Poor leadership wouldn't have helped but the reason the Tories face wipeout is all here. Even if voters can stand the social consequences of their 2016 vote which is becomming more significant by the day the economic consequences are here for all to see. Johnson farage Cameron Cummings and 90% of present Tory MPs having shot themselves in the foot should now aim higher
Why does anyone believe anything the ONS puts out? They are headline seekers. These figures will be revised up without a big press realease in a years time.
Meanwhile back on Planet Earth...
Fancy a bet, I reckon within a year the ONS will put figures out to show that we were not in recession?
Fancy a bet, I reckon within a year the ONS will not put out figures to show we avoided two consecutive quarters of per capita decline, which is what really matters.
Growth that is not per capita growth is meaningless.
As I said, pre thread, to achieve basically zero growth while importing trillions of migrants is not just remarkable, it is insane, has anyone managed it before outside an invasion?
Japan has been stagnant for years, but they have managed to maintain a clean, orderly, crime free, recognisably Japanese country. We have trashed the UK, our drains are backed up, no one can get a dentist, the streets are full of raging anti-Semites, and still we go nowhere in economic capacity. How is that even do-able?
The country is becoming a squat, where anyone can turn up, and shit in the corner. I guess we can console ourselves that eventually it will get so bad no one will want to come, and the Rwandans will send their asylum seekers to Newent and Wick as a deterrent
“Winchester, Preston, North Norfolk, North Yorkshire, Waltham Forest, Portsmouth, Basingstoke are actually buying homes specifically for the purpose of housing asylum seekers”, he said.
“It has also been very heavily clustered in places where property is cheap – Hull, Bradford and Teesside. It is potentially damaging to these places because it creates ghettos which are terrible for integration.”
Interesting to note that the unemployment rate actually fell slightly in the latest quarter. Normally a recession is accompanied by an increase in unemployment. I guess the fall in GDP is fairly small and I guess the number of people being removed from the working/looking for works stats has fallen. Nevertheless, will be interesting to see if this changes.
Good to see more and more people now talking about GDP per capita. It is the only figure that is relevant and has been ignored far too long.
The Tories currently deserve a Canada 1993 style election result so I wouldn't rule out the MRP.
The only reason the GDP figures aren’t even worse is because of immigration . Low productivity is the big problem in the UK .
As you know I’m pro immigration but there’s no denying that successive governments have covered up for a lack of infrastructure spending and investing in skills by using immigration to pad the GDP figures .
You’re right to highlight GDP per capita because that’s the figure which tells the true story .
As you know I'm pro-immigration too, but pro-immigration combined with pro-investment, and building the new towns, houses, schools, roads etc that we need to cope with extra people living in this country.
We should be looking to have high quality, high skills migrants who can add to the gaiety and success of the nation, not pad out the economy by doing jobs for minimum wage deflating our productivity.
Some very nice ideas there. So much more sensible than naming it after royalty. We were getting to a point resembling the late 19th c when almost every city and town had a railway station and public park named after Victoria RI.
His it occurred to you that Brexit was an attempt by the people to stop the insane policies that are driving us to penury? It may have been a clumsy attempt, but it was the only lever we offered, we said Pull this lever, and things will change. So they pulled it
Brexit was, inter alia, a major demand from the people to drastically reduce immigration, stop all illegal migration, and get back to making Britons - the native people - wealthier, not just enlarging the economy with endless cheap labour, and forgetting about per capita wealth
So what did the Tories do? They actually increased immigration, amongst many many many stupid things (they deserve their coming wipe out), and they failed to tackle illegal migration in the most conspicuous way imaginable, they could not stop an invasion of boats and now they are spending tens of billions a year to house these "Christian asylum seekers" even as actual Brits beg for homes
We are concocting the perfect recipe for something extremely nasty
"The first published estimates suggested that the economy had shrunk by 0.5% in late 2011 and early 2012. But when more data came in, it turned out that the economy had actually grown by 1% in that period."
The Lib Dems have already dubbed the economic slump “Rishi’s recession”. Politically this is a nightmare for a PM who promised to grow the economy as one of his five pledges.
One of the issues with developers, part 134234 of 234298097:
Cambridge University got planning permission to build their Eddington eyesore development in return for An S106 agreement, which included a swimming pool. And guess what? They haven't built it. In fact, they haven't even tried to get planning permission for one.
Force them to build it. Say if they do not, no houses will be able to be sold.
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Cuba's alignment with Seoul could be Kim Jong-un's biggest diplomatic failure
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=368885 Cuba, a socialist country regarded by North Korea as one of its most trusted allies, made an unexpected announcement on Wednesday that it restored diplomatic relations with South Korea after 65 years, a move that some experts described as "a shocking decision" for Pyongyang.
Representatives from Seoul and Havana met in New York to sign an agreement to establish formal diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level, marking a significant step after ties were severed in 1959.
Experts told The Korea Times on Thursday that the diplomatic shift of the Caribbean island nation, given its historical ties with North Korea and special status as an "anti-U.S. role model," would likely have a considerable impact on Pyongyang's ruling elite.
"The decision by Cuba is the biggest diplomatic failure since Kim Jong-un took power (in late 2011)," said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, a think tank...
As I said, pre thread, to achieve basically zero growth while importing trillions of migrants is not just remarkable, it is insane, has anyone managed it before outside an invasion?
Japan has been stagnant for years, but they have managed to maintain a clean, orderly, crime free, recognisably Japanese country. We have trashed the UK, our drains are backed up, no one can get a dentist, the streets are full of raging anti-Semites, and still we go nowhere in economic capacity. How is that even do-able?
The country is becoming a squat, where anyone can turn up, and shit in the corner. I guess we can console ourselves that eventually it will get so bad no one will want to come, and the Rwandans will send their asylum seekers to Newent and Wick as a deterrent
As you well know from your travels, when push comes to shove the uk is one of the most pleasant, stable and prosperous places in the world to live out one’s life. Having lived in several continents at very different levels of socioeconomic development and cultural norms, the one thing I would change is the British tendency to self loathing and pessimism. But at least it leads to good sitcoms.
No
"the uk is one of the most pleasant, stable and prosperous places in the world to live out one’s life."
I no longer believe this to be true
Can I recommend not needing hospital treatment if you visit Siem Reap. Or being in the main plazas of Bangkok upon a change of government. Or being homosexual in Singapore. Or expecting to earn a profressional wage in around 180 countries if the world. Or needing fair legal representation most places actually. Etc…
it’s certainly true that PPP disparities mean someone already relatively well off in the uk context can live a kingly existence in much of the world. But it’s often quite fragile. Does the uk have social and economic problems? Sure, it always has, just like everywhere. Some things get better, some get worse. But there is a reason why so many migrants want to move here and it ain’t for the dole.
His it occurred to you that Brexit was an attempt by the people to stop the insane policies that are driving us to penury? It may have been a clumsy attempt, but it was the only lever we offered, we said Pull this lever, and things will change. So they pulled it
Before the vote sensible people told you if you pull this lever all this bad shit will happen.
One of the issues with developers, part 134234 of 234298097:
Cambridge University got planning permission to build their Eddington eyesore development in return for An S106 agreement, which included a swimming pool. And guess what? They haven't built it. In fact, they haven't even tried to get planning permission for one.
Force them to build it. Say if they do not, no houses will be able to be sold.
If it means an improvement to customer information during disruption and engineering works, then this is a good thing. It's ridiculous that when you're arriving at Euston on the Victoria Line, you're told about issues with the Overground at Peckham Rye.
Question for PB nerds; is this really 'exciting' ?
Meta’s LLM for software testing work is super exciting.
This paper describes Meta’s TestGen-LLM tool, which uses LLMs to automatically improve existing human-written tests. TestGen-LLM verifies that its generated test classes successfully clear a set of filters that assure measurable improvement over the original test suite, thereby eliminating problems due to LLM hallucination. We describe the deployment of TestGen-LLM at Meta test-a-thons for the Instagram and Facebook platforms. In an evaluation on Reels and Stories products for Instagram, 75% of TestGen-LLM’s test cases built correctly, 57% passed reliably, and 25% increased coverage. During Meta’s Instagram and Facebook test-a-thons, it improved 11.5% of all classes to which it was applied, with 73% of its recommendations being accepted for production deployment by Meta software engineers. We believe this is the first report on industrial scale deployment of LLM-generated code backed by such assurances of code improvement. https://twitter.com/nathanbenaich/status/1758036247115608317
Yes. It means software vendors who do testing can do better testing. The rest probably still won't bother.
Interesting to note that the unemployment rate actually fell slightly in the latest quarter. Normally a recession is accompanied by an increase in unemployment. I guess the fall in GDP is fairly small and I guess the number of people being removed from the working/looking for works stats has fallen. Nevertheless, will be interesting to see if this changes.
The growth in employment in the UK has been a bit of a mystery for over a decade now in that it seems largely unrelated to the growth of the economy. We seem to have created a lot of "temporary" or casual jobs with the likes of Deliveroo and Uber without actually boosting output. It is one of the reasons our productivity figures are so abysmal. The lack of capital investment which could eliminate a lot of low paid jobs is another reason. It is cheaper, in the short term, for the employer to import cheap labour, especially when the State picks up so much of the tab.
The late Nigel Lawson once said unemployment wasn't an economic problem but a moral one in that it condemned people to miserable lives without any sense of self worth. We seem to be testing that analysis to an extreme in this country.
When people ask themselves, as they often do ahead of an election: do they feel better off than they were a year or two ago? …they now have a statistical answer: No.
Interesting to note that the unemployment rate actually fell slightly in the latest quarter. Normally a recession is accompanied by an increase in unemployment. I guess the fall in GDP is fairly small and I guess the number of people being removed from the working/looking for works stats has fallen. Nevertheless, will be interesting to see if this changes.
This is a function of the massive increase in the number of people on out-of-work benefits. Less tax revenue, bigger welfare bill.
Why does anyone believe anything the ONS puts out? They are headline seekers. These figures will be revised up without a big press realease in a years time.
I guess in your bubble Britain is booming. The energy and optimism is palpable. A young country, alive with possibilities driving confidently towards the future inspired by Sunak’s leadership.
Full employment, discretionary spending still seems high. When I left school in 1984 there were no jobs, now if you want a job you can have one. Do you think Boys from the Blackstuff could be made now. If you are a bricklayet you will be on £300 per day, no bother.
Is that true? There are an awful lot of unsuccessful job applicants about. Not everyone is a builder.
Mr. Jonathan, and before that we had PFI (which is working terribly well now) and ruining a great pensions system. Oh, and the worst recession we've ever had, in part due to replacing a competent regulatory system with the one Brown dreamt up. And an attempt to be able to detain people for 90 days.
The current government needs axing, and will duly be axed. But even during the Coalition, when most decisions were fairly good, we had the idiocy of no new nuclear (and sensible nuclear, not May's stupid, unproven Chinese daftness) because it'd take years to get ready. No shit. Infrastructure and long term planning doesn't pay off immediately, within range of an electoral cycle. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.
An improvement in basic competence is possible, though seeing Rayner as deputy PM will be tedious, but it won't be long before more mistakes are made as the political class continues to focus on an electoral cycle over long term benefits.
Good to see more and more people now talking about GDP per capita. It is the only figure that is relevant and has been ignored far too long.
The Tories currently deserve a Canada 1993 style election result so I wouldn't rule out the MRP.
The only reason the GDP figures aren’t even worse is because of immigration . Low productivity is the big problem in the UK .
As you know I’m pro immigration but there’s no denying that successive governments have covered up for a lack of infrastructure spending and investing in skills by using immigration to pad the GDP figures .
You’re right to highlight GDP per capita because that’s the figure which tells the true story .
As you know I'm pro-immigration too, but pro-immigration combined with pro-investment, and building the new towns, houses, schools, roads etc that we need to cope with extra people living in this country.
We should be looking to have high quality, high skills migrants who can add to the gaiety and success of the nation, not pad out the economy by doing jobs for minimum wage deflating our productivity.
I agree.
On demand immigration acts as a disincentive to companies investing in 1) capital investments that improve productivity, 2) training UK nationals as we can simply hire people trained abroad, which means the productivity of UK nationals does not improve.
There will be a lot of wailing from businesses about how their business model isn't viable without migration. Unless they are strategic priorities (e.g. housebuilding) they should be ignored.
(I'm pro migration too but we really need to be more strategic in what skills we need).
His it occurred to you that Brexit was an attempt by the people to stop the insane policies that are driving us to penury? It may have been a clumsy attempt, but it was the only lever we offered, we said Pull this lever, and things will change. So they pulled it
Before the vote sensible people told you if you pull this lever all this bad shit will happen.
And you pulled it
And yet per capita GDP decline is worse in France than it is in the United Kingdom.
The UK has problems it needs to sort out. They're not due to Brexit though.
Amusing as this outcome would be (the 2019 government deserves a tonking), it does depend on the Con-RefUK split being 22-10. Right now, there are polls saying that, and it's possible, but it's not consistent with what RefUK have been getting in real elections.
Wellingborough ought to be perfectly set up for them. If tomorrow's headlines aren't "Didn't Reform do Wellingborough?", what is their point, exactly?
Interesting to note that the unemployment rate actually fell slightly in the latest quarter. Normally a recession is accompanied by an increase in unemployment. I guess the fall in GDP is fairly small and I guess the number of people being removed from the working/looking for works stats has fallen. Nevertheless, will be interesting to see if this changes.
The growth in employment in the UK has been a bit of a mystery for over a decade now in that it seems largely unrelated to the growth of the economy. We seem to have created a lot of "temporary" or casual jobs with the likes of Deliveroo and Uber without actually boosting output. It is one of the reasons our productivity figures are so abysmal. The lack of capital investment which could eliminate a lot of low paid jobs is another reason. It is cheaper, in the short term, for the employer to import cheap labour, especially when the State picks up so much of the tab.
The late Nigel Lawson once said unemployment wasn't an economic problem but a moral one in that it condemned people to miserable lives without any sense of self worth. We seem to be testing that analysis to an extreme in this country.
Our economy absorbs economic stagnation through cuts in real wages now, rather than unemployment. Also why do many people in full-time work are on benefits.
(Yes, there are external factors, and decades worth of chickens coming home to roost. It's not fair to blame this government for everything. But politics isn't fair.)
It depends what you mean by "this" government. Rishi's ministry since 2022, post-Brexit Conservatism, or since 2010.
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Only 14 years? I'd go back around 140 myself. If not further.
Amusing as this outcome would be (the 2019 government deserves a tonking), it does depend on the Con-RefUK split being 22-10. Right now, there are polls saying that, and it's possible, but it's not consistent with what RefUK have been getting in real elections.
Wellingborough ought to be perfectly set up for them. If tomorrow's headlines aren't "Didn't Reform do Wellingborough?", what is their point, exactly?
It really doesn't.
It doesn't matter the Con-Refuk split is 22-10, 26-6, 30-2 or 32-0 if Labour is polling north of 40% then the Tories are heading for a hammering.
Talk to Tories privately and they are HORRIFIED and ashamed by what their own party has done to this country. They wouldn't vote for themselves. That's the bitter truth, @RishiSunak
One of the issues with developers, part 134234 of 234298097:
Cambridge University got planning permission to build their Eddington eyesore development in return for An S106 agreement, which included a swimming pool. And guess what? They haven't built it. In fact, they haven't even tried to get planning permission for one.
Force them to build it. Say if they do not, no houses will be able to be sold.
Yeah, we'll resolve the housing shortage by saying that houses can't be sold. 🤦♂️
S106 should be abolished, housing developers should be developing houses, no more and no less.
If you want a swimming pool, build a swimming pool, its got bugger all to do with houses.
No.
for one thing, it creates fraudulent sales. People would have bought houses believing that a swimming pool was likely; it now turns out that was a lie. And houses require infrastructure that someone needs to build; that's either the developers or the councils. And someone has to pay for that new infrastructure.
If you want to abolish S106, be prepared to pay more council and other taxes.
Poor leadership wouldn't have helped but the reason the Tories face wipeout is all here. Even if voters can stand the social consequences of their 2016 vote which is becomming more significant by the day the economic consequences are here for all to see. Johnson farage Cameron Cummings and 90% of present Tory MPs having shot themselves in the foot should now aim higher
I agree. I think Occam's Razor applies here. If it walks like a duck...
The Brexiteers will spin off into a million different directions trying to argue that it is absolutely nothing to do with Brexit. Our poor performance cannot possibly be anything to do with the absolute insanity of taking ourselves out of the Single Market and ending Freedom of Movement. The ever mounting pile of reports from think tanks, banks, universities, economists off all stripes, that argue, with clear robust evidence, that Brexit has caused huge, and lasting, economic damage well, they're all wrong.
Still, the rich citizens of nowhere who conned us into this are doing absolutely fine. So sod the rest of us, eh?
One of the issues with developers, part 134234 of 234298097:
Cambridge University got planning permission to build their Eddington eyesore development in return for An S106 agreement, which included a swimming pool. And guess what? They haven't built it. In fact, they haven't even tried to get planning permission for one.
Force them to build it. Say if they do not, no houses will be able to be sold.
Yeah, we'll resolve the housing shortage by saying that houses can't be sold. 🤦♂️
S106 should be abolished, housing developers should be developing houses, no more and no less.
If you want a swimming pool, build a swimming pool, its got bugger all to do with houses.
No.
for one thing, it creates fraudulent sales. People would have bought houses believing that a swimming pool was likely; it now turns out that was a lie. And houses require infrastructure that someone needs to build; that's either the developers or the councils. And someone has to pay for that new infrastructure.
If you want to abolish S106, be prepared to pay more council and other taxes.
Council facilities should be paid for out of Council or other taxes yes, not dumping the Council's responsibilities onto those who are struggling to afford a home of their own while others who already have a home of their own don't pay their taxes and get new facilities without having paid a penny towards them.
Those who are buying homes should be only paying for facilities if its going to be their own private facilities, not public ones.
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
If you're against migration why are you advocating it?
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
The difference between you and me is that I am pointing out that the government are accountable. They promised to deliver prosperity. They failed.
They need to be held to account. That’s democracy.
Amusing as this outcome would be (the 2019 government deserves a tonking), it does depend on the Con-RefUK split being 22-10. Right now, there are polls saying that, and it's possible, but it's not consistent with what RefUK have been getting in real elections.
Wellingborough ought to be perfectly set up for them. If tomorrow's headlines aren't "Didn't Reform do Wellingborough?", what is their point, exactly?
It really doesn't.
It doesn't matter the Con-Refuk split is 22-10, 26-6, 30-2 or 32-0 if Labour is polling north of 40% then the Tories are heading for a hammering.
Yes, but there's hammerings and hammerings.
Put all those Reform votes in the Conservative box (not going to happen) and the split is 42-33, pretty close to 1997/2001, not quite as bad, probably. A hammering, but the battered body survives to live another day.
If the split is 42-22, then the hammering is being done by Doug and Dinsdale Piranha's boys with a special hammer with a load of embedded blades.
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
Can you engage with what we would do instead of migration? We need skilled healthcare professionals and we're unwilling to train them or pay them properly. We need factory workers and care home staff and we're unwilling to pay them properly. We blame the people out of work but work doesn't pay and even if it did there's no childcare (either at all out of hours or at a viable cost) or public transport.
We can work to transition away from migration, but that means years of angry people like your good self spending public money on things you hate like training nurses or childcare for single mothers.
His it occurred to you that Brexit was an attempt by the people to stop the insane policies that are driving us to penury? It may have been a clumsy attempt, but it was the only lever we offered, we said Pull this lever, and things will change. So they pulled it
Before the vote sensible people told you if you pull this lever all this bad shit will happen.
And you pulled it
And yet per capita GDP decline is worse in France than it is in the United Kingdom.
The UK has problems it needs to sort out. They're not due to Brexit though.
Not true. French real GDP per capita is growing year on year, ours is declining. French real GDP growth was 0.7% year on year in Q4 and 0.9% for 2023 as a whole, while its population grew by just 0.3%.
Why does anyone believe anything the ONS puts out? They are headline seekers. These figures will be revised up without a big press realease in a years time.
I guess in your bubble Britain is booming. The energy and optimism is palpable. A young country, alive with possibilities driving confidently towards the future inspired by Sunak’s leadership.
Full employment, discretionary spending still seems high. When I left school in 1984 there were no jobs, now if you want a job you can have one. Do you think Boys from the Blackstuff could be made now. If you are a bricklayet you will be on £300 per day, no bother.
Is that true? There are an awful lot of unsuccessful job applicants about. Not everyone is a builder.
I know I live in the glorious South, but I just keep seeing business advertising for staff with signs outside their premises. Anything from cleaners to skilled technicians.
We currently have 4 vacancies for electricians and mechanical engineers and cannot fill them. £300 per day is now normal for decent tradesman and Site managers can get £400 per day.
A spark who went to school with my daughter and did his apprenticeship with us now works in London and earns £2400 per week at the age of 27 just as a basic spark.
Having expereinced recessions in the 1980s and 1990s and all the shit that came with them, the idea that we are in recession now its something I cannot accept. If you have any sort of skill or trade than your wages will be massively higher than they were 10 years ago.
Meanwhile, in "probably going to annoy all the right people" news, London Overground is getting a woke makeover;
Last August, Transport for London (TfL) announced it wanted to give the routes distinct identities to make it easier for passengers to navigate the network.
The services will become known as the Lioness line; the Mildmay line; the Windrush line; the Weaver line; the Suffragette line; and the Liberty line.
Makes sense practically, and Liberty for the Romford-Upminster line is neat. But I can hear blood vessels bursting form here.
I have never understood the lionisation of the Suffragettes:
1) They were terrorists, and actually pretty nasty ones including making some attempts to kill people (fortunately very inept ones, but still);
2) They were almost all very wealthy women and didn't like poor people;
3) Despite claims to the contrary, they not only failed but actually made it somewhat less likely that women would get the vote.
Why are the Suffragists, whose long and patient campaign the Pankhursts came within an ace of wrecking altogether, ignored and a bunch of stupid posh women who did a great deal of damage elevated instead?
Baffles me.
I pretty much agree - the Suffragette Line is bizarre.
Does it go past the places they tried to burn down? Or the scenes where they smashed windows or tried to hit Cabinet Ministers with hammers?
Coming soon: the London Riots line.
I can see at least two opposing columns in the Guardian about this.
Lets take a step back from the data and ask why we import "trillions" of migrants? What do they do in our economy?
Largely we can stick them into two buckets. The smaller group do the skilled jobs we decided not to train our own people to do. Would we be better to train more doctors and nurses than raid health systems of poorer countries? Yes - but we chose not to pay for it.
Other skilled jobs that we fill with migrants: marrying the Queen, singing lead vocals in Queen...
Poor leadership wouldn't have helped but the reason the Tories face wipeout is all here. Even if voters can stand the social consequences of their 2016 vote which is becomming more significant by the day the economic consequences are here for all to see. Johnson farage Cameron Cummings and 90% of present Tory MPs having shot themselves in the foot should now aim higher
I agree. I think Occam's Razor applies here. If it walks like a duck...
The Brexiteers will spin off into a million different directions trying to argue that it is absolutely nothing to do with Brexit. Our poor performance cannot possibly be anything to do with the absolute insanity of taking ourselves out of the Single Market and ending Freedom of Movement. The ever mounting pile of reports from think tanks, banks, universities, economists off all stripes, that argue, with clear robust evidence, that Brexit has caused huge, and lasting, economic damage well, they're all wrong.
Still, the rich citizens of nowhere who conned us into this are doing absolutely fine. So sod the rest of us, eh?
It is absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, the fact that things are even worse in France isn't a cheery thought and doesn't make anything better for us, but rather dismisses the notion this has anything to do with Brexit.
The reason we're struggling is almost solely due to a failure to invest and a resulting failure to boost productivity. We have increasing numbers of people using the same infrastructure we had in the past. To take just one example we've this century seen a 15% growth in population but only a 1% growth in roads (almost all local ones for our limited amount of new houses, not new strategic roads). We need major construction of new roads and other infrastructure that can enable productivity growth as has worked in the past.
We need to scale our infrastructure with our population. New houses, new roads, new rail, new everything else we are missing.
Its expensive, but so too is not having productivity, and its a capital expense not a current expense.
His it occurred to you that Brexit was an attempt by the people to stop the insane policies that are driving us to penury? It may have been a clumsy attempt, but it was the only lever we offered, we said Pull this lever, and things will change. So they pulled it
Yes. We told you at the time it would be counterproductive.
Has it occurred to you that you might have been wrong ?
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
The difference between you and me is that I am pointing out that the government are accountable. They promised to deliver prosperity. They failed.
They need to be held to account. That’s democracy.
Er, have I demanded the cessation of democracy? No
Personally I think the Tories should call the election tomorrow, they are heading for a deserved catastrophe, get it done
I'm saying that these problems are long term, chronic and getting worse - and our reliance on mass migration really is amongst the most significant of them - and I see no sign of Labour even comprehending what must be done, let alone doing it
But otherwise I agree with you. The government is accountable, they will be held to account. But then it is Labour's turn
Meanwhile, in "probably going to annoy all the right people" news, London Overground is getting a woke makeover;
Last August, Transport for London (TfL) announced it wanted to give the routes distinct identities to make it easier for passengers to navigate the network.
The services will become known as the Lioness line; the Mildmay line; the Windrush line; the Weaver line; the Suffragette line; and the Liberty line.
Makes sense practically, and Liberty for the Romford-Upminster line is neat. But I can hear blood vessels bursting form here.
I have never understood the lionisation of the Suffragettes:
1) They were terrorists, and actually pretty nasty ones including making some attempts to kill people (fortunately very inept ones, but still);
2) They were almost all very wealthy women and didn't like poor people;
3) Despite claims to the contrary, they not only failed but actually made it somewhat less likely that women would get the vote.
Why are the Suffragists, whose long and patient campaign the Pankhursts came within an ace of wrecking altogether, ignored and a bunch of stupid posh women who did a great deal of damage elevated instead?
Baffles me.
I think there are some deaths attributable to the Suffragettes' activity, people who died in fires they started.
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
Can you engage with what we would do instead of migration? We need skilled healthcare professionals and we're unwilling to train them or pay them properly. We need factory workers and care home staff and we're unwilling to pay them properly. We blame the people out of work but work doesn't pay and even if it did there's no childcare (either at all out of hours or at a viable cost) or public transport.
We can work to transition away from migration, but that means years of angry people like your good self spending public money on things you hate like training nurses or childcare for single mothers.
Can you engage with the counterfactual? If Blair hadn't opened the floodgates and set us on the path of becoming, as many people see it, dependent on mass immigration, is it possible that we would be in a better position now?
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
Can you engage with what we would do instead of migration? We need skilled healthcare professionals and we're unwilling to train them or pay them properly. We need factory workers and care home staff and we're unwilling to pay them properly. We blame the people out of work but work doesn't pay and even if it did there's no childcare (either at all out of hours or at a viable cost) or public transport.
We can work to transition away from migration, but that means years of angry people like your good self spending public money on things you hate like training nurses or childcare for single mothers.
No, I would stop mass migration tomorrow. End
We are like an addict, sometimes the only solution is cold turkey, however painful. Also - like a drug - migration is now actually harming us in and of itself (see: the rise in anti Semitism)
Talk to Tories privately and they are HORRIFIED and ashamed by what their own party has done to this country. They wouldn't vote for themselves. That's the bitter truth, @RishiSunak
Whisper it, and I'm not claiming this is typical, but I've heard card-carrying Conservatives wonder for the first time if our national malaise does not trace back to Thatcherism.
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
Can you engage with what we would do instead of migration? We need skilled healthcare professionals and we're unwilling to train them or pay them properly. We need factory workers and care home staff and we're unwilling to pay them properly. We blame the people out of work but work doesn't pay and even if it did there's no childcare (either at all out of hours or at a viable cost) or public transport.
We can work to transition away from migration, but that means years of angry people like your good self spending public money on things you hate like training nurses or childcare for single mothers.
Can you engage with the counterfactual? If Blair hadn't opened the floodgates and set us on the path of becoming, as many people see it, dependent on mass immigration, is it possible that we would be in a better position now?
My bare-bones take on this is that immigration can be good for individuals and a country - it's certainly been good for me personally.
But - and this is where we've utterly failed - it has to be *planned* immigration - and that means admitting there are real short- and medium-term costs. Not building infrastructure to cope with an increasing population is bad for everyone, and creates friction.
Talk to Tories privately and they are HORRIFIED and ashamed by what their own party has done to this country. They wouldn't vote for themselves. That's the bitter truth, @RishiSunak
Whisper it, and I'm not claiming this is typical, but I've heard card-carrying Conservatives wonder for the first time if our national malaise does not trace back to Thatcherism.
It's the right question to ask, but the answer is no. Blair inherited a golden economic legacy and our present malaise is his legacy. He promised New Britain, and this is it.
Curious article. After skating over a few pet peeves (NHS, littering) he spends the second half focussing on anti-Semitism. Now, it's a wicked bigotry, but we've hardly had Kristallnacht and Britain doesn't live or die because a few idiots in its midst are racists. What's going on here?
Poor leadership wouldn't have helped but the reason the Tories face wipeout is all here. Even if voters can stand the social consequences of their 2016 vote which is becomming more significant by the day the economic consequences are here for all to see. Johnson farage Cameron Cummings and 90% of present Tory MPs having shot themselves in the foot should now aim higher
I agree. I think Occam's Razor applies here. If it walks like a duck...
The Brexiteers will spin off into a million different directions trying to argue that it is absolutely nothing to do with Brexit. Our poor performance cannot possibly be anything to do with the absolute insanity of taking ourselves out of the Single Market and ending Freedom of Movement. The ever mounting pile of reports from think tanks, banks, universities, economists off all stripes, that argue, with clear robust evidence, that Brexit has caused huge, and lasting, economic damage well, they're all wrong.
Still, the rich citizens of nowhere who conned us into this are doing absolutely fine. So sod the rest of us, eh?
It is absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, the fact that things are even worse in France isn't a cheery thought and doesn't make anything better for us, but rather dismisses the notion this has anything to do with Brexit.
The reason we're struggling is almost solely due to a failure to invest and a resulting failure to boost productivity. We have increasing numbers of people using the same infrastructure we had in the past. To take just one example we've this century seen a 15% growth in population but only a 1% growth in roads (almost all local ones for our limited amount of new houses, not new strategic roads). We need major construction of new roads and other infrastructure that can enable productivity growth as has worked in the past.
We need to scale our infrastructure with our population. New houses, new roads, new rail, new everything else we are missing.
Its expensive, but so too is not having productivity, and its a capital expense not a current expense.
You will have to provide a citation for this "fall in French GDP per capita" and "France doing even worse than us" because, like others, I am not seeing it in the data
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
Can you engage with what we would do instead of migration? We need skilled healthcare professionals and we're unwilling to train them or pay them properly. We need factory workers and care home staff and we're unwilling to pay them properly. We blame the people out of work but work doesn't pay and even if it did there's no childcare (either at all out of hours or at a viable cost) or public transport.
We can work to transition away from migration, but that means years of angry people like your good self spending public money on things you hate like training nurses or childcare for single mothers.
Can you engage with the counterfactual? If Blair hadn't opened the floodgates and set us on the path of becoming, as many people see it, dependent on mass immigration, is it possible that we would be in a better position now?
My bare-bones take on this is that immigration can be good for individuals and a country - it's certainly been good for me personally.
But - and this is where we've utterly failed - it has to be *planned* immigration - and that means admitting there are real short- and medium-term costs. Not building infrastructure to cope with an increasing population is bad for everyone, and creates friction.
Agreed. The amount of time we spend talking about immigration, compared to things that matter a whole lot more (and are more interesting) is quite remarkable. Some people on here have an obsession with it that is quite bizarre.
Curious article. After skating over a few pet peeves (NHS, littering) he spends the second half focussing on anti-Semitism. Now, it's a wicked bigotry, but we've hardly had Kristallnacht and Britain doesn't live or die because a few idiots in its midst are racists. What's going on here?
Gotta find something negative that can be blamed on labour
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
Can you engage with what we would do instead of migration? We need skilled healthcare professionals and we're unwilling to train them or pay them properly. We need factory workers and care home staff and we're unwilling to pay them properly. We blame the people out of work but work doesn't pay and even if it did there's no childcare (either at all out of hours or at a viable cost) or public transport.
We can work to transition away from migration, but that means years of angry people like your good self spending public money on things you hate like training nurses or childcare for single mothers.
This is a pathetically weak argument.
If we need workers, we have to pay them the going rate. That's the very most fundamental law of economics, supply and demand.
Its not possible to say we need workers and are unwilling to pay them properly, that's an impossibility, either we're not willing to pay them properly so we won't have those workers - in which case the employer either invests in productivity or automation to eliminate those jobs - or we need those workers, in which case the invisible hand will work to see pay rises until supply and demand reach an equilibrium.
Migration doesn't long-term or even medium-term solve labour "shortages" either since all those new people need new infrastructure and create new demand which increases jobs. Jobs scale with population, migrants are never either necessary for filling jobs, nor do they "steal" jobs, both are a myth. They add supply and demand simultaneously.
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
The difference between you and me is that I am pointing out that the government are accountable. They promised to deliver prosperity. They failed.
They need to be held to account. That’s democracy.
Er, have I demanded the cessation of democracy? No
Personally I think the Tories should call the election tomorrow, they are heading for a deserved catastrophe, get it done
I'm saying that these problems are long term, chronic and getting worse - and our reliance on mass migration really is amongst the most significant of them - and I see no sign of Labour even comprehending what must be done, let alone doing it
But otherwise I agree with you. The government is accountable, they will be held to account. But then it is Labour's turn
I don’t think there is any point in “blaming “ abstract concepts like immigration, but you can hold politicians to account.
On immigration, this government prioritises slogans and headlines, rather than offering political leadership and solutions.
Why does anyone believe anything the ONS puts out? They are headline seekers. These figures will be revised up without a big press realease in a years time.
I guess in your bubble Britain is booming. The energy and optimism is palpable. A young country, alive with possibilities driving confidently towards the future inspired by Sunak’s leadership.
Full employment, discretionary spending still seems high. When I left school in 1984 there were no jobs, now if you want a job you can have one. Do you think Boys from the Blackstuff could be made now. If you are a bricklayet you will be on £300 per day, no bother.
Is that true? There are an awful lot of unsuccessful job applicants about. Not everyone is a builder.
I know I live in the glorious South, but I just keep seeing business advertising for staff with signs outside their premises. Anything from cleaners to skilled technicians.
We currently have 4 vacancies for electricians and mechanical engineers and cannot fill them. £300 per day is now normal for decent tradesman and Site managers can get £400 per day.
A spark who went to school with my daughter and did his apprenticeship with us now works in London and earns £2400 per week at the age of 27 just as a basic spark.
Having expereinced recessions in the 1980s and 1990s and all the shit that came with them, the idea that we are in recession now its something I cannot accept. If you have any sort of skill or trade than your wages will be massively higher than they were 10 years ago.
Yes but you do not have to look far for people complaining they cannot get jobs. I wonder if this is because employers are looking for unicorns and dismissing applicants who fit only 80 per cent of their requirements.
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
Can you engage with what we would do instead of migration? We need skilled healthcare professionals and we're unwilling to train them or pay them properly. We need factory workers and care home staff and we're unwilling to pay them properly. We blame the people out of work but work doesn't pay and even if it did there's no childcare (either at all out of hours or at a viable cost) or public transport.
We can work to transition away from migration, but that means years of angry people like your good self spending public money on things you hate like training nurses or childcare for single mothers.
Can you engage with the counterfactual? If Blair hadn't opened the floodgates and set us on the path of becoming, as many people see it, dependent on mass immigration, is it possible that we would be in a better position now?
My bare-bones take on this is that immigration can be good for individuals and a country - it's certainly been good for me personally.
But - and this is where we've utterly failed - it has to be *planned* immigration - and that means admitting there are real short- and medium-term costs. Not building infrastructure to cope with an increasing population is bad for everyone, and creates friction.
Agreed. The amount of time we spend talking about immigration, compared to things that matter a whole lot more (and are more interesting) is quite remarkable. Some people on here have an obsession with it that is quite bizarre.
FFS so many of our problems- crushed infra, sewage, health, roads, everything - are because we are importing 700,000 people a year. 1% of the population a year, every year, a higher rate than ever entered the USA at the peak of Ellis Island
Not only is this a huge burden on all our infrastructure and public services, a burden we cannot afford, it creates massive social problems: see the explosion in anti-Semitism
I get that you are married to a lovely Sri Lankan lady and don't like to think migration is an issue, but, I am afraid, your happy personal circumstances - and good luck to you - do not annul the facts
Poor leadership wouldn't have helped but the reason the Tories face wipeout is all here. Even if voters can stand the social consequences of their 2016 vote which is becomming more significant by the day the economic consequences are here for all to see. Johnson farage Cameron Cummings and 90% of present Tory MPs having shot themselves in the foot should now aim higher
I agree. I think Occam's Razor applies here. If it walks like a duck...
The Brexiteers will spin off into a million different directions trying to argue that it is absolutely nothing to do with Brexit. Our poor performance cannot possibly be anything to do with the absolute insanity of taking ourselves out of the Single Market and ending Freedom of Movement. The ever mounting pile of reports from think tanks, banks, universities, economists off all stripes, that argue, with clear robust evidence, that Brexit has caused huge, and lasting, economic damage well, they're all wrong.
Still, the rich citizens of nowhere who conned us into this are doing absolutely fine. So sod the rest of us, eh?
It is absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, the fact that things are even worse in France isn't a cheery thought and doesn't make anything better for us, but rather dismisses the notion this has anything to do with Brexit.
The reason we're struggling is almost solely due to a failure to invest and a resulting failure to boost productivity. We have increasing numbers of people using the same infrastructure we had in the past. To take just one example we've this century seen a 15% growth in population but only a 1% growth in roads (almost all local ones for our limited amount of new houses, not new strategic roads). We need major construction of new roads and other infrastructure that can enable productivity growth as has worked in the past.
We need to scale our infrastructure with our population. New houses, new roads, new rail, new everything else we are missing.
Its expensive, but so too is not having productivity, and its a capital expense not a current expense.
You will have to provide a citation for this "fall in French GDP per capita" and "France doing even worse than us" because, like others, I am not seeing it in the data
Evidence?
World Bank data.
Only goes to 2022 to be fair, 2023 data is in flux and not especially reliable but even adding in the 2023 data it doesn't change the big picture of the last few years. Western Europe is struggling across the board and its not a uniquely British phenomenon.
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
Can you engage with what we would do instead of migration? We need skilled healthcare professionals and we're unwilling to train them or pay them properly. We need factory workers and care home staff and we're unwilling to pay them properly. We blame the people out of work but work doesn't pay and even if it did there's no childcare (either at all out of hours or at a viable cost) or public transport.
We can work to transition away from migration, but that means years of angry people like your good self spending public money on things you hate like training nurses or childcare for single mothers.
No, I would stop mass migration tomorrow. End
We are like an addict, sometimes the only solution is cold turkey, however painful. Also - like a drug - migration is now actually harming us in and of itself (see: the rise in anti Semitism)
If you end immigration you can say goodbye to the City and indeed all high productivity service firms who operate internationally and hire talent from all over the world. This will be an extinction level event for the UK economy. And no doubt when it all goes tits up you will be telling everyone to emigrate, with no sense of irony.
Talk to Tories privately and they are HORRIFIED and ashamed by what their own party has done to this country. They wouldn't vote for themselves. That's the bitter truth, @RishiSunak
Whisper it, and I'm not claiming this is typical, but I've heard card-carrying Conservatives wonder for the first time if our national malaise does not trace back to Thatcherism.
Few reforming times don't have downsides. Some from the Thatcher era: selling social housing, fine. Failing to replace it: disaster. Use of private enterprise, fine; failing to have state led strategic policy for control and ownership of national assets: less fine. Freeing up financial services, fine. Turning retail banking into a casino, sub optimal. Closing coal mines - as the future has accidentally shown - fine; failing to have policies to renew their localities; disaster. Stopping local authorities being quasi alternative governments, fine; marginalising local and civic government, terrible.
Labour, of course , have had years to put all this right, 1997-2010. How is that project getting on?
His it occurred to you that Brexit was an attempt by the people to stop the insane policies that are driving us to penury? It may have been a clumsy attempt, but it was the only lever we offered, we said Pull this lever, and things will change. So they pulled it
Before the vote sensible people told you if you pull this lever all this bad shit will happen.
And you pulled it
And yet per capita GDP decline is worse in France than it is in the United Kingdom.
The UK has problems it needs to sort out. They're not due to Brexit though.
Poor leadership wouldn't have helped but the reason the Tories face wipeout is all here. Even if voters can stand the social consequences of their 2016 vote which is becomming more significant by the day the economic consequences are here for all to see. Johnson farage Cameron Cummings and 90% of present Tory MPs having shot themselves in the foot should now aim higher
I agree. I think Occam's Razor applies here. If it walks like a duck...
The Brexiteers will spin off into a million different directions trying to argue that it is absolutely nothing to do with Brexit. Our poor performance cannot possibly be anything to do with the absolute insanity of taking ourselves out of the Single Market and ending Freedom of Movement. The ever mounting pile of reports from think tanks, banks, universities, economists off all stripes, that argue, with clear robust evidence, that Brexit has caused huge, and lasting, economic damage well, they're all wrong.
Still, the rich citizens of nowhere who conned us into this are doing absolutely fine. So sod the rest of us, eh?
It is absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, the fact that things are even worse in France isn't a cheery thought and doesn't make anything better for us, but rather dismisses the notion this has anything to do with Brexit.
The reason we're struggling is almost solely due to a failure to invest and a resulting failure to boost productivity. We have increasing numbers of people using the same infrastructure we had in the past. To take just one example we've this century seen a 15% growth in population but only a 1% growth in roads (almost all local ones for our limited amount of new houses, not new strategic roads). We need major construction of new roads and other infrastructure that can enable productivity growth as has worked in the past.
We need to scale our infrastructure with our population. New houses, new roads, new rail, new everything else we are missing.
Its expensive, but so too is not having productivity, and its a capital expense not a current expense.
You will have to provide a citation for this "fall in French GDP per capita" and "France doing even worse than us" because, like others, I am not seeing it in the data
Evidence?
World Bank data.
Only goes to 2022 to be fair, 2023 data is in flux and not especially reliable but even adding in the 2023 data it doesn't change the big picture of the last few years. Western Europe is struggling across the board and its not a uniquely British phenomenon.
This is nominal GDP in USD and so reflects currency movements and inflation. Better to look at real GDP per capita, where France is going up and we are going down.
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
Can you engage with what we would do instead of migration? We need skilled healthcare professionals and we're unwilling to train them or pay them properly. We need factory workers and care home staff and we're unwilling to pay them properly. We blame the people out of work but work doesn't pay and even if it did there's no childcare (either at all out of hours or at a viable cost) or public transport.
We can work to transition away from migration, but that means years of angry people like your good self spending public money on things you hate like training nurses or childcare for single mothers.
Can you engage with the counterfactual? If Blair hadn't opened the floodgates and set us on the path of becoming, as many people see it, dependent on mass immigration, is it possible that we would be in a better position now?
We would be in a much worse position. Our population would on average be much older, we would have had much less growth through the Labour years.
Talk to Tories privately and they are HORRIFIED and ashamed by what their own party has done to this country. They wouldn't vote for themselves. That's the bitter truth, @RishiSunak
Whisper it, and I'm not claiming this is typical, but I've heard card-carrying Conservatives wonder for the first time if our national malaise does not trace back to Thatcherism.
It's the right question to ask, but the answer is no. Blair inherited a golden economic legacy and our present malaise is his legacy. He created promised New Britain, and this is it.
Not quite. Thatcherism adjusted Britain to function in a globalised world and to defend against the Soviets in an Atlantic and European war (the Falklands happened because they withdrew resources to do this and the Argies pounced). But both the globalisation and the militarisation presumed flourishing UK industries and globalisation hollowed them out. Our economy has devolved into importing millions of people per decade to provide foreigners with a profit whilst building smaller and smaller concrete boxes to live in whilst 10-15 million elderly die inch by inch and their grandchildren can't buy homes nor get laid.
In short, the neoliberalism age lasted from about 1975ish to about 2015ish, and until we internalise this and start producing new solutions to fit our current circs, we will keep going wrong and get worse.
Brexit is 100% going to get the blame and it would be wise to start to come to terms with that.
So what?
Brexit has happened. Blaming something falsely may make you feel good, and give you warm and fuzzy feelings inside, but it won't change what has happened and if its the wrong thing you're blaming it won't make anything better.
To make anything better you need to identify the actual problem. The actual problem is that our productivity is crap, and we're not investing in capital infrastructure to improve it while spending all our money on current expenditure.
If we don't fix the real problem, we won't have a real solution.
His it occurred to you that Brexit was an attempt by the people to stop the insane policies that are driving us to penury? It may have been a clumsy attempt, but it was the only lever we offered, we said Pull this lever, and things will change. So they pulled it
Before the vote sensible people told you if you pull this lever all this bad shit will happen.
And you pulled it
And yet per capita GDP decline is worse in France than it is in the United Kingdom.
The UK has problems it needs to sort out. They're not due to Brexit though.
of course not...
Could it be that Brexit damaged both the U.K. and the EU? You end a marriage, both parties suffer.
Britain is in the state it’s in because for 14 years we’ve been governed by politicians who definition of success is a headline in the Mail/Telegraph/Spectator and a quick buck for their mates.
Basically, we are all going to blame our own pet peeves for this miserable state of affairs
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
Can you engage with what we would do instead of migration? We need skilled healthcare professionals and we're unwilling to train them or pay them properly. We need factory workers and care home staff and we're unwilling to pay them properly. We blame the people out of work but work doesn't pay and even if it did there's no childcare (either at all out of hours or at a viable cost) or public transport.
We can work to transition away from migration, but that means years of angry people like your good self spending public money on things you hate like training nurses or childcare for single mothers.
Can you engage with the counterfactual? If Blair hadn't opened the floodgates and set us on the path of becoming, as many people see it, dependent on mass immigration, is it possible that we would be in a better position now?
We would be in a much worse position. Our population would on average be much older, we would have had much less growth through the Labour years.
The 'growth' we had during the Labour years was illusory, as the crash and subsequent stagnation shows.
Poor leadership wouldn't have helped but the reason the Tories face wipeout is all here. Even if voters can stand the social consequences of their 2016 vote which is becomming more significant by the day the economic consequences are here for all to see. Johnson farage Cameron Cummings and 90% of present Tory MPs having shot themselves in the foot should now aim higher
I agree. I think Occam's Razor applies here. If it walks like a duck...
The Brexiteers will spin off into a million different directions trying to argue that it is absolutely nothing to do with Brexit. Our poor performance cannot possibly be anything to do with the absolute insanity of taking ourselves out of the Single Market and ending Freedom of Movement. The ever mounting pile of reports from think tanks, banks, universities, economists off all stripes, that argue, with clear robust evidence, that Brexit has caused huge, and lasting, economic damage well, they're all wrong.
Still, the rich citizens of nowhere who conned us into this are doing absolutely fine. So sod the rest of us, eh?
It is absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, the fact that things are even worse in France isn't a cheery thought and doesn't make anything better for us, but rather dismisses the notion this has anything to do with Brexit.
The reason we're struggling is almost solely due to a failure to invest and a resulting failure to boost productivity. We have increasing numbers of people using the same infrastructure we had in the past. To take just one example we've this century seen a 15% growth in population but only a 1% growth in roads (almost all local ones for our limited amount of new houses, not new strategic roads). We need major construction of new roads and other infrastructure that can enable productivity growth as has worked in the past.
We need to scale our infrastructure with our population. New houses, new roads, new rail, new everything else we are missing.
Its expensive, but so too is not having productivity, and its a capital expense not a current expense.
You will have to provide a citation for this "fall in French GDP per capita" and "France doing even worse than us" because, like others, I am not seeing it in the data
Evidence?
World Bank data.
Only goes to 2022 to be fair, 2023 data is in flux and not especially reliable but even adding in the 2023 data it doesn't change the big picture of the last few years. Western Europe is struggling across the board and its not a uniquely British phenomenon.
Isn't that just fluctuation in FX rates?
But fair enough for at least providing SOME evidence
I see there are plenty of posters on here today who are almost ecstatic about this news, and enthusiastically showing their tribalism in all its glory.
That's also depressing. No-one should be cheering such news or using it as a chance to flip the pissing contest.
Comments
Now is the time to strike. A bit of optimism, things can only get less worse.
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/goldman-sachs-says-brexit-is-costing-us-5-of-gdp-how-long-can-this-disaster-go-on/
Growth that is not per capita growth is meaningless.
https://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/private-flats-taken-off-market-and-set-up-for-afghan-refugees
589% increase in number of incidents described as ‘watershed moment for antisemitism in the UK’
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/feb/15/huge-rise-in-antisemitic-abuse-in-uk-since-hamas-attack-says-charity
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68292469
https://twitter.com/volcaholic1/status/1757834618441466264
Nitpicking over whether the UK has actually gone into recession or not is a trap for the Tories. Just reminds everyone that there is zero growth.
So, in 3...2...1...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68296483
More work for Sunil. More triggers for anti-woke campaigners.
We should be looking to have high quality, high skills migrants who can add to the gaiety and success of the nation, not pad out the economy by doing jobs for minimum wage deflating our productivity.
Brexit was, inter alia, a major demand from the people to drastically reduce immigration, stop all illegal migration, and get back to making Britons - the native people - wealthier, not just enlarging the economy with endless cheap labour, and forgetting about per capita wealth
So what did the Tories do? They actually increased immigration, amongst many many many stupid things (they deserve their coming wipe out), and they failed to tackle illegal migration in the most conspicuous way imaginable, they could not stop an invasion of boats and now they are spending tens of billions a year to house these "Christian asylum seekers" even as actual Brits beg for homes
We are concocting the perfect recipe for something extremely nasty
"The first published estimates suggested that the economy had shrunk by 0.5% in late 2011 and early 2012. But when more data came in, it turned out that the economy had actually grown by 1% in that period."
Cambridge University got planning permission to build their Eddington eyesore development in return for An S106 agreement, which included a swimming pool. And guess what? They haven't built it. In fact, they haven't even tried to get planning permission for one.
Force them to build it. Say if they do not, no houses will be able to be sold.
https://www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk/news/why-hopes-of-new-swimming-pool-built-by-university-of-cambri-9352581/
https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=368885
Cuba, a socialist country regarded by North Korea as one of its most trusted allies, made an unexpected announcement on Wednesday that it restored diplomatic relations with South Korea after 65 years, a move that some experts described as "a shocking decision" for Pyongyang.
Representatives from Seoul and Havana met in New York to sign an agreement to establish formal diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level, marking a significant step after ties were severed in 1959.
Experts told The Korea Times on Thursday that the diplomatic shift of the Caribbean island nation, given its historical ties with North Korea and special status as an "anti-U.S. role model," would likely have a considerable impact on Pyongyang's ruling elite.
"The decision by Cuba is the biggest diplomatic failure since Kim Jong-un took power (in late 2011)," said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, a think tank...
it’s certainly true that PPP disparities mean someone already relatively well off in the uk context can live a kingly existence in much of the world. But it’s often quite fragile. Does the uk have social and economic problems? Sure, it always has, just like everywhere. Some things get better, some get worse. But there is a reason why so many migrants want to move here and it ain’t for the dole.
Will consumers draw in their spending even more in fear of things getting worse? Then the snowball effect starts...
And you pulled it
S106 should be abolished, housing developers should be developing houses, no more and no less.
If you want a swimming pool, build a swimming pool, its got bugger all to do with houses.
The late Nigel Lawson once said unemployment wasn't an economic problem but a moral one in that it condemned people to miserable lives without any sense of self worth. We seem to be testing that analysis to an extreme in this country.
Ed Conway
@EdConwaySky
·
26m
When people ask themselves, as they often do ahead of an election: do they feel better off than they were a year or two ago?
…they now have a statistical answer: No.
Mr. Jonathan, and before that we had PFI (which is working terribly well now) and ruining a great pensions system. Oh, and the worst recession we've ever had, in part due to replacing a competent regulatory system with the one Brown dreamt up. And an attempt to be able to detain people for 90 days.
The current government needs axing, and will duly be axed. But even during the Coalition, when most decisions were fairly good, we had the idiocy of no new nuclear (and sensible nuclear, not May's stupid, unproven Chinese daftness) because it'd take years to get ready. No shit. Infrastructure and long term planning doesn't pay off immediately, within range of an electoral cycle. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.
An improvement in basic competence is possible, though seeing Rayner as deputy PM will be tedious, but it won't be long before more mistakes are made as the political class continues to focus on an electoral cycle over long term benefits.
On demand immigration acts as a disincentive to companies investing in 1) capital investments that improve productivity, 2) training UK nationals as we can simply hire people trained abroad, which means the productivity of UK nationals does not improve.
There will be a lot of wailing from businesses about how their business model isn't viable without migration. Unless they are strategic priorities (e.g. housebuilding) they should be ignored.
(I'm pro migration too but we really need to be more strategic in what skills we need).
The UK has problems it needs to sort out. They're not due to Brexit though.
Amusing as this outcome would be (the 2019 government deserves a tonking), it does depend on the Con-RefUK split being 22-10. Right now, there are polls saying that, and it's possible, but it's not consistent with what RefUK have been getting in real elections.
Wellingborough ought to be perfectly set up for them. If tomorrow's headlines aren't "Didn't Reform do Wellingborough?", what is their point, exactly?
I will blame mass immigration: very much starting under Labour
You will blame 14 years of Tory government
@Scott_xP will blame Brexit
@Anabobazina will blame the continued use of cash
@isam will blame Keir Starmer
@Carnyx will blame England
@isthisthewaywego will blame himself for only having commented once
And so on
Well, we will soon find out. Labour will be in power and they will have to fix this shit. I predict they will be a modest failure, the country will not collapse but we will continue the decline. Hence my advice to Brits: get out
It doesn't matter the Con-Refuk split is 22-10, 26-6, 30-2 or 32-0 if Labour is polling north of 40% then the Tories are heading for a hammering.
@IsabelOakeshott
Talk to Tories privately and they are HORRIFIED and ashamed by what their own party has done to this country. They wouldn't vote for themselves. That's the bitter truth, @RishiSunak
for one thing, it creates fraudulent sales. People would have bought houses believing that a swimming pool was likely; it now turns out that was a lie. And houses require infrastructure that someone needs to build; that's either the developers or the councils. And someone has to pay for that new infrastructure.
If you want to abolish S106, be prepared to pay more council and other taxes.
The Brexiteers will spin off into a million different directions trying to argue that it is absolutely nothing to do with Brexit. Our poor performance cannot possibly be anything to do with the absolute insanity of taking ourselves out of the Single Market and ending Freedom of Movement. The ever mounting pile of reports from think tanks, banks, universities, economists off all stripes, that argue, with clear robust evidence, that Brexit has caused huge, and lasting, economic damage well, they're all wrong.
Still, the rich citizens of nowhere who conned us into this are doing absolutely fine. So sod the rest of us, eh?
Those who are buying homes should be only paying for facilities if its going to be their own private facilities, not public ones.
They need to be held to account. That’s democracy.
Put all those Reform votes in the Conservative box (not going to happen) and the split is 42-33, pretty close to 1997/2001, not quite as bad, probably. A hammering, but the battered body survives to live another day.
If the split is 42-22, then the hammering is being done by Doug and Dinsdale Piranha's boys with a special hammer with a load of embedded blades.
That is fuck all to do with Brexit
We can work to transition away from migration, but that means years of angry people like your good self spending public money on things you hate like training nurses or childcare for single mothers.
We currently have 4 vacancies for electricians and mechanical engineers and cannot fill them.
£300 per day is now normal for decent tradesman and Site managers can get £400 per day.
A spark who went to school with my daughter and did his apprenticeship with us now works in London and earns £2400 per week at the age of 27 just as a basic spark.
Having expereinced recessions in the 1980s and 1990s and all the shit that came with them, the idea that we are in recession now its something I cannot accept. If you have any sort of skill or trade than your wages will be massively higher than they were 10 years ago.
Does it go past the places they tried to burn down? Or the scenes where they smashed windows or tried to hit Cabinet Ministers with hammers?
Coming soon: the London Riots line.
I can see at least two opposing columns in the Guardian about this.
The reason we're struggling is almost solely due to a failure to invest and a resulting failure to boost productivity. We have increasing numbers of people using the same infrastructure we had in the past. To take just one example we've this century seen a 15% growth in population but only a 1% growth in roads (almost all local ones for our limited amount of new houses, not new strategic roads). We need major construction of new roads and other infrastructure that can enable productivity growth as has worked in the past.
We need to scale our infrastructure with our population. New houses, new roads, new rail, new everything else we are missing.
Its expensive, but so too is not having productivity, and its a capital expense not a current expense.
We told you at the time it would be counterproductive.
Has it occurred to you that you might have been wrong ?
Personally I think the Tories should call the election tomorrow, they are heading for a deserved catastrophe, get it done
I'm saying that these problems are long term, chronic and getting worse - and our reliance on mass migration really is amongst the most significant of them - and I see no sign of Labour even comprehending what must be done, let alone doing it
But otherwise I agree with you. The government is accountable, they will be held to account. But then it is Labour's turn
Betting post: The value is in the Tories losing 0-49, 50-99 seats.
We are like an addict, sometimes the only solution is cold turkey, however painful. Also - like a drug - migration is now actually harming us in and of itself (see: the rise in anti Semitism)
The only reason we aren’t in a full recession is that the population has increased so much it’s masked the fall in your personal share.
But - and this is where we've utterly failed - it has to be *planned* immigration - and that means admitting there are real short- and medium-term costs. Not building infrastructure to cope with an increasing population is bad for everyone, and creates friction.
Evidence?
I'd forgotten it was by-election day - following Trump-on-the-skids a little closely yesterday.
If we need workers, we have to pay them the going rate. That's the very most fundamental law of economics, supply and demand.
Its not possible to say we need workers and are unwilling to pay them properly, that's an impossibility, either we're not willing to pay them properly so we won't have those workers - in which case the employer either invests in productivity or automation to eliminate those jobs - or we need those workers, in which case the invisible hand will work to see pay rises until supply and demand reach an equilibrium.
Migration doesn't long-term or even medium-term solve labour "shortages" either since all those new people need new infrastructure and create new demand which increases jobs. Jobs scale with population, migrants are never either necessary for filling jobs, nor do they "steal" jobs, both are a myth. They add supply and demand simultaneously.
On immigration, this government prioritises slogans and headlines, rather than offering political leadership and solutions.
Getting a headline is not “job done”.
Not only is this a huge burden on all our infrastructure and public services, a burden we cannot afford, it creates massive social problems: see the explosion in anti-Semitism
I get that you are married to a lovely Sri Lankan lady and don't like to think migration is an issue, but, I am afraid, your happy personal circumstances - and good luck to you - do not annul the facts
Only goes to 2022 to be fair, 2023 data is in flux and not especially reliable but even adding in the 2023 data it doesn't change the big picture of the last few years. Western Europe is struggling across the board and its not a uniquely British phenomenon.
Use of private enterprise, fine; failing to have state led strategic policy for control and ownership of national assets: less fine.
Freeing up financial services, fine. Turning retail banking into a casino, sub optimal. Closing coal mines - as the future has accidentally shown - fine; failing to have policies to renew their localities; disaster. Stopping local authorities being quasi alternative governments, fine; marginalising local and civic government, terrible.
Labour, of course , have had years to put all this right, 1997-2010. How is that project getting on?
In short, the neoliberalism age lasted from about 1975ish to about 2015ish, and until we internalise this and start producing new solutions to fit our current circs, we will keep going wrong and get worse.
Brexit has happened. Blaming something falsely may make you feel good, and give you warm and fuzzy feelings inside, but it won't change what has happened and if its the wrong thing you're blaming it won't make anything better.
To make anything better you need to identify the actual problem. The actual problem is that our productivity is crap, and we're not investing in capital infrastructure to improve it while spending all our money on current expenditure.
If we don't fix the real problem, we won't have a real solution.
But fair enough for at least providing SOME evidence
That's also depressing. No-one should be cheering such news or using it as a chance to flip the pissing contest.