who has policies I abhor over an authoritarian who wants to undermine democracy with policies I support.
I would say if the primary way you interact with and conceive of the item is to use it, it is personal property. If the primary way you interact with or conceive of the item is as an asset it is private property.
Trump has declared that he would actively attempt to sabotage the move to renewables.
It was before William, Harry, etc and at that time they were somewhere reasonably high up the line of succession (non top 30 but somewhere outside that) and we used to enjoy staying at their house and slotting in with the guided tours when the fancy took us.
Also not a Con anyway since Sunak increased National Insurance.
https://weather.com/storms/winter/video/winter-storm-lorraine-hits-hard-in-northeast?adRef=nav_wntr?traffic_source=footerNav_Video
Except for Sunil, who's real identity as The God Of Trains is known to his many acolytes at their secret altars.
Ok they probably looked like dad jeans anyway but now they look like grandad jeans. Fucking pyjamas
I was thinking back to the Olympic summer of 2012 and how different everything felt then (despite a couple of years of austerity) compared to today. I thought there would be a 'feel good' glow after the Olympics, which would feed through into a gradual recovery, but instead everything has just gone downhill since then.
I can't pick a single event that is the turning point (the Scottish referendum isn't it) but it had all gone wrong by the Brexit referendum, and with hindsight the result reflected that.
First iPhone - 2007
Sunak desperately needed that
We have essentially halved our carbon emissions since 1990 whilst doubling our nominal GDP. As new technology comes online it offers more options and decarbonising will actually save people money.
Decarbonising our energy supply is a pure engineering challenge and doesn't intrinsically hold any political baggage, unless we want it to of course.
11 less is just 2 away from 9! Etc
The Tories are drowning. This is a straw
Lincoln will have been rolling in his grave for ages now seeing what has happened to his party, Reagan will be now too.
Its an utter shame to see the party of Reagan, the party of "bring down that wall" that helped win the Cold War, is now so far up a Russian dictators arse.
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/12/nato-countries-defense-spending-gdp-trump/
Poland is at the top, at 3.9%, the US is second at 3.49%, the UK is at 2.07%, and Luxembourg, as usual, is last, at .72%.
Etc
Now Starmer has made a real dog's dinner over Rochdale and you are right to condemn his perceived by Tories and Tory shills anti-Semitism in this instance, and more generally his perceived by Corbynistas and Corbynista shills his Islamophobia, through his Jewish family. Hated by left and right alike he is a poor politician.
Nonetheless the accusation more generally of flip-flopping is ironic coming from a Prime Minister who has flip flopped on Rwanda, on HS2 and a whole bunch of other issues without recourse. Yes, Rishi's a great guy, but the criticism is not consistent with his own behaviour.
As to your assertion that Starmer is politically, rather than ideologically motivated, for goodness sake man, you supported and still support Alexander Johnson. Johnson, a man who would most likely have sold Granny De Pfeffel in his quest to reach the top of the greasy pole.
2) Can you literally not conceive of a system that may benefit you in a small way, but hinder you elsewhere? Like, wealth redistribution would be good for me because I would benefit from more public services and other people having more.
3) See my Discworld quote from earlier. If your entire position is “it doesn’t make sense to be against something that harms the majority of people if it also helps you somewhat” then I can only see you as that kind of person.
I also wouldn't vote for Trump for his demagogury, lack of respect for the law, reckless attitude to NATO, dismissal of climate change and rampant unpredictability.
I am not obliged to pick one and would vote for neither.
But in practical terms it will likely refashion society - just as did, for example, the switch from coal to oil at the beginnng of the last century.
And down three is well, well within that MoE. Down 4 is also within a 3% margin of error too since the MoE spreads in both directions. If eg the true figure is say 42% then 42% plus or minus 3% could be 45% one poll and 39% the next, or anywhere in-between without ever leaving the bounds of the margin of error.
If anything serious kicked off they'd be doormatted inside a single morning, so they have to put their faith in the big players.
The US gets a lot of defence value from European airspace and other things even without considering hard assets.
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1757224673257898040
You seem to have been able to identify 3 at £10 million and one at £50 million. Not disputing it but how did you deduce that @viewcode? And can I have an introduction?
Unless hopecasting you also need to allocate Greens and 50% of LD to Lab.
The reality of democratic politics is that it is short-termist and tends to protect the winners, leaving very many people now aware that so many things are broken, but unable to see any realistic path toward getting things fixed. While, all around us, anti-democratic forces seek to take advantage of the predicament we are in.
But I was right
Exhausted Ukraine struggles to find new men for front line https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68255490
So the 43 last time is probably about 43, but the plausible range is 40-46.
So it might be a Labour fall, possibly more likely than not, but also possibly isn't. Rule of thumb for combining two error-prone measurements (either a poll to poll change or a lead) is to multiply the quoted MOE by 1.4, might as well call it 1.5. So you'd need a 4-5 percent switch to be really interesting.
But yeah. It's a rather soggy straw. Like the "oooh, Rochdale is the end of the beginning, the fightback starts now" stuff. Chances are that it lasts until early Friday morning.
After all, is anyone expecting anything other than two no-stress Labour wins?
Are there only certains goods that you classify as production?
By the way, it was James O’Brien that I said I’d like to bash up, not Sir Keir. Second time you’ve thrown that false allegation at me I believe
What post-Brexit hostility to the UK? There were very limited remarks post-referendum but pre-Brexit (typically magnified 1000x by FBPE types) but not very much of any substance whatseover. The NYT is far more critical of the UK than the Democrats are.
Foreign policy I mentioned above, but Biden has been far better than the GOP in supporting aid to Ukraine and NATO etc
As for "open borders", unlike in the UK net migration into America is currently at the lowest percentage rate its been for fifty years. The migration rate into America currently under Biden is lower than it was under Reagan, Bush I or Bush II. Not sure about Trump due to Covid etc messing with things.
If that's open, what does closed look like?
My voting record, were I American, would have been Dem through and through but I honestly think that if the nominee was anyone other than Trump I would vote Rep for the first time this time.
The polls in Wellingborough have Labour and Conservative neck and neck. Can you help us on polling day? Volunteer here please:
events.labour.org.uk/event/400426
https://x.com/mike_reader/status/1757302341647454423?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
https://x.com/bren4bassetlaw/status/1757411879272501541?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
The correct moniker for Starmer is Mr Ambitious.
Because Putin is also struggling to find new men too.
I said to you on the day that to post one thing without the countervailing balance is meaningless. I was right then, I'm still right now. Putin hasn't got an inexhaustible supply of people to send to the meat grinder, Russia isn't that much bigger than Ukraine.
(Hope all is well, Big_G)
Luxembourg should, of course, fulfill the commitment they've made to spend 2%, even if that only amounts to a fraction of one deployable brigade, in partnership with one of their neighbours, or some engineering and logistics assets.
But seriously; instead of taking a small bit of what I say, taking it in the least charitable way possible and framing questions in the most polemic way you know how - just read some theory. Like - private versus personal property is explained by a lot of leftist theorists. It is easy to find information about this.
By the way you still haven't removed that erroneous and mischievous " troll flag" yet.
(I continue to be amused by the way Sanders has changed from attacking millionaires and billionaires, to just attacking billionaires -- now that he is a millionaire. Politics has been very profitable for him.
Don't know whether he sitll attacking the housing shortage, now hat he owns three homes.)
Starmer doesn't have to be that good to be better than the alternative.
There was an argument between the pollsters and the academics for years. Polls these days are self-selecting panels with digfferential non-response which has to be weighted. Because of this they do not meet the requirements for a calculation of the MOE from theory. Note that the YouGov article is from 2011 (https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/2497-understanding-margin-error) predating the argument.
After throwing bricks at each other, the pollsters agreed to include a stock statement in their releases. If you look at the MoreInCommon data tables (https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/media/a13idkv0/feb-big-issues-and-vi.xlsx ) you will find this statement:
"All polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error. On the basis of the historical record of the polls at recent general elections, there is a 9 in 10 chance that the true value of a party’s support lies within 4 points of the estimates provided by this poll, and a 2 in 3 chance that they lie within 2 points".
And that's the MOE you use.
[You're welcome]
It is only one poll and maybe you seem a wee bit too sensitive
Rest assured Starmer is heading into no 10 but his majority does depend on how many RefUK return to the conservative column
This is a question all Texans should be asking. Unbelievable that
@JohnCornyn would stay up all night to defend other countries borders, but not America.
https://twitter.com/KenPaxtonTX/status/1757377123902201873
Ken, your criminal defense lawyers are calling to suggest you spend less time pushing Russian propaganda and more time defending longstanding felony charges against you in Houston, as well as ongoing federal grand jury proceedings in San Antonio that will probably result in further criminal charges.
https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/1757412800488407479