Plaid come out against the Speaker and 86 have signed the notice confidence motion
Not sure where this is going
Get rid of him. Install a speaker with a spine who won’t keep getting rolled over. I think I posted this a year ago, and the facts havn’t changed. I don’t like him.
Though the pressure speaker was put under last week is complicated, if minor opposition parties are merely shameless opportunists like the SNP. Imagine if shinfayn IRA took up their seats to cause as much mischief and shameless opportunism as they absolutely could - it would be identical to this SNP bloc.
The SNP in parliament are just opportunists, and see the events in Gaza as a means of stopping Labour’s advance in Scotland. Their motion was designed to make it hard for the Labour frontbench to support (with references to Israel inflicting “collective punishment”) but hard for Labour MPs not to support as failure to walk through the SNP’s lobbies would be portrayed as failing to back a ceasefire. This left Labour cornered, with the risk of Shadow Cabinet resignations and many more accusations and genuinely damaging evidence of Sir Keir Starmer flip-flopping if he changed approach. At this point, Labour came up with a wheeze: produce their own motion that backs a ceasefire, but presents it in a more balanced way. Labour MPs could then say that they had voted for a ceasefire without defying their whips. The problem is that this motion, the sane one to bring members of all parties to speak as one for Britain, would not normally be called by the Speaker. So Follow convention, even though SNP are bastardising convention and don’t care a toss about London Parliament just taking the piss, or do the right thing and try to make the vote on something MPs across the house could honestly support without feeling under pressure from the extremists that the home office and government are allowing to mass outside the building?
Even a speaker with a backbone would have found it a tough day if the MPs come intent to act like a rabble.
Hmm. It's not the SNP who wrecked convention. And you are denying members of parliament of the UK any valid agency. You're not being a good unionist.
“You're not being a good unionist.”
You piss taking joker! In what way have SNP come to London Parliament to be good unionists? 🤣 They deserve every slap down their trouble making deserves!
Make me speaker.
You believe in the union, presumably - so that means all MPs of all parties are treated equally. All of them.
The moment that rule is breached - the union is heading down the plughole. Because some constituents have their voted-in MP treated as second class.
It's as simple as that. The SNP were not allowed to have their opposition day because it did not suit another party. And the Speaker grovelled to the other party. No longer neutral.
Now, extend that to PC. The LDs, Greens, any minority party, including the Tories after the election (probably). See?
🤣 oh dear. That is so desperate.
“ that means all MPs of all parties are treated equally‘
If they come on loudly stated mission to try and disrupt and break that system, they deserve zero respect and help from that system in breaking it.
What else do you expect when you come on such a mission? 😂
If only they had the respect for the system like wot Lab does.
But the SNP have made clear publicly and smugly, they haven’t come to London Parliament with any goodwill, to play ball and try to achieve good - merely to be disrupters, makers of mischief and chaos.
What sort of mindset of people doesn’t have any beliefs or values they would use any sort of power and influence they get to forward - fuel poverty, the environment, fight against drugs etc etc. The SNP could actually have won more friends and support for their cause, if they sent MPs to London to behave rationally and responsibly.
Instead, last week, the SNP was 100% playing politics against the growing Labour menace to their seats and control of Scottish Government, with the mealy wording of that motion. It’s hard to know which is more disgusting really - utilising the fear of the mob outside, to force Labour MPs into the same lobby as themselves, or knowing the fact the number 1 reason the SNP was only doing all this was for their own self interest, not the Palestinian cause.
I received a letter from the DWP saying that as I was nearing 80 I would receive an automatic pension increase from 5th March
Apparently it is 25p per week - yes I am not joking
What is the point ?
The pension increase age 80 varies from person to person depending on how much basic state pension you are eligible for. For some it is a useful increase, but for many it is negligible.
I haven't had a cooked breakfast in decades - continental style are fine with me with weetabix and fruit and coffee
I have to say one of the advantages of living in London are the multitude of really good cafes offering a decent cooked breakfast. Without wishing to make too much of a point, I found Portuguese and Turkish owned and run cafes right up there with the best.
My barometer is mushrooms - if mushrooms are done well, everything else is usually good. One thing that does let some places down is cheap ingredients - supermarket sausage and bacon is disappointing so I rarely have it but I'm not averse to black pudding, white pudding, kidneys or fried onions if offered.
I also don't go with a "set" breakfast - create your own, they don't mind.
A good breakfast, decent coffee and a copy of the Racing Post - what more does anyone need to start the day?
Breakfast in the company of my beloved wife of near 60 years together
With my 25p pension increase I could let her have a poached egg as an extra treat
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
I haven't had a cooked breakfast in decades - continental style are fine with me with weetabix and fruit and coffee
I have to say one of the advantages of living in London are the multitude of really good cafes offering a decent cooked breakfast. Without wishing to make too much of a point, I found Portuguese and Turkish owned and run cafes right up there with the best.
My barometer is mushrooms - if mushrooms are done well, everything else is usually good. One thing that does let some places down is cheap ingredients - supermarket sausage and bacon is disappointing so I rarely have it but I'm not averse to black pudding, white pudding, kidneys or fried onions if offered.
I also don't go with a "set" breakfast - create your own, they don't mind.
A good breakfast, decent coffee and a copy of the Racing Post - what more does anyone need to start the day?
Breakfast in the company of my beloved wife of near 60 years together
With my 25p pension increase I could let her have a poached egg as an extra treat
I haven't had a cooked breakfast in decades - continental style are fine with me with weetabix and fruit and coffee
I have to say one of the advantages of living in London are the multitude of really good cafes offering a decent cooked breakfast. Without wishing to make too much of a point, I found Portuguese and Turkish owned and run cafes right up there with the best.
My barometer is mushrooms - if mushrooms are done well, everything else is usually good. One thing that does let some places down is cheap ingredients - supermarket sausage and bacon is disappointing so I rarely have it but I'm not averse to black pudding, white pudding, kidneys or fried onions if offered.
I also don't go with a "set" breakfast - create your own, they don't mind.
A good breakfast, decent coffee and a copy of the Racing Post - what more does anyone need to start the day?
Breakfast in the company of my beloved wife of near 60 years together
With my 25p pension increase I could let her have a poached egg as an extra treat
For 25p it will need to be a small egg.
Us poshos, what shop at Waitrose, pay £1.30 for six, or 21.7p each.
Plaid come out against the Speaker and 86 have signed the notice confidence motion
Not sure where this is going
Me neither. But given the way the SNP are being treated, just to favour Labour, any small party is going to be worried. It astounds me the LDs haven't cottoned on yet.
Plaid's 3 mps joining the vonc is significant support
PMQs could be interesting tomorrow
If I were an SNP, Plaid, Lib Dem or even Conservative MP, i would be calling the Speaker the former Labour MP Lindsay Hoyle.
Plaid come out against the Speaker and 86 have signed the notice confidence motion
Not sure where this is going
Get rid of him. Install a speaker with a spine who won’t keep getting rolled over. I think I posted this a year ago, and the facts havn’t changed. I don’t like him.
Though the pressure speaker was put under last week is complicated, if minor opposition parties are merely shameless opportunists like the SNP. Imagine if shinfayn IRA took up their seats to cause as much mischief and shameless opportunism as they absolutely could - it would be identical to this SNP bloc.
The SNP in parliament are just opportunists, and see the events in Gaza as a means of stopping Labour’s advance in Scotland. Their motion was designed to make it hard for the Labour frontbench to support (with references to Israel inflicting “collective punishment”) but hard for Labour MPs not to support as failure to walk through the SNP’s lobbies would be portrayed as failing to back a ceasefire. This left Labour cornered, with the risk of Shadow Cabinet resignations and many more accusations and genuinely damaging evidence of Sir Keir Starmer flip-flopping if he changed approach. At this point, Labour came up with a wheeze: produce their own motion that backs a ceasefire, but presents it in a more balanced way. Labour MPs could then say that they had voted for a ceasefire without defying their whips. The problem is that this motion, the sane one to bring members of all parties to speak as one for Britain, would not normally be called by the Speaker. So Follow convention, even though SNP are bastardising convention and don’t care a toss about London Parliament just taking the piss, or do the right thing and try to make the vote on something MPs across the house could honestly support without feeling under pressure from the extremists that the home office and government are allowing to mass outside the building?
Even a speaker with a backbone would have found it a tough day if the MPs come intent to act like a rabble.
Hmm. It's not the SNP who wrecked convention. And you are denying members of parliament of the UK any valid agency. You're not being a good unionist.
“You're not being a good unionist.”
You piss taking joker! In what way have SNP come to London Parliament to be good unionists? 🤣 They deserve every slap down their trouble making deserves!
Make me speaker.
You believe in the union, presumably - so that means all MPs of all parties are treated equally. All of them.
The moment that rule is breached - the union is heading down the plughole. Because some constituents have their voted-in MP treated as second class.
It's as simple as that. The SNP were not allowed to have their opposition day because it did not suit another party. And the Speaker grovelled to the other party. No longer neutral.
Now, extend that to PC. The LDs, Greens, any minority party, including the Tories after the election (probably). See?
🤣 oh dear. That is so desperate.
“ that means all MPs of all parties are treated equally‘
If they come on loudly stated mission to try and disrupt and break that system, they deserve zero respect and help from that system in breaking it.
What else do you expect when you come on such a mission? 😂
If only they had the respect for the system like wot Lab does.
But the SNP have made clear publicly and smugly, they haven’t come to London Parliament with any goodwill, to play ball and try to achieve good - merely to be disrupters, makers of mischief and chaos.
What sort of mindset of people doesn’t have any beliefs or values they would use any sort of power and influence they get to forward - fuel poverty, the environment, fight against drugs etc etc. The SNP could actually have won more friends and support for their cause, if they sent MPs to London to behave rationally and responsibly.
Instead, last week, the SNP was 100% playing politics against the growing Labour menace to their seats and control of Scottish Government, with the mealy wording of that motion. It’s hard to know which is more disgusting really - utilising the fear of the mob outside, to force Labour MPs into the same lobby as themselves, or knowing the fact the number 1 reason the SNP was only doing all this was for their own self interest, not the Palestinian cause.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
It will be interesting to see how GTA VI does: that's the last mega mega property out there.
I received a letter from the DWP saying that as I was nearing 80 I would receive an automatic pension increase from 5th March
Apparently it is 25p per week - yes I am not joking
What is the point ?
The pension increase age 80 varies from person to person depending on how much basic state pension you are eligible for. For some it is a useful increase, but for many it is negligible.
I haven't had a cooked breakfast in decades - continental style are fine with me with weetabix and fruit and coffee
I have to say one of the advantages of living in London are the multitude of really good cafes offering a decent cooked breakfast. Without wishing to make too much of a point, I found Portuguese and Turkish owned and run cafes right up there with the best.
My barometer is mushrooms - if mushrooms are done well, everything else is usually good. One thing that does let some places down is cheap ingredients - supermarket sausage and bacon is disappointing so I rarely have it but I'm not averse to black pudding, white pudding, kidneys or fried onions if offered.
I also don't go with a "set" breakfast - create your own, they don't mind.
A good breakfast, decent coffee and a copy of the Racing Post - what more does anyone need to start the day?
Breakfast in the company of my beloved wife of near 60 years together
With my 25p pension increase I could let her have a poached egg as an extra treat
For 25p it will need to be a small egg.
It's OK I can take the extra out of capital !!!!
Or perhaps from your imminent triple locked pension increase...
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
Yeah, maybe, I haven't seen the question.
Doesn't that work the other way too though? Only 14% said they thought taxes should be cut - presumably they weren't assuming that would only be other people's taxes cut.
My brother surprised me the other day. He voted Tory in 2019 (liked Boris, wanted Brexit done) he's in the working but struggling category but said he'd prefer to pay a bit more tax and have public services that work.
I really do wonder if the Tories have got this whole 'tax cuts' thing right.
What public services for the majority of people. Doctors I can never see till I am better, police that wont bother to turn up if my house is burgalled? The only public service I seem to get is a bin service and defence which is paltry
Hah. You really are the most miserable old cynic.
Just stating truths, I get no public services anyway apart from bin collection. My car when I had one was broken into...I said to the police one of them lost their watch....the question asked was is it a good watch? When I said no a timex they suddenly lost interest in collecting it.
I am sick and tired of being told about public services being so crap because I never seem to benefit from any of them. I try and get an appointment for the doctor get one 3 weeks off which means chances are I am better by then....hell so bad I moved home a year ago and haven't even bothered registering with a doctor here because what the fuck is the point of a doctor I can't even see
Where to begin?
My view is public services in this country are pretty good overall but way, way down on where they could and should be, and indeed where they were 20 years ago.
As you note in your positive reflection: the bins are collected regularly. Crime rates are low. Do you think they would be so low without the Police? The rule of law applies - we can walk down 99.9% of streets day or night in safety. The security services largely prevent and protect us from acts of terrorism Corruption is at low levels. Most people can get a (free) doctor's consultation when they need one. Serious illnesses are usually investigated and treated promptly. You can usually get an ambulance in an emergency - though maybe not quickly enough. Our children receive an education. Water comes out of the taps and sewage gets flushed away (not always to where it should be tbf.) Power cuts are a rarity. Transport, buildings, food, clothes, furniture, and pretty much everything else is generally safe. The environment is largely protected. The planning office will process your planning application and building control will ensure the build quality. You can get a new passport or driving licence pretty quickly. The roads are generally serviceable, if a bit pot-holed in places.
Some will of course find things to disagree with in my scattergun list above but most things in this country work. However, few if any work as well as they should.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
I've noticed around London over the past few days there are Palestinian flags hanging up everywhere, on lampposts, on public property everywhere, just as there were chants of 'from the river to sea'. It does feel like you would get lynched if you hung up an Israeli flag. Not wishing to align myself in any way with Lee Anderson but it makes you wonder why the Police don't and can't intervene.
I'm not sure where you have been. In my part of town, there was a spate of flags hung from lamp posts in certain roads (the Wards with the larger Muslim populations as distinct from my part of Newham which is more Hindu) but Newham Council got them removed very quickly and while you see Palestinian flags in some businesses it's not as overt as it was a few weeks back.
I think there was another march in the High Street last Saturday but with Thames Water digging up large parts, it's fair to say whatever inconvenience the pro-Palestinian marchers caused paled into insignificance compared to the weeks of irritation caused by our water supplier.
I've been seeing a lot of pro palestinian stuff but I don't live in London so can't keep up the same level of observation. What I would say is that there were some people chanting 'from the river to the sea...' and 'support the palestinian militias' through megaphones immediately after October 7th and the police stood around showing no interest which really stuck in my mind as a dark moment for liberal democracy.
The other, unrelated, thought that keeps coming to me is the usual stuff - why such interest in Palestine when there was no interest in the Uighurs who clearly suffered a far worse fate. Why aren't those in Gaza able to leave etc.
Palestine is where all left-wing prejudices meet.
We should deport all members of political parties to gaza and have a reset
I received a letter from the DWP saying that as I was nearing 80 I would receive an automatic pension increase from 5th March
Apparently it is 25p per week - yes I am not joking
What is the point ?
The pension increase age 80 varies from person to person depending on how much basic state pension you are eligible for. For some it is a useful increase, but for many it is negligible.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
At the last count there were 23m people happy to see others pay more tax but not their own, and a further 21m who love to point this out every time anyone suggests increasing taxes.
Simply pointing out a truth - it undermines all these sorts of polls.
Ask people if they would be willing (note I don't try to influence it by saying 'happy') to pay more tax themselves and I suspect the answer would be very different from that shown in this poll. It is always easy to insist on sacrifices by others whilst preserving ones own advantages. That is reality and any poll that does not take this into account is worthless.
I haven't had a cooked breakfast in decades - continental style are fine with me with weetabix and fruit and coffee
I have to say one of the advantages of living in London are the multitude of really good cafes offering a decent cooked breakfast. Without wishing to make too much of a point, I found Portuguese and Turkish owned and run cafes right up there with the best.
My barometer is mushrooms - if mushrooms are done well, everything else is usually good. One thing that does let some places down is cheap ingredients - supermarket sausage and bacon is disappointing so I rarely have it but I'm not averse to black pudding, white pudding, kidneys or fried onions if offered.
I also don't go with a "set" breakfast - create your own, they don't mind.
A good breakfast, decent coffee and a copy of the Racing Post - what more does anyone need to start the day?
Breakfast in the company of my beloved wife of near 60 years together
With my 25p pension increase I could let her have a poached egg as an extra treat
I've noticed around London over the past few days there are Palestinian flags hanging up everywhere, on lampposts, on public property everywhere, just as there were chants of 'from the river to sea'. It does feel like you would get lynched if you hung up an Israeli flag. Not wishing to align myself in any way with Lee Anderson but it makes you wonder why the Police don't and can't intervene.
I'm not sure where you have been. In my part of town, there was a spate of flags hung from lamp posts in certain roads (the Wards with the larger Muslim populations as distinct from my part of Newham which is more Hindu) but Newham Council got them removed very quickly and while you see Palestinian flags in some businesses it's not as overt as it was a few weeks back.
I think there was another march in the High Street last Saturday but with Thames Water digging up large parts, it's fair to say whatever inconvenience the pro-Palestinian marchers caused paled into insignificance compared to the weeks of irritation caused by our water supplier.
I've been seeing a lot of pro palestinian stuff but I don't live in London so can't keep up the same level of observation. What I would say is that there were some people chanting 'from the river to the sea...' and 'support the palestinian militias' through megaphones immediately after October 7th and the police stood around showing no interest which really stuck in my mind as a dark moment for liberal democracy.
The other, unrelated, thought that keeps coming to me is the usual stuff - why such interest in Palestine when there was no interest in the Uighurs who clearly suffered a far worse fate. Why aren't those in Gaza able to leave etc.
Palestine is where all left-wing prejudices meet.
We should deport all members of political parties to gaza and have a reset
"Visit Gaza"
Or if you are an Arsenal fan 'Visit Rwanda' as it is all over their stadium and on their shirts
I've noticed around London over the past few days there are Palestinian flags hanging up everywhere, on lampposts, on public property everywhere, just as there were chants of 'from the river to sea'. It does feel like you would get lynched if you hung up an Israeli flag. Not wishing to align myself in any way with Lee Anderson but it makes you wonder why the Police don't and can't intervene.
I'm not sure where you have been. In my part of town, there was a spate of flags hung from lamp posts in certain roads (the Wards with the larger Muslim populations as distinct from my part of Newham which is more Hindu) but Newham Council got them removed very quickly and while you see Palestinian flags in some businesses it's not as overt as it was a few weeks back.
I think there was another march in the High Street last Saturday but with Thames Water digging up large parts, it's fair to say whatever inconvenience the pro-Palestinian marchers caused paled into insignificance compared to the weeks of irritation caused by our water supplier.
I've been seeing a lot of pro palestinian stuff but I don't live in London so can't keep up the same level of observation. What I would say is that there were some people chanting 'from the river to the sea...' and 'support the palestinian militias' through megaphones immediately after October 7th and the police stood around showing no interest which really stuck in my mind as a dark moment for liberal democracy.
The other, unrelated, thought that keeps coming to me is the usual stuff - why such interest in Palestine when there was no interest in the Uighurs who clearly suffered a far worse fate. Why aren't those in Gaza able to leave etc.
Palestine is where all left-wing prejudices meet.
We should deport all members of political parties to gaza and have a reset
"Visit Gaza"
It would be an education for many MPs to actually do that.
I've noticed around London over the past few days there are Palestinian flags hanging up everywhere, on lampposts, on public property everywhere, just as there were chants of 'from the river to sea'. It does feel like you would get lynched if you hung up an Israeli flag. Not wishing to align myself in any way with Lee Anderson but it makes you wonder why the Police don't and can't intervene.
I'm not sure where you have been. In my part of town, there was a spate of flags hung from lamp posts in certain roads (the Wards with the larger Muslim populations as distinct from my part of Newham which is more Hindu) but Newham Council got them removed very quickly and while you see Palestinian flags in some businesses it's not as overt as it was a few weeks back.
I think there was another march in the High Street last Saturday but with Thames Water digging up large parts, it's fair to say whatever inconvenience the pro-Palestinian marchers caused paled into insignificance compared to the weeks of irritation caused by our water supplier.
I've been seeing a lot of pro palestinian stuff but I don't live in London so can't keep up the same level of observation. What I would say is that there were some people chanting 'from the river to the sea...' and 'support the palestinian militias' through megaphones immediately after October 7th and the police stood around showing no interest which really stuck in my mind as a dark moment for liberal democracy.
The other, unrelated, thought that keeps coming to me is the usual stuff - why such interest in Palestine when there was no interest in the Uighurs who clearly suffered a far worse fate. Why aren't those in Gaza able to leave etc.
There's two points here and I'll take the second first. You're absolutely right of course - there is so much in the world to protest about and so many peoples oppressed who deserve our support. I've no answer specifically apart from my agreement.
As to the first point, there is a right to protest in this country. The intentional or unintentional advocacy of genocide is where I share your concern. We had protests in the 1980s backing the ANC against the South African Government outside the South African Embassy. - many considered the ANC terrorists but were there any calls for the genocide of white South Africans? Not that I can remember.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
Yeah, maybe, I haven't seen the question.
Doesn't that work the other way too though? Only 14% said they thought taxes should be cut - presumably they weren't assuming that would only be other people's taxes cut.
My brother surprised me the other day. He voted Tory in 2019 (liked Boris, wanted Brexit done) he's in the working but struggling category but said he'd prefer to pay a bit more tax and have public services that work.
I really do wonder if the Tories have got this whole 'tax cuts' thing right.
No party either raising or lowering taxes will be thanked by the public. Tax cuts never deliver as much back into people's pockets as they think they should and so they will show little or no gratitude whilst tax rises simply remind people of how much they are already paying and give them more excuses to hate the politicians.
tax should be set at the level that does the best for the economy and the country. Using them to bribe or punish the electorate is a fools game. So whilst I think taxes are way too high (by which I actually mean the state is way too large) that is irrelevant in this instance. What I am arguing about is the value - or lack of it - of these sorts of polls.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
It will be interesting to see how GTA VI does: that's the last mega mega property out there.
I think GTA VI is one of the few that will continue to justify such a high upfront investment, given that they've sold something like 120m copies of GTA V and GTA Online regularly has 200k plus concurrent players across Playstation, Xbox and PC. I heard from Playstation people that the issue was they no longer wanted to have to sell 10m+ copies of big budget games just to break even, for Spider-Man 2 it's 12m to break even, God of War Ragnarok only needed 5m to hit that point which from an ROI perspective makes it a much better prospect, the PS4 God of War only needed 3.5m to hit break even and it sold ~20m units so they got 17.5m units worth of profitable revenue from it, Spider-Man 2 will probably tap out at about 20m like their other games and that only gives them 8m profitable units at a lower revenue per unit due to licence fees paid to Marvel.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
At the last count there were 23m people happy to see others pay more tax but not their own, and a further 21m who love to point this out every time anyone suggests increasing taxes.
Simply pointing out a truth - it undermines all these sorts of polls.
Ask people if they would be willing (note I don't try to influence it by saying 'happy') to pay more tax themselves and I suspect the answer would be very different from that shown in this poll. It is always easy to insist on sacrifices by others whilst preserving ones own advantages. That is reality and any poll that does not take this into account is worthless.
While we all pay some taxes, a lot of people pay little or no income tax, so may not be very keen on income tax cuts.
Broadly though the poll rings true to me. There is a lot of concern out there about the state of public services.
I've noticed around London over the past few days there are Palestinian flags hanging up everywhere, on lampposts, on public property everywhere, just as there were chants of 'from the river to sea'. It does feel like you would get lynched if you hung up an Israeli flag. Not wishing to align myself in any way with Lee Anderson but it makes you wonder why the Police don't and can't intervene.
I'm not sure where you have been. In my part of town, there was a spate of flags hung from lamp posts in certain roads (the Wards with the larger Muslim populations as distinct from my part of Newham which is more Hindu) but Newham Council got them removed very quickly and while you see Palestinian flags in some businesses it's not as overt as it was a few weeks back.
I think there was another march in the High Street last Saturday but with Thames Water digging up large parts, it's fair to say whatever inconvenience the pro-Palestinian marchers caused paled into insignificance compared to the weeks of irritation caused by our water supplier.
I've been seeing a lot of pro palestinian stuff but I don't live in London so can't keep up the same level of observation. What I would say is that there were some people chanting 'from the river to the sea...' and 'support the palestinian militias' through megaphones immediately after October 7th and the police stood around showing no interest which really stuck in my mind as a dark moment for liberal democracy.
The other, unrelated, thought that keeps coming to me is the usual stuff - why such interest in Palestine when there was no interest in the Uighurs who clearly suffered a far worse fate. Why aren't those in Gaza able to leave etc.
Palestine is where all left-wing prejudices meet.
We should deport all members of political parties to gaza and have a reset
"Visit Gaza"
Or if you are an Arsenal fan 'Visit Rwanda' as it is all over their stadium and on their shirts
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
At the last count there were 23m people happy to see others pay more tax but not their own, and a further 21m who love to point this out every time anyone suggests increasing taxes.
Simply pointing out a truth - it undermines all these sorts of polls.
Ask people if they would be willing (note I don't try to influence it by saying 'happy') to pay more tax themselves and I suspect the answer would be very different from that shown in this poll. It is always easy to insist on sacrifices by others whilst preserving ones own advantages. That is reality and any poll that does not take this into account is worthless.
While we all pay some taxes, a lot of people pay little or no income tax, so may not be very keen on income tax cuts.
Broadly though the poll rings true to me. There is a lot of concern out there about the state of public services.
But will they be keen on becoming people who do pay tax? And note you have specified income tax - which is not mentioned in the article. The quote is simply about tax in general.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
Yeah, maybe, I haven't seen the question.
Doesn't that work the other way too though? Only 14% said they thought taxes should be cut - presumably they weren't assuming that would only be other people's taxes cut.
My brother surprised me the other day. He voted Tory in 2019 (liked Boris, wanted Brexit done) he's in the working but struggling category but said he'd prefer to pay a bit more tax and have public services that work.
I really do wonder if the Tories have got this whole 'tax cuts' thing right.
No party either raising or lowering taxes will be thanked by the public. Tax cuts never deliver as much back into people's pockets as they think they should and so they will show little or no gratitude whilst tax rises simply remind people of how much they are already paying and give them more excuses to hate the politicians.
tax should be set at the level that does the best for the economy and the country. Using them to bribe or punish the electorate is a fools game. So whilst I think taxes are way too high (by which I actually mean the state is way too large) that is irrelevant in this instance. What I am arguing about is the value - or lack of it - of these sorts of polls.
The problem is tax rates are a political weapon. They are set at the level that does the best for the governing party and its supporters. To be fair, that's called democracy - I don't know what objective individual or body could or should set tax rates.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Rings of Power too. They spent $350m to make one season, tried to make a show that appealed to "everyone" and in the end the people who want to watch Tolkien all hated it and stopped watching while the intended "new" audience didn't turn up so overall it completely flopped.
But we know this by election isn’t happening, don’t we?
That had been my assumption. It still may well be the case. However, the Commons vote has come sooner than I thought it would, which makes it harder to postpone the by-election. Even a week or so now would have pushed the date back. As it is, the recall petition will now run to mid-April so Sunak will need to put off calling the by-election for about 7 weeks before the summer holidays give him cover.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
Yeah, maybe, I haven't seen the question.
Doesn't that work the other way too though? Only 14% said they thought taxes should be cut - presumably they weren't assuming that would only be other people's taxes cut.
My brother surprised me the other day. He voted Tory in 2019 (liked Boris, wanted Brexit done) he's in the working but struggling category but said he'd prefer to pay a bit more tax and have public services that work.
I really do wonder if the Tories have got this whole 'tax cuts' thing right.
No party either raising or lowering taxes will be thanked by the public. Tax cuts never deliver as much back into people's pockets as they think they should and so they will show little or no gratitude whilst tax rises simply remind people of how much they are already paying and give them more excuses to hate the politicians.
tax should be set at the level that does the best for the economy and the country. Using them to bribe or punish the electorate is a fools game. So whilst I think taxes are way too high (by which I actually mean the state is way too large) that is irrelevant in this instance. What I am arguing about is the value - or lack of it - of these sorts of polls.
The problem is tax rates are a political weapon. They are set at the level that does the best for the governing party and its supporters. To be fair, that's called democracy - I don't know what objective individual or body could or should set tax rates.
My view of course is that what needs to be done is agree on the acceptable level of services and responsibilities of Government and then set tax and borrowing levels accordingly. What both parties do is concentrate on how much tax they can or cannot raise and how much borrowing they can get away with and then see what they can spend it on.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
Yeah, maybe, I haven't seen the question.
Doesn't that work the other way too though? Only 14% said they thought taxes should be cut - presumably they weren't assuming that would only be other people's taxes cut.
My brother surprised me the other day. He voted Tory in 2019 (liked Boris, wanted Brexit done) he's in the working but struggling category but said he'd prefer to pay a bit more tax and have public services that work.
I really do wonder if the Tories have got this whole 'tax cuts' thing right.
No party either raising or lowering taxes will be thanked by the public. Tax cuts never deliver as much back into people's pockets as they think they should and so they will show little or no gratitude whilst tax rises simply remind people of how much they are already paying and give them more excuses to hate the politicians.
tax should be set at the level that does the best for the economy and the country. Using them to bribe or punish the electorate is a fools game. So whilst I think taxes are way too high (by which I actually mean the state is way too large) that is irrelevant in this instance. What I am arguing about is the value - or lack of it - of these sorts of polls.
Which things do you think the state should drop that it currently does?
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
Yeah, maybe, I haven't seen the question.
Doesn't that work the other way too though? Only 14% said they thought taxes should be cut - presumably they weren't assuming that would only be other people's taxes cut.
My brother surprised me the other day. He voted Tory in 2019 (liked Boris, wanted Brexit done) he's in the working but struggling category but said he'd prefer to pay a bit more tax and have public services that work.
I really do wonder if the Tories have got this whole 'tax cuts' thing right.
No party either raising or lowering taxes will be thanked by the public. Tax cuts never deliver as much back into people's pockets as they think they should and so they will show little or no gratitude whilst tax rises simply remind people of how much they are already paying and give them more excuses to hate the politicians.
tax should be set at the level that does the best for the economy and the country. Using them to bribe or punish the electorate is a fools game. So whilst I think taxes are way too high (by which I actually mean the state is way too large) that is irrelevant in this instance. What I am arguing about is the value - or lack of it - of these sorts of polls.
The problem is tax rates are a political weapon. They are set at the level that does the best for the governing party and its supporters. To be fair, that's called democracy - I don't know what objective individual or body could or should set tax rates.
The quickest and dirtiest way to raise taxes would be to halve the personal allowance. Give more people a stake in the democratic process. What's not to like?
I've noticed around London over the past few days there are Palestinian flags hanging up everywhere, on lampposts, on public property everywhere, just as there were chants of 'from the river to sea'. It does feel like you would get lynched if you hung up an Israeli flag. Not wishing to align myself in any way with Lee Anderson but it makes you wonder why the Police don't and can't intervene.
I'm not sure where you have been. In my part of town, there was a spate of flags hung from lamp posts in certain roads (the Wards with the larger Muslim populations as distinct from my part of Newham which is more Hindu) but Newham Council got them removed very quickly and while you see Palestinian flags in some businesses it's not as overt as it was a few weeks back.
I think there was another march in the High Street last Saturday but with Thames Water digging up large parts, it's fair to say whatever inconvenience the pro-Palestinian marchers caused paled into insignificance compared to the weeks of irritation caused by our water supplier.
I've been seeing a lot of pro palestinian stuff but I don't live in London so can't keep up the same level of observation. What I would say is that there were some people chanting 'from the river to the sea...' and 'support the palestinian militias' through megaphones immediately after October 7th and the police stood around showing no interest which really stuck in my mind as a dark moment for liberal democracy.
The other, unrelated, thought that keeps coming to me is the usual stuff - why such interest in Palestine when there was no interest in the Uighurs who clearly suffered a far worse fate. Why aren't those in Gaza able to leave etc.
There's two points here and I'll take the second first. You're absolutely right of course - there is so much in the world to protest about and so many peoples oppressed who deserve our support. I've no answer specifically apart from my agreement.
As to the first point, there is a right to protest in this country. The intentional or unintentional advocacy of genocide is where I share your concern. We had protests in the 1980s backing the ANC against the South African Government outside the South African Embassy. - many considered the ANC terrorists but were there any calls for the genocide of white South Africans? Not that I can remember.
The Azanian People's Liberation Army* used the slogan "one Settler, one bullet" in the Eighties.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
At the last count there were 23m people happy to see others pay more tax but not their own, and a further 21m who love to point this out every time anyone suggests increasing taxes.
Simply pointing out a truth - it undermines all these sorts of polls.
Ask people if they would be willing (note I don't try to influence it by saying 'happy') to pay more tax themselves and I suspect the answer would be very different from that shown in this poll. It is always easy to insist on sacrifices by others whilst preserving ones own advantages. That is reality and any poll that does not take this into account is worthless.
While we all pay some taxes, a lot of people pay little or no income tax, so may not be very keen on income tax cuts.
Broadly though the poll rings true to me. There is a lot of concern out there about the state of public services.
But will they be keen on becoming people who do pay tax? And note you have specified income tax - which is not mentioned in the article. The quote is simply about tax in general.
Sure, but the tax cuts being mooted by the Tory press are income taxes.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
It will be interesting to see how GTA VI does: that's the last mega mega property out there.
I think GTA VI is one of the few that will continue to justify such a high upfront investment, given that they've sold something like 120m copies of GTA V and GTA Online regularly has 200k plus concurrent players across Playstation, Xbox and PC. I heard from Playstation people that the issue was they no longer wanted to have to sell 10m+ copies of big budget games just to break even, for Spider-Man 2 it's 12m to break even, God of War Ragnarok only needed 5m to hit that point which from an ROI perspective makes it a much better prospect, the PS4 God of War only needed 3.5m to hit break even and it sold ~20m units so they got 17.5m units worth of profitable revenue from it, Spider-Man 2 will probably tap out at about 20m like their other games and that only gives them 8m profitable units at a lower revenue per unit due to licence fees paid to Marvel.
120 million copies of GTA plus also those lovely micro transactions is a lot of money...
But I think you're absolutely right: I think the there are fewer and fewer mega games, while AI is going to make creating cheaper games with small teams significantly easier.
It's actually pretty exciting times for the games industry
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Indeed, I gave up on MOTA after two episodes.
My free AppleTV offer did get me hooked on For All Mankind though - quite enjoying that one.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Rings of Power too. They spent $350m to make one season, tried to make a show that appealed to "everyone" and in the end the people who want to watch Tolkien all hated it and stopped watching while the intended "new" audience didn't turn up so overall it completely flopped.
No we didn't. There was a vocal minority of Tolkien fans who disliked it (and who had decided they hated it even bofore the first episode had been aired) and its viewing figures exceeded those of Game of Thrones (Though not House of Dragons). Even though viewing figures dropped throughout the series it was still by far Amazon's most watched to date.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
At the last count there were 23m people happy to see others pay more tax but not their own, and a further 21m who love to point this out every time anyone suggests increasing taxes.
Simply pointing out a truth - it undermines all these sorts of polls.
Ask people if they would be willing (note I don't try to influence it by saying 'happy') to pay more tax themselves and I suspect the answer would be very different from that shown in this poll. It is always easy to insist on sacrifices by others whilst preserving ones own advantages. That is reality and any poll that does not take this into account is worthless.
While we all pay some taxes, a lot of people pay little or no income tax, so may not be very keen on income tax cuts.
Broadly though the poll rings true to me. There is a lot of concern out there about the state of public services.
But will they be keen on becoming people who do pay tax? And note you have specified income tax - which is not mentioned in the article. The quote is simply about tax in general.
Sure, but the tax cuts being mooted by the Tory press are income taxes.
They have mooted just about everything under the sun. At this point they are just thrashing around.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Indeed, I gave up on MOTA after two episodes.
My free AppleTV offer did get me hooked on For All Mankind though - quite enjoying that one.
For all mankind is brilliant. It felt oddly familiar to me in terms of the characterisations and then I discovered it was written by Ronald D Moore, of Star Trek legend, responsible for pushing the producers into agreeing that the Dominion story line arc over multiple seasons not just a two parter.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
Yeah, maybe, I haven't seen the question.
Doesn't that work the other way too though? Only 14% said they thought taxes should be cut - presumably they weren't assuming that would only be other people's taxes cut.
My brother surprised me the other day. He voted Tory in 2019 (liked Boris, wanted Brexit done) he's in the working but struggling category but said he'd prefer to pay a bit more tax and have public services that work.
I really do wonder if the Tories have got this whole 'tax cuts' thing right.
No party either raising or lowering taxes will be thanked by the public. Tax cuts never deliver as much back into people's pockets as they think they should and so they will show little or no gratitude whilst tax rises simply remind people of how much they are already paying and give them more excuses to hate the politicians.
tax should be set at the level that does the best for the economy and the country. Using them to bribe or punish the electorate is a fools game. So whilst I think taxes are way too high (by which I actually mean the state is way too large) that is irrelevant in this instance. What I am arguing about is the value - or lack of it - of these sorts of polls.
Which things do you think the state should drop that it currently does?
I answered this the other day. I think they should drop the universal pension and all the other Retirement benefits and have them means tested. Our whole social security system should return to what it was originally intended for which is a safety net. Now it is used partly to fulfill the idea of social and ecomomic equality and mostly as a means to bribe certain sections of the electorate which vary depending on which party is in power.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
At the last count there were 23m people happy to see others pay more tax but not their own, and a further 21m who love to point this out every time anyone suggests increasing taxes.
Simply pointing out a truth - it undermines all these sorts of polls.
Ask people if they would be willing (note I don't try to influence it by saying 'happy') to pay more tax themselves and I suspect the answer would be very different from that shown in this poll. It is always easy to insist on sacrifices by others whilst preserving ones own advantages. That is reality and any poll that does not take this into account is worthless.
While we all pay some taxes, a lot of people pay little or no income tax, so may not be very keen on income tax cuts.
Broadly though the poll rings true to me. There is a lot of concern out there about the state of public services.
But will they be keen on becoming people who do pay tax? And note you have specified income tax - which is not mentioned in the article. The quote is simply about tax in general.
Sure, but the tax cuts being mooted by the Tory press are income taxes.
Employees NI by the look of it, which is a better move than reducing ICT.
But gross debt is currently = 100% of GDP and the deficit is 5.8% GDP according to the latest figures. It's not the time to cut overall taxes.
Refocus them away from employment towards wealth by all means but cut? Not at the present time.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Indeed, I gave up on MOTA after two episodes.
My free AppleTV offer did get me hooked on For All Mankind though - quite enjoying that one.
For all mankind is brilliant. It felt oddly familiar to me in terms of the characterisations and then I discovered it was written by Ronald D Moore, of Star Trek legend, responsible for pushing the producers into agreeing that the Dominion story line arc over multiple seasons not just a two parter.
I would have said of rebooted BSG legend but I agree with you otherwise.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Rings of Power too. They spent $350m to make one season, tried to make a show that appealed to "everyone" and in the end the people who want to watch Tolkien all hated it and stopped watching while the intended "new" audience didn't turn up so overall it completely flopped.
No we didn't. There was a vocal minority of Tolkein fans who disliked it (and who had decided they hated it even bofore the first episode had been aired) and its viewing figures exceeded those of Game of Thrones (Though not House of Dragons). Even though viewing figures dropped throughout the series it was still by far Amazon's most watched to date.
I've seen the estimated viewing figures and it doesn't get close to the likes of Stranger Things. You also can't compare it to Game of Thrones because that was pre-streaming. If you include piracy in the numbers for both (the only reasonable proxy for streaming) then RoP is tiny in comparison, especially towards the end.
The viewing figures completely tanked over the whole season and I've heard that Amazon are resigned to the second season performing poorly already. It became a bit of a laughing stock and case study for rival streaming companies. At least Netflix got 2 seasons out of The Witcher before everyone gave up in season 3.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
Yeah, maybe, I haven't seen the question.
Doesn't that work the other way too though? Only 14% said they thought taxes should be cut - presumably they weren't assuming that would only be other people's taxes cut.
My brother surprised me the other day. He voted Tory in 2019 (liked Boris, wanted Brexit done) he's in the working but struggling category but said he'd prefer to pay a bit more tax and have public services that work.
I really do wonder if the Tories have got this whole 'tax cuts' thing right.
No party either raising or lowering taxes will be thanked by the public. Tax cuts never deliver as much back into people's pockets as they think they should and so they will show little or no gratitude whilst tax rises simply remind people of how much they are already paying and give them more excuses to hate the politicians.
tax should be set at the level that does the best for the economy and the country. Using them to bribe or punish the electorate is a fools game. So whilst I think taxes are way too high (by which I actually mean the state is way too large) that is irrelevant in this instance. What I am arguing about is the value - or lack of it - of these sorts of polls.
Which things do you think the state should drop that it currently does?
I answered this the other day. I think they should drop the universal pension and all the other Retirement benefits and have them means tested. Our whole social security system should return to what it was originally intended for which is a safety net. Now it is used partly to fulfill the idea of social and ecomomic equality and mostly as a means to bribe certain sections of the electorate which vary depending on which party is in power.
Yes, sorry, I remember. Unfortunately your suggestion is totally untenable, politically. Any party including it in their manifesto would make Theresa May's campaign look inspired.
I've noticed around London over the past few days there are Palestinian flags hanging up everywhere, on lampposts, on public property everywhere, just as there were chants of 'from the river to sea'. It does feel like you would get lynched if you hung up an Israeli flag. Not wishing to align myself in any way with Lee Anderson but it makes you wonder why the Police don't and can't intervene.
I'm not sure where you have been. In my part of town, there was a spate of flags hung from lamp posts in certain roads (the Wards with the larger Muslim populations as distinct from my part of Newham which is more Hindu) but Newham Council got them removed very quickly and while you see Palestinian flags in some businesses it's not as overt as it was a few weeks back.
I think there was another march in the High Street last Saturday but with Thames Water digging up large parts, it's fair to say whatever inconvenience the pro-Palestinian marchers caused paled into insignificance compared to the weeks of irritation caused by our water supplier.
I've been seeing a lot of pro palestinian stuff but I don't live in London so can't keep up the same level of observation. What I would say is that there were some people chanting 'from the river to the sea...' and 'support the palestinian militias' through megaphones immediately after October 7th and the police stood around showing no interest which really stuck in my mind as a dark moment for liberal democracy.
The other, unrelated, thought that keeps coming to me is the usual stuff - why such interest in Palestine when there was no interest in the Uighurs who clearly suffered a far worse fate. Why aren't those in Gaza able to leave etc.
Palestine is where all left-wing prejudices meet.
That is simply not true.
On the centre left some of us as far more interested in social and civic policy, equality and opportunity back here in Blighty.
I received a letter from the DWP saying that as I was nearing 80 I would receive an automatic pension increase from 5th March
Apparently it is 25p per week - yes I am not joking
What is the point ?
The pension increase age 80 varies from person to person depending on how much basic state pension you are eligible for. For some it is a useful increase, but for many it is negligible.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
At the last count there were 23m people happy to see others pay more tax but not their own, and a further 21m who love to point this out every time anyone suggests increasing taxes.
Simply pointing out a truth - it undermines all these sorts of polls.
Ask people if they would be willing (note I don't try to influence it by saying 'happy') to pay more tax themselves and I suspect the answer would be very different from that shown in this poll. It is always easy to insist on sacrifices by others whilst preserving ones own advantages. That is reality and any poll that does not take this into account is worthless.
While we all pay some taxes, a lot of people pay little or no income tax, so may not be very keen on income tax cuts.
Broadly though the poll rings true to me. There is a lot of concern out there about the state of public services.
But will they be keen on becoming people who do pay tax? And note you have specified income tax - which is not mentioned in the article. The quote is simply about tax in general.
Sure, but the tax cuts being mooted by the Tory press are income taxes.
Employees NI by the look of it, which is a better move than reducing ICT.
But gross debt is currently = 100% of GDP and the deficit is 5.8% GDP according to the latest figures. It's not the time to cut overall taxes.
Refocus them away from employment towards wealth by all means but cut? Not at the present time.
Sure, any tax cut when we have such a huge deficit is nowt but clutching at straws, and obviously so. People aren't idiots.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
At the last count there were 23m people happy to see others pay more tax but not their own, and a further 21m who love to point this out every time anyone suggests increasing taxes.
Simply pointing out a truth - it undermines all these sorts of polls.
Ask people if they would be willing (note I don't try to influence it by saying 'happy') to pay more tax themselves and I suspect the answer would be very different from that shown in this poll. It is always easy to insist on sacrifices by others whilst preserving ones own advantages. That is reality and any poll that does not take this into account is worthless.
While we all pay some taxes, a lot of people pay little or no income tax, so may not be very keen on income tax cuts.
Broadly though the poll rings true to me. There is a lot of concern out there about the state of public services.
But will they be keen on becoming people who do pay tax? And note you have specified income tax - which is not mentioned in the article. The quote is simply about tax in general.
Sure, but the tax cuts being mooted by the Tory press are income taxes.
Employees NI by the look of it, which is a better move than reducing ICT.
But gross debt is currently = 100% of GDP and the deficit is 5.8% GDP according to the latest figures. It's not the time to cut overall taxes.
Refocus them away from employment towards wealth by all means but cut? Not at the present time.
Sure, any tax cut when we have such a huge deficit is nowt but clutching at straws, and obviously so. People aren't idiots.
I received a letter from the DWP saying that as I was nearing 80 I would receive an automatic pension increase from 5th March
Apparently it is 25p per week - yes I am not joking
What is the point ?
The pension increase age 80 varies from person to person depending on how much basic state pension you are eligible for. For some it is a useful increase, but for many it is negligible.
I've noticed around London over the past few days there are Palestinian flags hanging up everywhere, on lampposts, on public property everywhere, just as there were chants of 'from the river to sea'. It does feel like you would get lynched if you hung up an Israeli flag. Not wishing to align myself in any way with Lee Anderson but it makes you wonder why the Police don't and can't intervene.
I'm not sure where you have been. In my part of town, there was a spate of flags hung from lamp posts in certain roads (the Wards with the larger Muslim populations as distinct from my part of Newham which is more Hindu) but Newham Council got them removed very quickly and while you see Palestinian flags in some businesses it's not as overt as it was a few weeks back.
I think there was another march in the High Street last Saturday but with Thames Water digging up large parts, it's fair to say whatever inconvenience the pro-Palestinian marchers caused paled into insignificance compared to the weeks of irritation caused by our water supplier.
I've been seeing a lot of pro palestinian stuff but I don't live in London so can't keep up the same level of observation. What I would say is that there were some people chanting 'from the river to the sea...' and 'support the palestinian militias' through megaphones immediately after October 7th and the police stood around showing no interest which really stuck in my mind as a dark moment for liberal democracy.
The other, unrelated, thought that keeps coming to me is the usual stuff - why such interest in Palestine when there was no interest in the Uighurs who clearly suffered a far worse fate. Why aren't those in Gaza able to leave etc.
Palestine is where all left-wing prejudices meet.
That is simply not true.
On the centre left some of us as far more interested in social and civic policy, equality and opportunity back here in Blighty.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
At the last count there were 23m people happy to see others pay more tax but not their own, and a further 21m who love to point this out every time anyone suggests increasing taxes.
Simply pointing out a truth - it undermines all these sorts of polls.
Ask people if they would be willing (note I don't try to influence it by saying 'happy') to pay more tax themselves and I suspect the answer would be very different from that shown in this poll. It is always easy to insist on sacrifices by others whilst preserving ones own advantages. That is reality and any poll that does not take this into account is worthless.
While we all pay some taxes, a lot of people pay little or no income tax, so may not be very keen on income tax cuts.
Broadly though the poll rings true to me. There is a lot of concern out there about the state of public services.
But will they be keen on becoming people who do pay tax? And note you have specified income tax - which is not mentioned in the article. The quote is simply about tax in general.
Sure, but the tax cuts being mooted by the Tory press are income taxes.
They have mooted just about everything under the sun. At this point they are just thrashing around.
They're in a bind - their own supporters and MPs are miserable and discontented, to the point even giving them what they want probably want do more than stop the bleeding.
It's like those memes where someone goes 'I want to do X, we must end the capitalist system' and someone suggests an alternative, then they go 'I don't want to do X, I want to end the capitalist system'. Even many Tories want to go in to opposition and refocus the party in a new direction, or are just annoyed enough to not care about appeals to unity. So even giving them tax cuts won't cut through.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
But we know this by election isn’t happening, don’t we?
That had been my assumption. It still may well be the case. However, the Commons vote has come sooner than I thought it would, which makes it harder to postpone the by-election. Even a week or so now would have pushed the date back. As it is, the recall petition will now run to mid-April so Sunak will need to put off calling the by-election for about 7 weeks before the summer holidays give him cover.
Though worth remembering that the Wirral South by-election was 27 years ago today, even though there was a handful of months until John Major would have to march the lemmings over the cliff.
I received a letter from the DWP saying that as I was nearing 80 I would receive an automatic pension increase from 5th March
Apparently it is 25p per week - yes I am not joking
What is the point ?
The pension increase age 80 varies from person to person depending on how much basic state pension you are eligible for. For some it is a useful increase, but for many it is negligible.
With this new recall petition coming through, I wonder if we'll ever see a petition fail again. The first one did, but all others have managed it comfortably.
I honestly wondered if Paterson's might have, he had a lot of sympathy from Tories for his personal situation to the point of ignoring his corruption, but instead he decided to compound the damage done from Boris wasting political capital on him, and then flounce off rather than make a case.
Boris's would have triggered a by-election, but it's still an open question if he would have lost.
I received a letter from the DWP saying that as I was nearing 80 I would receive an automatic pension increase from 5th March
Apparently it is 25p per week - yes I am not joking
What is the point ?
The pension increase age 80 varies from person to person depending on how much basic state pension you are eligible for. For some it is a useful increase, but for many it is negligible.
Just Stop Oil hoping to start a new party and disrupt the election.
Good for them, disrupting politics rather than roads and bridges shows some maturity.
Not that there's no place for disruptive protests, but engaging with politics in other ways would be good.
It's nuts. There is already a Green Party. It's big enough now to be able to stand in most GE constituencies.
Sure, but the more the merrier I say when it comes to parties, I'm not arguing it makes electoral sense for them to do their own thing. The Greens at least try to be a little mainstream from time to time (I'm curious if an influx of councillors in the Tory shires might impact their direction a bit).
It's surely more rational than the Burning Pink party (sadly no longer registered I see). I was hoping they would stand again in London to see if they could repeat coming dead bottom out of 20, with 1/4 of the vote of Piers Corbyn and 1/5 that of a dude with a bucket on his head.
I've noticed around London over the past few days there are Palestinian flags hanging up everywhere, on lampposts, on public property everywhere, just as there were chants of 'from the river to sea'. It does feel like you would get lynched if you hung up an Israeli flag. Not wishing to align myself in any way with Lee Anderson but it makes you wonder why the Police don't and can't intervene.
I'm not sure where you have been. In my part of town, there was a spate of flags hung from lamp posts in certain roads (the Wards with the larger Muslim populations as distinct from my part of Newham which is more Hindu) but Newham Council got them removed very quickly and while you see Palestinian flags in some businesses it's not as overt as it was a few weeks back.
I think there was another march in the High Street last Saturday but with Thames Water digging up large parts, it's fair to say whatever inconvenience the pro-Palestinian marchers caused paled into insignificance compared to the weeks of irritation caused by our water supplier.
I've been seeing a lot of pro palestinian stuff but I don't live in London so can't keep up the same level of observation. What I would say is that there were some people chanting 'from the river to the sea...' and 'support the palestinian militias' through megaphones immediately after October 7th and the police stood around showing no interest which really stuck in my mind as a dark moment for liberal democracy.
The other, unrelated, thought that keeps coming to me is the usual stuff - why such interest in Palestine when there was no interest in the Uighurs who clearly suffered a far worse fate. Why aren't those in Gaza able to leave etc.
Palestine is where all left-wing prejudices meet.
That is simply not true.
On the centre left some of us as far more interested in social and civic policy, equality and opportunity back here in Blighty.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
At the last count there were 23m people happy to see others pay more tax but not their own, and a further 21m who love to point this out every time anyone suggests increasing taxes.
Simply pointing out a truth - it undermines all these sorts of polls.
Ask people if they would be willing (note I don't try to influence it by saying 'happy') to pay more tax themselves and I suspect the answer would be very different from that shown in this poll. It is always easy to insist on sacrifices by others whilst preserving ones own advantages. That is reality and any poll that does not take this into account is worthless.
While we all pay some taxes, a lot of people pay little or no income tax, so may not be very keen on income tax cuts.
Broadly though the poll rings true to me. There is a lot of concern out there about the state of public services.
But will they be keen on becoming people who do pay tax? And note you have specified income tax - which is not mentioned in the article. The quote is simply about tax in general.
Sure, but the tax cuts being mooted by the Tory press are income taxes.
Employees NI by the look of it, which is a better move than reducing ICT.
But gross debt is currently = 100% of GDP and the deficit is 5.8% GDP according to the latest figures. It's not the time to cut overall taxes.
Refocus them away from employment towards wealth by all means but cut? Not at the present time.
Sure, any tax cut when we have such a huge deficit is nowt but clutching at straws, and obviously so. People aren't idiots.
I would content that we can be idiots sometimes, and willfully deceive ourselves about an over vague promise or pie in the sky claim for example. Even relatively simple things it's easy to get confused over, even for the politically engaged (sometimes especially them, given we are more invested).
But we have limits, and after a certain amount of time, after a certain level of claim, and if we just don't trust the person selling a dream, we wake up.
But we know this by election isn’t happening, don’t we?
That had been my assumption. It still may well be the case. However, the Commons vote has come sooner than I thought it would, which makes it harder to postpone the by-election. Even a week or so now would have pushed the date back. As it is, the recall petition will now run to mid-April so Sunak will need to put off calling the by-election for about 7 weeks before the summer holidays give him cover.
I had a look round earlier, can’t find a “must be held within x months of vacancy” rule. In fact the parliament site says there have been instances towards end of Parliament when it’s gone behind the 6 months.
I see nothing legally compelling the Tories to hold this one, even if the General Election goes to next year. Politically, the argument “close now to end of Parliament it will be waste of money to hold it” would be supported by both Reform and Labour. Starmer could ask Reeves if he can argue for it, and she’ll tell him no, waste of money.
Without any legal or political pressure on the Tories, none of their seats are going up for by election what remains of this Parliament.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Rings of Power too. They spent $350m to make one season, tried to make a show that appealed to "everyone" and in the end the people who want to watch Tolkien all hated it and stopped watching while the intended "new" audience didn't turn up so overall it completely flopped.
No we didn't. There was a vocal minority of Tolkein fans who disliked it (and who had decided they hated it even bofore the first episode had been aired) and its viewing figures exceeded those of Game of Thrones (Though not House of Dragons). Even though viewing figures dropped throughout the series it was still by far Amazon's most watched to date.
I've seen the estimated viewing figures and it doesn't get close to the likes of Stranger Things. You also can't compare it to Game of Thrones because that was pre-streaming. If you include piracy in the numbers for both (the only reasonable proxy for streaming) then RoP is tiny in comparison, especially towards the end.
The viewing figures completely tanked over the whole season and I've heard that Amazon are resigned to the second season performing poorly already. It became a bit of a laughing stock and case study for rival streaming companies. At least Netflix got 2 seasons out of The Witcher before everyone gave up in season 3.
The problems with RoP were that they too k a brilliant property (Tolkien), got some genuine experts* on the pile of stuff they licensed…. And then stitched it together with bizarre, terrible writing.
Peter Jackson has told of how he had to fight studio executives who would demand weird, brainless changes to Lord Of The Rings. Looks like this time they got their way.
*Wizards, origin of orcs, the two trees, Morgoth’s Ring, Sauron trying to repent but getting it wrong because of his pride and unreformed nature… just a few of the things they got perfectly right.
I received a letter from the DWP saying that as I was nearing 80 I would receive an automatic pension increase from 5th March
Apparently it is 25p per week - yes I am not joking
What is the point ?
The pension increase age 80 varies from person to person depending on how much basic state pension you are eligible for. For some it is a useful increase, but for many it is negligible.
My take on Tomorrows I front page main headline is ignore it. We are going to get a lot of “is Labours poll lead soft” headlines to try and generate some excitement and grab headlines from here on in.
However, there in bottom right of same papers front page is a story rather revealing and serious.
FIRST TIME BUYERS PRICED OUT, AS WALL STREET LANDLORDS BUY UP NEW BUILDS.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Rings of Power too. They spent $350m to make one season, tried to make a show that appealed to "everyone" and in the end the people who want to watch Tolkien all hated it and stopped watching while the intended "new" audience didn't turn up so overall it completely flopped.
No we didn't. There was a vocal minority of Tolkein fans who disliked it (and who had decided they hated it even bofore the first episode had been aired) and its viewing figures exceeded those of Game of Thrones (Though not House of Dragons). Even though viewing figures dropped throughout the series it was still by far Amazon's most watched to date.
I've seen the estimated viewing figures and it doesn't get close to the likes of Stranger Things. You also can't compare it to Game of Thrones because that was pre-streaming. If you include piracy in the numbers for both (the only reasonable proxy for streaming) then RoP is tiny in comparison, especially towards the end.
The viewing figures completely tanked over the whole season and I've heard that Amazon are resigned to the second season performing poorly already. It became a bit of a laughing stock and case study for rival streaming companies. At least Netflix got 2 seasons out of The Witcher before everyone gave up in season 3.
The problems with RoP were that they too k a brilliant property (Tolkien), got some genuine experts* on the pile of stuff they licensed…. And then stitched it together with bizarre, terrible writing.
Peter Jackson has told of how he had to fight studio executives who would demand weird, brainless changes to Lord Of The Rings. Looks like this time they got their way.
*Wizards, origin of orcs, the two trees, Morgoth’s Ring, Sauron trying to repent but getting it wrong because of his pride and unreformed nature… just a few of the things they got perfectly right.
I just finished reading the Silmarillion and there was nothing in Akalabeth about Galadriel going to Numenor with Sauron. In fact Sauron only set foot on Numenor when the usurper king defeated Sauron in middle earth and took him prisoner where he then wormed his way into being a key adviser and reintroduced human sacrifice and worship of Morgoth among men.
And very specifically Gandalf/Olorin isn't mentioned in the first or second ages, he only arrived in the third age. Yet in RoP we have got Gandalf in the first/second age.
Plaid come out against the Speaker and 86 have signed the notice confidence motion
Not sure where this is going
Get rid of him. Install a speaker with a spine who won’t keep getting rolled over. I think I posted this a year ago, and the facts havn’t changed. I don’t like him.
Though the pressure speaker was put under last week is complicated, if minor opposition parties are merely shameless opportunists like the SNP. Imagine if shinfayn IRA took up their seats to cause as much mischief and shameless opportunism as they absolutely could - it would be identical to this SNP bloc.
The SNP in parliament are just opportunists, and see the events in Gaza as a means of stopping Labour’s advance in Scotland. Their motion was designed to make it hard for the Labour frontbench to support (with references to Israel inflicting “collective punishment”) but hard for Labour MPs not to support as failure to walk through the SNP’s lobbies would be portrayed as failing to back a ceasefire. This left Labour cornered, with the risk of Shadow Cabinet resignations and many more accusations and genuinely damaging evidence of Sir Keir Starmer flip-flopping if he changed approach. At this point, Labour came up with a wheeze: produce their own motion that backs a ceasefire, but presents it in a more balanced way. Labour MPs could then say that they had voted for a ceasefire without defying their whips. The problem is that this motion, the sane one to bring members of all parties to speak as one for Britain, would not normally be called by the Speaker. So Follow convention, even though SNP are bastardising convention and don’t care a toss about London Parliament just taking the piss, or do the right thing and try to make the vote on something MPs across the house could honestly support without feeling under pressure from the extremists that the home office and government are allowing to mass outside the building?
Even a speaker with a backbone would have found it a tough day if the MPs come intent to act like a rabble.
Hmm. It's not the SNP who wrecked convention. And you are denying members of parliament of the UK any valid agency. You're not being a good unionist.
“You're not being a good unionist.”
You piss taking joker! In what way have SNP come to London Parliament to be good unionists? 🤣 They deserve every slap down their trouble making deserves!
Make me speaker.
You believe in the union, presumably - so that means all MPs of all parties are treated equally. All of them.
The moment that rule is breached - the union is heading down the plughole. Because some constituents have their voted-in MP treated as second class.
It's as simple as that. The SNP were not allowed to have their opposition day because it did not suit another party. And the Speaker grovelled to the other party. No longer neutral.
Now, extend that to PC. The LDs, Greens, any minority party, including the Tories after the election (probably). See?
On current polls Labour may win more MPs in Scotland than the SNP anyway, so what the SNP think would be irrelevant to the Union as they no longer are the main party in Scotland.
You're not reading it properly. My comment is about what *Unionist* parties think of the Union.
My take on Tomorrows I front page main headline is ignore it. We are going to get a lot of “is Labours poll lead soft” headlines to try and generate some excitement and grab headlines from here on in.
However, there in bottom right of same papers front page is a story rather revealing and serious.
FIRST TIME BUYERS PRICED OUT, AS WALL STREET LANDLORDS BUY UP NEW BUILDS.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Rings of Power too. They spent $350m to make one season, tried to make a show that appealed to "everyone" and in the end the people who want to watch Tolkien all hated it and stopped watching while the intended "new" audience didn't turn up so overall it completely flopped.
No we didn't. There was a vocal minority of Tolkein fans who disliked it (and who had decided they hated it even bofore the first episode had been aired) and its viewing figures exceeded those of Game of Thrones (Though not House of Dragons). Even though viewing figures dropped throughout the series it was still by far Amazon's most watched to date.
I've seen the estimated viewing figures and it doesn't get close to the likes of Stranger Things. You also can't compare it to Game of Thrones because that was pre-streaming. If you include piracy in the numbers for both (the only reasonable proxy for streaming) then RoP is tiny in comparison, especially towards the end.
The viewing figures completely tanked over the whole season and I've heard that Amazon are resigned to the second season performing poorly already. It became a bit of a laughing stock and case study for rival streaming companies. At least Netflix got 2 seasons out of The Witcher before everyone gave up in season 3.
The problems with RoP were that they too k a brilliant property (Tolkien), got some genuine experts* on the pile of stuff they licensed…. And then stitched it together with bizarre, terrible writing.
Peter Jackson has told of how he had to fight studio executives who would demand weird, brainless changes to Lord Of The Rings. Looks like this time they got their way.
*Wizards, origin of orcs, the two trees, Morgoth’s Ring, Sauron trying to repent but getting it wrong because of his pride and unreformed nature… just a few of the things they got perfectly right.
I just finished reading the Silmarillion and there was nothing in Akalabeth about Galadriel going to Numenor with Sauron. In fact Sauron only set foot on Numenor when the usurper king defeated Sauron in middle earth and took him prisoner where he then wormed his way into being a key adviser and reintroduced human sacrifice and worship of Morgoth among men.
And very specifically Gandalf/Olorin isn't mentioned in the first or second ages, he only arrived in the third age. Yet in RoP we have got Gandalf in the first/second age.
I have absolutely zero problem with changing things, in fact one of my big concerns early on was when they said it would be super faithful, because that would hamstring them by binding them too closely to the lore. It only matters if changes are done well, and for an actual purpose narratively or thematically.
So I enjoyed the show fine, and thought some of the complaints overblown (like about Galadriel being all sword fighty and stuff), but I do think it was not very well strung together or written, and that is a problem when uber-fans don't seem like sticking around, because the casual fans won't either if it is not great.
Bad writing, however, can be addressed fairly simply, even if they don't/cannot fix things super fans did not enjoy. I'm not very confident in the ability of shows to address such problems though, outside Picard Season 3 (reportedly).
My take on Tomorrows I front page main headline is ignore it. We are going to get a lot of “is Labours poll lead soft” headlines to try and generate some excitement and grab headlines from here on in.
However, there in bottom right of same papers front page is a story rather revealing and serious.
FIRST TIME BUYERS PRICED OUT, AS WALL STREET LANDLORDS BUY UP NEW BUILDS.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
Yeah, maybe, I haven't seen the question.
Doesn't that work the other way too though? Only 14% said they thought taxes should be cut - presumably they weren't assuming that would only be other people's taxes cut.
My brother surprised me the other day. He voted Tory in 2019 (liked Boris, wanted Brexit done) he's in the working but struggling category but said he'd prefer to pay a bit more tax and have public services that work.
I really do wonder if the Tories have got this whole 'tax cuts' thing right.
No party either raising or lowering taxes will be thanked by the public. Tax cuts never deliver as much back into people's pockets as they think they should and so they will show little or no gratitude whilst tax rises simply remind people of how much they are already paying and give them more excuses to hate the politicians.
tax should be set at the level that does the best for the economy and the country. Using them to bribe or punish the electorate is a fools game. So whilst I think taxes are way too high (by which I actually mean the state is way too large) that is irrelevant in this instance. What I am arguing about is the value - or lack of it - of these sorts of polls.
Which things do you think the state should drop that it currently does?
I answered this the other day. I think they should drop the universal pension and all the other Retirement benefits and have them means tested. Our whole social security system should return to what it was originally intended for which is a safety net. Now it is used partly to fulfill the idea of social and ecomomic equality and mostly as a means to bribe certain sections of the electorate which vary depending on which party is in power.
Yes, sorry, I remember. Unfortunately your suggestion is totally untenable, politically. Any party including it in their manifesto would make Theresa May's campaign look inspired.
Agreed. But that applies to many things that should be done and is no excuse for not doing them. If Starmer gets a big majority then he should have the courage to do these things as soon as possible and hope that the 5 years he has before the next election is long enough to prove him right.
But sadly, as the article in the Guardian said today, like the SPD in Germany, he will be too cautious and so will achieve nothing of consequence beyond increasing dissatisfaction with the current political duopoly
My take on Tomorrows I front page main headline is ignore it. We are going to get a lot of “is Labours poll lead soft” headlines to try and generate some excitement and grab headlines from here on in.
However, there in bottom right of same papers front page is a story rather revealing and serious.
FIRST TIME BUYERS PRICED OUT, AS WALL STREET LANDLORDS BUY UP NEW BUILDS.
Polling by DeltaPoll for Channel 4 News suggests that three quarters of voters want to see taxes retained where they are now, or increased, because they care more about funding public services. In its summary of the findings C4 News says:
The poll of 1,500 UK voters, conducted between 23-26 February is released today ahead of the spring budget 2024 next week. The new data shows that more than four in ten respondents (41%) believed that taxes and public spending should be kept at the level they are now. A further third (34%) said they would like to see taxes increased with greater spending on public services, while one in seven (14%) believed that taxes and public spending should be reduced. Among Conservative voters, that figure rose only marginally to one in six (17%). When asked to rank a list of economic priorities, voters placed cutting taxes fourth (11%), after growing the economy (23%), reducing inflation (22%), and investing in public service (12%), with 8% choosing to prioritise reducing the national debt, a cornerstone of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ economic policy.
I wonder if they were asked if 'taxes should go up' or if 'their taxes should go up'? Lots of people seem to be happy to see others pay more tax whilst being opposed to their own taxes going up.
At the last count there were 23m people happy to see others pay more tax but not their own, and a further 21m who love to point this out every time anyone suggests increasing taxes.
Simply pointing out a truth - it undermines all these sorts of polls.
Ask people if they would be willing (note I don't try to influence it by saying 'happy') to pay more tax themselves and I suspect the answer would be very different from that shown in this poll. It is always easy to insist on sacrifices by others whilst preserving ones own advantages. That is reality and any poll that does not take this into account is worthless.
Everyone is right to say that they would not be happy to pay more. Even the lowest taxed of us (within the system, not wealthy tax exiles) pays too much.
My take on Tomorrows I front page main headline is ignore it. We are going to get a lot of “is Labours poll lead soft” headlines to try and generate some excitement and grab headlines from here on in.
However, there in bottom right of same papers front page is a story rather revealing and serious.
FIRST TIME BUYERS PRICED OUT, AS WALL STREET LANDLORDS BUY UP NEW BUILDS.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Rings of Power too. They spent $350m to make one season, tried to make a show that appealed to "everyone" and in the end the people who want to watch Tolkien all hated it and stopped watching while the intended "new" audience didn't turn up so overall it completely flopped.
No we didn't. There was a vocal minority of Tolkein fans who disliked it (and who had decided they hated it even bofore the first episode had been aired) and its viewing figures exceeded those of Game of Thrones (Though not House of Dragons). Even though viewing figures dropped throughout the series it was still by far Amazon's most watched to date.
I've seen the estimated viewing figures and it doesn't get close to the likes of Stranger Things. You also can't compare it to Game of Thrones because that was pre-streaming. If you include piracy in the numbers for both (the only reasonable proxy for streaming) then RoP is tiny in comparison, especially towards the end.
The viewing figures completely tanked over the whole season and I've heard that Amazon are resigned to the second season performing poorly already. It became a bit of a laughing stock and case study for rival streaming companies. At least Netflix got 2 seasons out of The Witcher before everyone gave up in season 3.
The problems with RoP were that they too k a brilliant property (Tolkien), got some genuine experts* on the pile of stuff they licensed…. And then stitched it together with bizarre, terrible writing.
Peter Jackson has told of how he had to fight studio executives who would demand weird, brainless changes to Lord Of The Rings. Looks like this time they got their way.
*Wizards, origin of orcs, the two trees, Morgoth’s Ring, Sauron trying to repent but getting it wrong because of his pride and unreformed nature… just a few of the things they got perfectly right.
I just finished reading the Silmarillion and there was nothing in Akalabeth about Galadriel going to Numenor with Sauron. In fact Sauron only set foot on Numenor when the usurper king defeated Sauron in middle earth and took him prisoner where he then wormed his way into being a key adviser and reintroduced human sacrifice and worship of Morgoth among men.
And very specifically Gandalf/Olorin isn't mentioned in the first or second ages, he only arrived in the third age. Yet in RoP we have got Gandalf in the first/second age.
There are at least three separate places in Tolkien's writings where he indicates Gandalf was in Middle Earth in the First and Second Ages. Given the extreme limitations placed on Rings of Power by the Tolkien estate - including being forbidden from directly referencing anything written in the Silmarillion - it is not surprising they are having to fill in the gaps based on other Tolkien sources.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Rings of Power too. They spent $350m to make one season, tried to make a show that appealed to "everyone" and in the end the people who want to watch Tolkien all hated it and stopped watching while the intended "new" audience didn't turn up so overall it completely flopped.
No we didn't. There was a vocal minority of Tolkein fans who disliked it (and who had decided they hated it even bofore the first episode had been aired) and its viewing figures exceeded those of Game of Thrones (Though not House of Dragons). Even though viewing figures dropped throughout the series it was still by far Amazon's most watched to date.
I've seen the estimated viewing figures and it doesn't get close to the likes of Stranger Things. You also can't compare it to Game of Thrones because that was pre-streaming. If you include piracy in the numbers for both (the only reasonable proxy for streaming) then RoP is tiny in comparison, especially towards the end.
The viewing figures completely tanked over the whole season and I've heard that Amazon are resigned to the second season performing poorly already. It became a bit of a laughing stock and case study for rival streaming companies. At least Netflix got 2 seasons out of The Witcher before everyone gave up in season 3.
The problems with RoP were that they too k a brilliant property (Tolkien), got some genuine experts* on the pile of stuff they licensed…. And then stitched it together with bizarre, terrible writing.
Peter Jackson has told of how he had to fight studio executives who would demand weird, brainless changes to Lord Of The Rings. Looks like this time they got their way.
*Wizards, origin of orcs, the two trees, Morgoth’s Ring, Sauron trying to repent but getting it wrong because of his pride and unreformed nature… just a few of the things they got perfectly right.
I just finished reading the Silmarillion and there was nothing in Akalabeth about Galadriel going to Numenor with Sauron. In fact Sauron only set foot on Numenor when the usurper king defeated Sauron in middle earth and took him prisoner where he then wormed his way into being a key adviser and reintroduced human sacrifice and worship of Morgoth among men.
And very specifically Gandalf/Olorin isn't mentioned in the first or second ages, he only arrived in the third age. Yet in RoP we have got Gandalf in the first/second age.
I have absolutely zero problem with changing things, in fact one of my big concerns early on was when they said it would be super faithful, because that would hamstring them by binding them too closely to the lore. It only matters if changes are done well, and for an actual purpose narratively or thematically.
So I enjoyed the show fine, and thought some of the complaints overblown (like about Galadriel being all sword fighty and stuff), but I do think it was not very well strung together or written, and that is a problem when uber-fans don't seem like sticking around, because the casual fans won't either if it is not great.
Bad writing, however, can be addressed fairly simply, even if they don't/cannot fix things super fans did not enjoy. I'm not very confident in the ability of shows to address such problems though, outside Picard Season 3 (reportedly).
I think the problem is writing by committee. Not a writing *team*.
The result is a mess. The series that work have well structured arcs, invest characters with consistent behaviour and actions are taken that make sense in the context of the created world.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Rings of Power too. They spent $350m to make one season, tried to make a show that appealed to "everyone" and in the end the people who want to watch Tolkien all hated it and stopped watching while the intended "new" audience didn't turn up so overall it completely flopped.
No we didn't. There was a vocal minority of Tolkein fans who disliked it (and who had decided they hated it even bofore the first episode had been aired) and its viewing figures exceeded those of Game of Thrones (Though not House of Dragons). Even though viewing figures dropped throughout the series it was still by far Amazon's most watched to date.
I've seen the estimated viewing figures and it doesn't get close to the likes of Stranger Things. You also can't compare it to Game of Thrones because that was pre-streaming. If you include piracy in the numbers for both (the only reasonable proxy for streaming) then RoP is tiny in comparison, especially towards the end.
The viewing figures completely tanked over the whole season and I've heard that Amazon are resigned to the second season performing poorly already. It became a bit of a laughing stock and case study for rival streaming companies. At least Netflix got 2 seasons out of The Witcher before everyone gave up in season 3.
The problems with RoP were that they too k a brilliant property (Tolkien), got some genuine experts* on the pile of stuff they licensed…. And then stitched it together with bizarre, terrible writing.
Peter Jackson has told of how he had to fight studio executives who would demand weird, brainless changes to Lord Of The Rings. Looks like this time they got their way.
*Wizards, origin of orcs, the two trees, Morgoth’s Ring, Sauron trying to repent but getting it wrong because of his pride and unreformed nature… just a few of the things they got perfectly right.
I just finished reading the Silmarillion and there was nothing in Akalabeth about Galadriel going to Numenor with Sauron. In fact Sauron only set foot on Numenor when the usurper king defeated Sauron in middle earth and took him prisoner where he then wormed his way into being a key adviser and reintroduced human sacrifice and worship of Morgoth among men.
And very specifically Gandalf/Olorin isn't mentioned in the first or second ages, he only arrived in the third age. Yet in RoP we have got Gandalf in the first/second age.
I have absolutely zero problem with changing things, in fact one of my big concerns early on was when they said it would be super faithful, because that would hamstring them by binding them too closely to the lore. It only matters if changes are done well, and for an actual purpose narratively or thematically.
So I enjoyed the show fine, and thought some of the complaints overblown (like about Galadriel being all sword fighty and stuff), but I do think it was not very well strung together or written, and that is a problem when uber-fans don't seem like sticking around, because the casual fans won't either if it is not great.
Bad writing, however, can be addressed fairly simply, even if they don't/cannot fix things super fans did not enjoy. I'm not very confident in the ability of shows to address such problems though, outside Picard Season 3 (reportedly).
Indeed the criticisms of Galadriel's portrayal were particularly dumb and seem to have been made by those who only know her from the films - or at best from reading only the Lord of the Rings.
She led the rebellion of the Noldor in Valinor and was open in her ambition to rule a kingdom of her own in Middle Earth. She certainly wasn't the goody goody fairy queen some seem to think.
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Rings of Power too. They spent $350m to make one season, tried to make a show that appealed to "everyone" and in the end the people who want to watch Tolkien all hated it and stopped watching while the intended "new" audience didn't turn up so overall it completely flopped.
No we didn't. There was a vocal minority of Tolkein fans who disliked it (and who had decided they hated it even bofore the first episode had been aired) and its viewing figures exceeded those of Game of Thrones (Though not House of Dragons). Even though viewing figures dropped throughout the series it was still by far Amazon's most watched to date.
I've seen the estimated viewing figures and it doesn't get close to the likes of Stranger Things. You also can't compare it to Game of Thrones because that was pre-streaming. If you include piracy in the numbers for both (the only reasonable proxy for streaming) then RoP is tiny in comparison, especially towards the end.
The viewing figures completely tanked over the whole season and I've heard that Amazon are resigned to the second season performing poorly already. It became a bit of a laughing stock and case study for rival streaming companies. At least Netflix got 2 seasons out of The Witcher before everyone gave up in season 3.
The problems with RoP were that they too k a brilliant property (Tolkien), got some genuine experts* on the pile of stuff they licensed…. And then stitched it together with bizarre, terrible writing.
Peter Jackson has told of how he had to fight studio executives who would demand weird, brainless changes to Lord Of The Rings. Looks like this time they got their way.
*Wizards, origin of orcs, the two trees, Morgoth’s Ring, Sauron trying to repent but getting it wrong because of his pride and unreformed nature… just a few of the things they got perfectly right.
I just finished reading the Silmarillion and there was nothing in Akalabeth about Galadriel going to Numenor with Sauron. In fact Sauron only set foot on Numenor when the usurper king defeated Sauron in middle earth and took him prisoner where he then wormed his way into being a key adviser and reintroduced human sacrifice and worship of Morgoth among men.
And very specifically Gandalf/Olorin isn't mentioned in the first or second ages, he only arrived in the third age. Yet in RoP we have got Gandalf in the first/second age.
There are at least three separate places in Tolkien's writings where he indicates Gandalf was in Middle Earth in the First and Second Ages. Given the extreme limitations placed on Rings of Power by the Tolkien estate - including being forbidden from directly referencing anything written in the Silmarillion - it is not surprising they are having to fill in the gaps based on other Tolkien sources.
And the Silmarillion is one (heavy) edit of a wider selection of material.
As it happens I loved RoP and felt it was, by and large, much closer to the tone of Tolkien as I read him, than e.g. the Jackson LotR movies. Then again the episode most people seemed to like best I thought was the worst. So you can't please everyone!
"They told the Mail of an incident about a year before the house was sold for £127,500, when a teenager living in the street accidentally kicked a football through a window.
'Her brother Darren was living there on his own at that point, there definitely weren't any children there,' said the boy's mother, who did not want to be named. 'It was just a single pane of glass, it would only have cost about £50 to replace, which we were happy to do. Our son hadn't done it on purpose, it was just a freak accident.
'Another neighbour had it boarded up, and Darren was very reasonable about it all. But he said he needed to speak to his landlady, who turned out to be Angela Rayner.
'I went to the same school as her, so I knew who she was, but I'd certainly never seen her in our street before. She said she needed to get involved because her brother wasn't strong enough to stand up for himself.
'She came round banging on the door, demanding we pay around £250 for it to be repaired. When we refused she threatened to take us to court.'
The woman's husband added: 'We refused to pay what she was asking for because there was no way the repair would have cost that much.
'She was just so obnoxious, she must have visited four or five times, demanding money and saying: 'I'll see you in court.'"
(More interestingly, these claims apparently stem from an upcoming biography of Rayner by Lord Ashcroft - so that's the angle here).
Truly the age of infinite media budget growth is over. 900 job cuts at Playstation, my former studio closed for good 😢 and budget constraint across the board.
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
MOTA which cost trillions and took decades to make, and still managed to be stunningly mediocre on release, being a case in point.
Rings of Power too. They spent $350m to make one season, tried to make a show that appealed to "everyone" and in the end the people who want to watch Tolkien all hated it and stopped watching while the intended "new" audience didn't turn up so overall it completely flopped.
No we didn't. There was a vocal minority of Tolkein fans who disliked it (and who had decided they hated it even bofore the first episode had been aired) and its viewing figures exceeded those of Game of Thrones (Though not House of Dragons). Even though viewing figures dropped throughout the series it was still by far Amazon's most watched to date.
I've seen the estimated viewing figures and it doesn't get close to the likes of Stranger Things. You also can't compare it to Game of Thrones because that was pre-streaming. If you include piracy in the numbers for both (the only reasonable proxy for streaming) then RoP is tiny in comparison, especially towards the end.
The viewing figures completely tanked over the whole season and I've heard that Amazon are resigned to the second season performing poorly already. It became a bit of a laughing stock and case study for rival streaming companies. At least Netflix got 2 seasons out of The Witcher before everyone gave up in season 3.
The problems with RoP were that they too k a brilliant property (Tolkien), got some genuine experts* on the pile of stuff they licensed…. And then stitched it together with bizarre, terrible writing.
Peter Jackson has told of how he had to fight studio executives who would demand weird, brainless changes to Lord Of The Rings. Looks like this time they got their way.
*Wizards, origin of orcs, the two trees, Morgoth’s Ring, Sauron trying to repent but getting it wrong because of his pride and unreformed nature… just a few of the things they got perfectly right.
I just finished reading the Silmarillion and there was nothing in Akalabeth about Galadriel going to Numenor with Sauron. In fact Sauron only set foot on Numenor when the usurper king defeated Sauron in middle earth and took him prisoner where he then wormed his way into being a key adviser and reintroduced human sacrifice and worship of Morgoth among men.
And very specifically Gandalf/Olorin isn't mentioned in the first or second ages, he only arrived in the third age. Yet in RoP we have got Gandalf in the first/second age.
There are at least three separate places in Tolkien's writings where he indicates Gandalf was in Middle Earth in the First and Second Ages. Given the extreme limitations placed on Rings of Power by the Tolkien estate - including being forbidden from directly referencing anything written in the Silmarillion - it is not surprising they are having to fill in the gaps based on other Tolkien sources.
My only memory of reading The Silmarillion is endless "As was said by Bleurgh, son of Troulgh, Grandson on Meaurgh, Great Grandson of ...."
My take on Tomorrows I front page main headline is ignore it. We are going to get a lot of “is Labours poll lead soft” headlines to try and generate some excitement and grab headlines from here on in.
However, there in bottom right of same papers front page is a story rather revealing and serious.
FIRST TIME BUYERS PRICED OUT, AS WALL STREET LANDLORDS BUY UP NEW BUILDS.
The only way we can finance our trade deficit is by flogging off assets abroad.
Then perhaps we should stop deficiting trade.
We have a government of the working class, by the upper-middle classes, for (the benefit of) foreign classes. We used to be oppressed by the British upper class. Now we are oppressed by American/European/Middle Eastern/whatever upper classes. This is not an improvement.
My take on Tomorrows I front page main headline is ignore it. We are going to get a lot of “is Labours poll lead soft” headlines to try and generate some excitement and grab headlines from here on in.
However, there in bottom right of same papers front page is a story rather revealing and serious.
FIRST TIME BUYERS PRICED OUT, AS WALL STREET LANDLORDS BUY UP NEW BUILDS.
The only way we can finance our trade deficit is by flogging off assets abroad.
Then perhaps we should stop deficiting trade.
We have a government of the working class, by the upper-middle classes, for (the benefit of) foreign classes. We used to be oppressed by the British upper class. Now we are oppressed by American/European/Middle Eastern/whatever upper classes. This is not an improvement.
Comments
What sort of mindset of people doesn’t have any beliefs or values they would use any sort of power and influence they get to forward - fuel poverty, the environment, fight against drugs etc etc. The SNP could actually have won more friends and support for their cause, if they sent MPs to London to behave rationally and responsibly.
Instead, last week, the SNP was 100% playing politics against the growing Labour menace to their seats and control of Scottish Government, with the mealy wording of that motion. It’s hard to know which is more disgusting really - utilising the fear of the mob outside, to force Labour MPs into the same lobby as themselves, or knowing the fact the number 1 reason the SNP was only doing all this was for their own self interest, not the Palestinian cause.
Just Stop Oil hoping to start a new party and disrupt the election.
Would get rid of the last Greasy Johnsonites.
https://www.gov.uk/over-80-pension/what-youll-get
The same is true across the games, TV and movie industries. No one can justify the $300m budget for a single season of a TV show, a single movie or game any more. I think Spider-Man 2 on PS5 will be seen as the turning point. I've heard from old colleagues that the internal retro from senior management at Playstation was scathing about budget control, a game which had 60-70% asset reuse still managed to cost them $310m to make and 4.5 years of development time for a game that was only rated at 20ish hours vs the original at 40ish hours for $140m and 3 years dev time.
I actually think this will end up being a good thing for the media industries as companies are forced to become more creative again and stop relying on ever increasing budgets to cover up poor efficiency. In gaming, it seems as though Asia/Japan is once again teaching western developers how to do it properly, they seem to have got budget control, games which are successful and have 3-4 year development timeframes rather than 4-6 years in the west with studios of 150-200 people and not 400-500.
In movies it's all changing, because box office receipts are falling for all but the biggest event movies studios are having to actually plan budgets properly and I think we'll see loads more $30-50m productions and 90-110 minute long movies rather than the standard fare $200m 2.5h long movie.
In 3 or 4 years movies, TV shows and games will be a completely different landscape. I think for the better. One of the studios that Playstation works with has a motto "a game for everyone is a game for no one" and that seems to finally be dawning across all media companies.
Anyway, just a random aside for the evening.
https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/essential-free-range-white-eggs/856706-653765-653766
Size, er, variable.
Happy Birthday!
My view is public services in this country are pretty good overall but way, way down on where they could and should be, and indeed where they were 20 years ago.
As you note in your positive reflection: the bins are collected regularly.
Crime rates are low. Do you think they would be so low without the Police?
The rule of law applies - we can walk down 99.9% of streets day or night in safety.
The security services largely prevent and protect us from acts of terrorism
Corruption is at low levels.
Most people can get a (free) doctor's consultation when they need one.
Serious illnesses are usually investigated and treated promptly.
You can usually get an ambulance in an emergency - though maybe not quickly enough.
Our children receive an education.
Water comes out of the taps and sewage gets flushed away (not always to where it should be tbf.)
Power cuts are a rarity.
Transport, buildings, food, clothes, furniture, and pretty much everything else is generally safe.
The environment is largely protected.
The planning office will process your planning application and building control will ensure the build quality.
You can get a new passport or driving licence pretty quickly.
The roads are generally serviceable, if a bit pot-holed in places.
Some will of course find things to disagree with in my scattergun list above but most things in this country work. However, few if any work as well as they should.
But we get the public services we pay for.
Ask people if they would be willing (note I don't try to influence it by saying 'happy') to pay more tax themselves and I suspect the answer would be very different from that shown in this poll. It is always easy to insist on sacrifices by others whilst preserving ones own advantages. That is reality and any poll that does not take this into account is worthless.
As to the first point, there is a right to protest in this country. The intentional or unintentional advocacy of genocide is where I share your concern. We had protests in the 1980s backing the ANC against the South African Government outside the South African Embassy. - many considered the ANC terrorists but were there any calls for the genocide of white South Africans? Not that I can remember.
tax should be set at the level that does the best for the economy and the country. Using them to bribe or punish the electorate is a fools game. So whilst I think taxes are way too high (by which I actually mean the state is way too large) that is irrelevant in this instance. What I am arguing about is the value - or lack of it - of these sorts of polls.
Broadly though the poll rings true to me. There is a lot of concern out there about the state of public services.
*best known for Steve Biko, and his killing.
Long read on the chaos between elected and officers in Brum city council:
https://www.birminghamdispatch.co.uk/p/the-pincer-manoeuvre-how-secretive
But I think you're absolutely right: I think the there are fewer and fewer mega games, while AI is going to make creating cheaper games with small teams significantly easier.
It's actually pretty exciting times for the games industry
My free AppleTV offer did get me hooked on For All Mankind though - quite enjoying that one.
But gross debt is currently = 100% of GDP and the deficit is 5.8% GDP according to the latest figures. It's not the time to cut overall taxes.
Refocus them away from employment towards wealth by all means but cut? Not at the present time.
The viewing figures completely tanked over the whole season and I've heard that Amazon are resigned to the second season performing poorly already. It became a bit of a laughing stock and case study for rival streaming companies. At least Netflix got 2 seasons out of The Witcher before everyone gave up in season 3.
On the centre left some of us as far more interested in social and civic policy, equality and opportunity back here in Blighty.
I'm assuming it no longer applies for newbies as we move to the new state pension?
Not that there's no place for disruptive protests, but engaging with politics in other ways would be good.
But centre-anything probably does not count.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-68414524
It's like those memes where someone goes 'I want to do X, we must end the capitalist system' and someone suggests an alternative, then they go 'I don't want to do X, I want to end the capitalist system'. Even many Tories want to go in to opposition and refocus the party in a new direction, or are just annoyed enough to not care about appeals to unity. So even giving them tax cuts won't cut through.
is that Match of the Afternoon?
I honestly wondered if Paterson's might have, he had a lot of sympathy from Tories for his personal situation to the point of ignoring his corruption, but instead he decided to compound the damage done from Boris wasting political capital on him, and then flounce off rather than make a case.
Boris's would have triggered a by-election, but it's still an open question if he would have lost.
It's surely more rational than the Burning Pink party (sadly no longer registered I see). I was hoping they would stand again in London to see if they could repeat coming dead bottom out of 20, with 1/4 of the vote of Piers Corbyn and 1/5 that of a dude with a bucket on his head.
Might just be me.
But we have limits, and after a certain amount of time, after a certain level of claim, and if we just don't trust the person selling a dream, we wake up.
I see nothing legally compelling the Tories to hold this one, even if the General Election goes to next year. Politically, the argument “close now to end of Parliament it will be waste of money to hold it” would be supported by both Reform and Labour. Starmer could ask Reeves if he can argue for it, and she’ll tell him no, waste of money.
Without any legal or political pressure on the Tories, none of their seats are going up for by election what remains of this Parliament.
Peter Jackson has told of how he had to fight studio executives who would demand weird, brainless changes to Lord Of The Rings. Looks like this time they got their way.
*Wizards, origin of orcs, the two trees, Morgoth’s Ring, Sauron trying to repent but getting it wrong because of his pride and unreformed nature… just a few of the things they got perfectly right.
However, there in bottom right of same papers front page is a story rather revealing and serious.
FIRST TIME BUYERS PRICED OUT, AS WALL STREET LANDLORDS BUY UP NEW BUILDS.
How does that even happen? How is it stopped?
And very specifically Gandalf/Olorin isn't mentioned in the first or second ages, he only arrived in the third age. Yet in RoP we have got Gandalf in the first/second age.
https://capx.co/nimby-watch-abingdons-aquatic-nimbys/
Anyone here from South Oxfordshire (or Berkshire, as it used to be known)?
So I enjoyed the show fine, and thought some of the complaints overblown (like about Galadriel being all sword fighty and stuff), but I do think it was not very well strung together or written, and that is a problem when uber-fans don't seem like sticking around, because the casual fans won't either if it is not great.
Bad writing, however, can be addressed fairly simply, even if they don't/cannot fix things super fans did not enjoy. I'm not very confident in the ability of shows to address such problems though, outside Picard Season 3 (reportedly).
But sadly, as the article in the Guardian said today, like the SPD in Germany, he will be too cautious and so will achieve nothing of consequence beyond increasing dissatisfaction with the current political duopoly
Utter madness. Ridiculously dangerous at a time of massive international tension.
Another mess for Starmer to sort out.
Jack Surfleet
@jacksurfleet
Wednesday's DAILY MAIL: Indefensible
https://twitter.com/jacksurfleet/status/1762605279990997454
https://news.sky.com/story/fridays-national-newspaper-front-pages-12427754
The result is a mess. The series that work have well structured arcs, invest characters with consistent behaviour and actions are taken that make sense in the context of the created world.
She led the rebellion of the Noldor in Valinor and was open in her ambition to rule a kingdom of her own in Middle Earth. She certainly wasn't the goody goody fairy queen some seem to think.
As it happens I loved RoP and felt it was, by and large, much closer to the tone of Tolkien as I read him, than e.g. the Jackson LotR movies. Then again the episode most people seemed to like best I thought was the worst. So you can't please everyone!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13131443/living-angela-rayner-neighbours-claim-banging-door-demanded-look-google.html
"They told the Mail of an incident about a year before the house was sold for £127,500, when a teenager living in the street accidentally kicked a football through a window.
'Her brother Darren was living there on his own at that point, there definitely weren't any children there,' said the boy's mother, who did not want to be named. 'It was just a single pane of glass, it would only have cost about £50 to replace, which we were happy to do. Our son hadn't done it on purpose, it was just a freak accident.
'Another neighbour had it boarded up, and Darren was very reasonable about it all. But he said he needed to speak to his landlady, who turned out to be Angela Rayner.
'I went to the same school as her, so I knew who she was, but I'd certainly never seen her in our street before. She said she needed to get involved because her brother wasn't strong enough to stand up for himself.
'She came round banging on the door, demanding we pay around £250 for it to be repaired. When we refused she threatened to take us to court.'
The woman's husband added: 'We refused to pay what she was asking for because there was no way the repair would have cost that much.
'She was just so obnoxious, she must have visited four or five times, demanding money and saying: 'I'll see you in court.'"
(More interestingly, these claims apparently stem from an upcoming biography of Rayner by Lord Ashcroft - so that's the angle here).
We have a government of the working class, by the upper-middle classes, for (the benefit of) foreign classes. We used to be oppressed by the British upper class. Now we are oppressed by American/European/Middle Eastern/whatever upper classes. This is not an improvement.
We sold ourselves for cheap laptops and fancy cars. See these building sites in South London? https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/news/the-south-london-landmarks-owned-by-qatar/ ? Owned by various Qatar funds. Lived in by Brits. Who will be paying rent to them for the rest of their lives.