Ignoring tidal and getting the taxpayer to stump up for more offshore wind (when companies won't even invest unless the Government raises the price per kh to stupid levels) is cretinous. £8.3bn to erect floating windmills in case it's blowy, meanwhile the tides come in and go out every day like clockwork and we fail to harness them.
It doesn't have to be either or.
Given that this announcement would have been an opportunity to revive the prospect of tidal going ahead, I think this windmill announcement shows it's absolutely an either or. *This* is what they've been percolating away in all those years of having zero policies?
If the next government did nothing else other than speed up planning for major projects, it would be a vast improvement on what we have.
I really think that the failure of tidal to take off thus far is because there's no grifting money in things that actually work, and produce power for sensible money and in a timely fashion. Contrast with the truly eye watering sums involved in nuclear investment, or the subsidy jungle of wind.
Tidal is big bang expensive construction projects; lots of concrete. It’s a lot like nuclear in that respect. Not as big as nuclear, but still.
Wind is incremental - you can build it out one turbine at a time if you want to.
Why not do both if feasible. We all know problem with the wind is you cannot depend on it.
The tides we know are a given. Can it be made to work though ?
One problem with tidal is that it’s predictable but annoyingly periodic in a way that doesn’t line up with the 24 hour day over time. So you still have the problem that to actually use this power you really need to be able to store it somewhere, which drives up costs. Otherwise you’re going to spend half the year selling it into the market at off-peak times when you have power, so your return on capital is nowhere near what you’d expect from a naive calculation based on the mean electricity price.
Neither wind nor tidal can delivery power at short notice when you need it. You either need peak power plants (basically natgas at the moment) or batteries on a huge scale.
This isn’t actually too bad though - in the short term we already have the natgas plants & if we only use them for filling in the gaps then the CO2 impact is small & batteries are only getting cheaper over time. It’s already getting to the point that installing a battery in your house (+ ancillery gear) and paying spot for electricity is a net win for many people.
I think natural gas has a bigger role to play for us in the medium-long term than some think. It simply fits better around the lows in wind, solar and tidal generated power than nuclear which is more difficult to turn on and off.
I mean apart from the article not being about talking about *that* gender (good trolling TSE) why on earth shouldn't we talk about *that* gender on here. Or on online forums.
What a peculiar view.
Have a nice day also.
Quite entertaining, though, to see someone who has claimed to be a prize-winning highbrow writer and an acknowledged expert on gender issues not even realise from a first glance what the header is about. Let alone bother to read it.
It’s the theory that debate is bad, because debate acknowledges the possibility that you are less than perfectly right.
That brings in to play the whole doctrine of infallibility of the Church. Before you know it, people will be questioning if premature cremation of people for reading Holy Writ translated from the Latin is a good idea
This government has broken Britain. Sunak disagrees, and seems to think its marvellous. This is the basic issue they have - they can't accept reality, so they can't propose solutions, so they don't have any policies, so they are sliding into the abyss.
That isn't even a left / right issue. Truss managed to identify things are broken from the right, its just that her prescription was from the lunatic asylum.
Unless the Tories can even face up to the mess, never mind proposing a way forward, they are sunk. This is much bigger than the kind of STOP THE BOATS retail politics Sunak has failed at. Our problems are much deeper. And he doesn't get it.
Most of this country's problems can be solved by a couple of decades of it living within its means, an improvement in public sector productivity and a bit of intergenerational wealth transfer.
The amount of investment required to get public infrastructure and public sector productivity to the correct levels makes that virtually impossible.
In future times the Tory Government from 2010-2024 will be regarded as a period of lost opportunities where this country lost its position in the world
It has been easily the worst government since WW2. Of course the global financial crisis meant they had a poor hand, but boy have they played it badly.
Since 2010 the Tories have had two flagship policies - austerity and then Brexit. Both of these have proved ignominious failures - austerity did not reduce the public sector deficit and Brexit has proved to be a political and economic albatross around the necks of both the UK and the Tories.
The scale of the Tory failure is unusual - most governments can point to some policies (Blair investment in public services & devolution, Thatcher privatisation etc) which can be argued to have been successful - there have been no such achievements over the past 14 years. The record is one of unmitigated failure.
I would add in completely fucking up HS2. The creation of the OBR is their only achievement.
Hardly the creation of the OBR simply continually reinforces the stupidity of austerity.
I think the OBR fulfills a useful service in enforcing a degree of truthfulness on the Treasury forecast and highlighting long term fiscal policy challenges, similar to the CBO in the US. By making the forecasts more credible it probably let's us borrow a little more cheaply. The policy choices are the government's.
The BBC have just reported on the findings of immigration into the UK in 2023 which shows over 600,000 work and over 600,000 student visas were issues with just over 100,000 for Ukraine and Hong Kong citizens and 80,000 family
Included in the work visas were health and care workers which are vital to that sector and of course the student numbers underpin the university sector without whom UK student fees would be astronomical
Just over 30,000 crossed the channel and stopping the boats is essential not least for those attempting the perilous crossing, but the conservatives have made it an enormous political issue
The BBC interviewed Braverman on whose watch this happened and she said Sunak ignored her ( good for him) as she demanded a stop on these levels of immigration and he would only talk about the channel crossings to her
The reality, as this BBC article affirms is that no political party is going to be able to reduce the numbers significantly
The BBC also said they had asked Labour to appear on the programme but they refused which in itself is interesting
Immigration will very probably come down when Labour are elected. This won't be because Labour have been elected, but student numbers will stabilise (i.e. outflow equals inflow, so minimal contribution to net immigration) and numbers on the Hong Kong and Ukraine schemes will fall.
I think voter interest in immigration will also come down because the government won't be banging on about it all the time. The Conservatives are constantly talking about controlling immigration while delivering record high immigration. It's bizarre behaviour. I am sensible enough not to bang on about the staff I'm bad at! Campaigning as if you are in opposition doesn't work when you've been in power for 14 years.
The immigration talk seems to me to be a very poor attempt at distraction - don’t look there, look at this tiny item here.
Problem is the tiny item they want people to focus on is unfixable
They haven't fixed it. That doesn't mean it's unfixable.
It's not 'fixable' on an electoral timescale, without doing enormous economic damage. You could change the system to start trending in the opposite direction - but that's not going to satisfy the immigration obsessives.
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
23% of voters in 2010 went for Clegg’s orange book LDs, which is pretty much what Tory Lite is; plus arguably Cameron certainly ‘presented’ as Tory-lite (even if austerity was not, in practice).
It’s not in favour at the moment simply because we did it and it was rubbish, pretty much.
I don’t think Starmer’s Labour is Tory-lite either. But I think making outward displays of intent around spending constraint is just electorally sensible.
All this "Support for Reform (and Green) will be squeezed in the election" argument ignores how, in 2010, LibDem support went up over the course of the election campaign. Indeed, if not as spectacularly, LibDem support often rises in election campaigns. Maybe Reform and Green will benefit from similar forces.
Yebbut the 2010 Cleggasm is, let's face it, unlikely to manifest as a 2024 Daveygasm.... The guy has zero charisma, sex appeal, showbiz razzamatazz.
Unlike Boris for example..and look how that ended. Davey is unexceptional but I think at the election, people will be looking more for figures like him and SKS, colourful Tory figures having landed us in a mess.
They've lost the centre to the left and the right to the right. That spells doom.
They did not lose the centre. They walked away from it towards a right that can never be satisfied.
Haven’t they raised taxes, increased immigration and spent more?
Indeed. That is the far right, some even claim Fascist, Tory Party for you. Raise taxes, raise spending, increase inward migration. Very right wing.
Doing everything the centre left want whilst being told they are unfit for purpose and that the country needs a change! I think people just want their side to win.
If Sir Keir just quietly continues with current Tory policies, I doubt his supporters will complain.
Neither do I. Especially as he is doing a good job in purging the undesirables from the Party. I doubt anyone of any status in labour shed a tear at Owen Jones' ego trip flounce last week.
This government has broken Britain. Sunak disagrees, and seems to think its marvellous. This is the basic issue they have - they can't accept reality, so they can't propose solutions, so they don't have any policies, so they are sliding into the abyss.
That isn't even a left / right issue. Truss managed to identify things are broken from the right, its just that her prescription was from the lunatic asylum.
Unless the Tories can even face up to the mess, never mind proposing a way forward, they are sunk. This is much bigger than the kind of STOP THE BOATS retail politics Sunak has failed at. Our problems are much deeper. And he doesn't get it.
Most of this country's problems can be solved by a couple of decades of it living within its means, an improvement in public sector productivity and a bit of intergenerational wealth transfer.
The amount of investment required to get public infrastructure and public sector productivity to the correct levels makes that virtually impossible.
In future times the Tory Government from 2010-2024 will be regarded as a period of lost opportunities where this country lost its position in the world
It has been easily the worst government since WW2. Of course the global financial crisis meant they had a poor hand, but boy have they played it badly.
Since 2010 the Tories have had two flagship policies - austerity and then Brexit. Both of these have proved ignominious failures - austerity did not reduce the public sector deficit and Brexit has proved to be a political and economic albatross around the necks of both the UK and the Tories.
The scale of the Tory failure is unusual - most governments can point to some policies (Blair investment in public services & devolution, Thatcher privatisation etc) which can be argued to have been successful - there have been no such achievements over the past 14 years. The record is one of unmitigated failure.
I would add in completely fucking up HS2. The creation of the OBR is their only achievement.
Hardly the creation of the OBR simply continually reinforces the stupidity of austerity.
I think the OBR fulfills a useful service in enforcing a degree of truthfulness on the Treasury forecast and highlighting long term fiscal policy challenges, similar to the CBO in the US. By making the forecasts more credible it probably let's us borrow a little more cheaply. The policy choices are the government's.
Given that the OBR can’t differentiate between capital investment (HS2) and ongoing repairs (fixing holes in roads) I don’t think it’s any use
Ignoring tidal and getting the taxpayer to stump up for more offshore wind (when companies won't even invest unless the Government raises the price per kh to stupid levels) is cretinous. £8.3bn to erect floating windmills in case it's blowy, meanwhile the tides come in and go out every day like clockwork and we fail to harness them.
It doesn't have to be either or.
Given that this announcement would have been an opportunity to revive the prospect of tidal going ahead, I think this windmill announcement shows it's absolutely an either or. *This* is what they've been percolating away in all those years of having zero policies?
If the next government did nothing else other than speed up planning for major projects, it would be a vast improvement on what we have.
I really think that the failure of tidal to take off thus far is because there's no grifting money in things that actually work, and produce power for sensible money and in a timely fashion. Contrast with the truly eye watering sums involved in nuclear investment, or the subsidy jungle of wind.
Tidal is big bang expensive construction projects; lots of concrete. It’s a lot like nuclear in that respect. Not as big as nuclear, but still.
Wind is incremental - you can build it out one turbine at a time if you want to.
Why not do both if feasible. We all know problem with the wind is you cannot depend on it.
The tides we know are a given. Can it be made to work though ?
One problem with tidal is that it’s predictable but annoyingly periodic in a way that doesn’t line up with the 24 hour day over time. So you still have the problem that to actually use this power you really need to be able to store it somewhere, which drives up costs. Otherwise you’re going to spend half the year selling it into the market at off-peak times when you have power, so your return on capital is nowhere near what you’d expect from a naive calculation based on the mean electricity price.
Neither wind nor tidal can delivery power at short notice when you need it. You either need peak power plants (basically natgas at the moment) or batteries on a huge scale.
This isn’t actually too bad though - in the short term we already have the natgas plants & if we only use them for filling in the gaps then the CO2 impact is small & batteries are only getting cheaper over time. It’s already getting to the point that installing a battery in your house (+ ancillery gear) and paying spot for electricity is a net win for many people.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
But what could change very quickly and cheaply is the lying and dissembling about it.
We could also build the infrastructure and housing required to make immigration more comfortable for society generally.
Why would we do that when we are not building anything for our own citizens ?
Immigrants on visa's and their families will be contributing to the economy with their taxes, NI contributions and extra NHS tax, thus raising the growth figures which help pay for the NHS etc. Why shouldn't the immigrants be catered for with infrastructure and house building? You never know...perhaps the indigenous population would benefit from the extra doctor surgeries and hospital places and school places which would be created?
I have nothing agaisnt immigration per se, we're an immigrant nation. But to have nearly 10 million extra people since 2000 and nothing being done for national infrastructure, housing or social fabric suggests we need to digest what we have first rather than go getting more.
Furthermore why is it ok to steal other nations skilled employees ? A doctor in a less developed country is of more value there than over here managing diseases brought on by first world lifestyles. We should be training our own people.
It's all very well saying we have to digest who we have already, but isn't it about time we started doing stuff about? It's like taking the money before doing the job. We have benfitted from immigant labour without doing anything in return. As far as the second paragraph is concerned, many skilled employees work abroad so we shouldn't be protectionist in that way. I remember at University many engineers training in the UK and promptly going back to their countries.
Weirdly, while the government prioritises health workers for immigrant visas, it makes it almost impossible for British-born students to get university places to study medicine. It's as if it wants to be dependent on immigration indefinitely.
For extra comic value - while telling universities that the places for medical school are limited, the government then uses part of the overseas aid budget to pay for foreign medical students.
The only foreign resident medical students we get are self funding Malaysian Chinese. This is because of their own governments race quota system for their medical schools. They pretty much all go back.
Our Medical Students are diverse ethnically, but almost all were born here, and even the oothers usually arrived as children.
Incidentally, it isn't particularly difficult to get into Medical School any more for those with A levels of the right calibre, indeed we often now have places in clearing.
That last comment is really interesting. Do you think that the publicity of the junior doctors pay row night be having an impact? People realising that a medical degree is no longer the golden ticket it once was?
It's not just the ongoing Jr doctors pay dispute, but also the expansion in recruitment, student debt for a 5 year course, and general poor morale within the NHS. It's not an enticing career any more, particularly for tha ambitious.
It makes me sound a bit of the old codger that I am, but the calibre of the Undergraduates that I interviewed this season seemed lower than previous years.
I regularly get adverts on YouTube inviting me (as a putative healthcare professional) to emigrate to Canada. One of the key benefits cited is “respect for our employees”.
They will have focus grouped that approach & it would be entirely unsurprising sadly to discover that NHS workers don’t feel that they are held in any kind of regard, never mind high regard, by the current government.
Canada has such 'respect for our employees' that it has a severe shortage of health workers:
As Canada faces a severe shortage of nurses and doctors, the federal government recently announced measures to attract more health-care professionals in underserved regions, especially rural and remote areas.
In mid-February, the government announced it is increasing student loan debt relief for rural doctors and nurses by 50 per cent.
Canada is expected to face significant labour shortages in general practitioners and family physicians across the country from 2022 to 2031, according to data from the federal government. The data shows Canada has fewer doctors per capita than most OECD countries, which may hurt the ability of Canadians to receive timely care.
Similar problems exist in pretty much all the western world.
Yes, obviously. Good grief.
The point (which you appear to have so egregiously missed that you wrote an entire screed about something else entirely) is that the claim that “we will respect you” with “unlike your current employers” implied is a very effective one when placed before current NHS staff because NHS morale is crashingly awful.
& it’s not merely pay (although pay is obviously nice). It’s the way staff are treated at a basic level - you only have to look at the way whistleblowers are treated by upper management to see that there are profound problems.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
But what could change very quickly and cheaply is the lying and dissembling about it.
We could also build the infrastructure and housing required to make immigration more comfortable for society generally.
Why would we do that when we are not building anything for our own citizens ?
Immigrants on visa's and their families will be contributing to the economy with their taxes, NI contributions and extra NHS tax, thus raising the growth figures which help pay for the NHS etc. Why shouldn't the immigrants be catered for with infrastructure and house building? You never know...perhaps the indigenous population would benefit from the extra doctor surgeries and hospital places and school places which would be created?
I have nothing agaisnt immigration per se, we're an immigrant nation. But to have nearly 10 million extra people since 2000 and nothing being done for national infrastructure, housing or social fabric suggests we need to digest what we have first rather than go getting more.
Furthermore why is it ok to steal other nations skilled employees ? A doctor in a less developed country is of more value there than over here managing diseases brought on by first world lifestyles. We should be training our own people.
It's all very well saying we have to digest who we have already, but isn't it about time we started doing stuff about? It's like taking the money before doing the job. We have benfitted from immigant labour without doing anything in return. As far as the second paragraph is concerned, many skilled employees work abroad so we shouldn't be protectionist in that way. I remember at University many engineers training in the UK and promptly going back to their countries.
You mean the rich have benefited from immigrant labour as it has put downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on property values.
Most workers, and especially the low paid, have not benefited from immigrant labour.
That will be a surprise to all the working class folk being looked after on my ward, where more than half the staff are immigrants.
Likewise the clients of the NHS dental practice that I use, the staff of which are, with just one exception, of south Asian heritage.
Why do you equate people with south Asian heritage with immigrants ?
In reality continuous waves of immigration, used to keep wages down, adversely effects those of earlier immigrant groups or their children / grandchildren working in the same profession.
Yet when low paid healthworkers ask for more pay, they are told to piss off.
That's because they can be replaced by cheaper immigrant workers.
Stop/reduce those waves of migration and basic supply and demand forces up wages.
As I said previously the rich benefit from immigrant labour as it puts downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on property values.
Why doesn't it put downward pressure on wages in other countries with high immigration - especially ones with relatively strong trade unions and employment protection laws?
It does, perhaps at a different rate.
And the NHS has strong trade unions and employment protection laws.
The downward pressure of immigration on wages is even stronger in sectors such as fast food outlets and agriculture.
Living standards in Germany and the Nordic countries - where there is also very high immigration - are far higher than they are in the UK. Strong trade unions is a relative term. All unions in this country are bound by our trade union laws, which are far harsher than they are in, say, Germany and the Nordic countries - as are basic employment laws, of course.
Marginally higher while the UK is also higher than many other western countries:
But what you are suggesting is a wealth transfer from non-workers to workers.
Something I favour via changing the taxation system.
Now perhaps in Germany and Scandinavia trade unions are able to aid in boosting both productivity and workers pay.
But in the UK trade unions, deservedly or not, have a Red Robbo / Scargill reputation of running industries into bankruptcy and losing the jobs of their members.
Ignoring tidal and getting the taxpayer to stump up for more offshore wind (when companies won't even invest unless the Government raises the price per kh to stupid levels) is cretinous. £8.3bn to erect floating windmills in case it's blowy, meanwhile the tides come in and go out every day like clockwork and we fail to harness them.
It doesn't have to be either or.
Given that this announcement would have been an opportunity to revive the prospect of tidal going ahead, I think this windmill announcement shows it's absolutely an either or. *This* is what they've been percolating away in all those years of having zero policies?
If the next government did nothing else other than speed up planning for major projects, it would be a vast improvement on what we have.
I really think that the failure of tidal to take off thus far is because there's no grifting money in things that actually work, and produce power for sensible money and in a timely fashion. Contrast with the truly eye watering sums involved in nuclear investment, or the subsidy jungle of wind.
Tidal is big bang expensive construction projects; lots of concrete. It’s a lot like nuclear in that respect. Not as big as nuclear, but still.
Wind is incremental - you can build it out one turbine at a time if you want to.
Why not do both if feasible. We all know problem with the wind is you cannot depend on it.
The tides we know are a given. Can it be made to work though ?
One problem with tidal is that it’s predictable but annoyingly periodic in a way that doesn’t line up with the 24 hour day over time. So you still have the problem that to actually use this power you really need to be able to store it somewhere, which drives up costs. Otherwise you’re going to spend half the year selling it into the market at off-peak times when you have power, so your return on capital is nowhere near what you’d expect from a naive calculation based on the mean electricity price.
Neither wind nor tidal can delivery power at short notice when you need it. You either need peak power plants (basically natgas at the moment) or batteries on a huge scale.
This isn’t actually too bad though - in the short term we already have the natgas plants & if we only use them for filling in the gaps then the CO2 impact is small & batteries are only getting cheaper over time. It’s already getting to the point that installing a battery in your house (+ ancillery gear) and paying spot for electricity is a net win for many people.
Thanks, that is an interesting little summary.
Note that (helpfully) tidal times vary across the country, so if you had a network of tidal power stations, they would deliver power in a more spread out fashion.
But that doesn’t help if you don’t have the internal grid capacity to shift the power around, something the UK government has been dragging its feet on for years at this point - it’s another piece of vital UK infrastructure that seems to have been caught up in the impossibility of getting anything through planning in this country - the local veto seems to be insurmountable, no matter how necessary the project in the medium term.
The BBC have just reported on the findings of immigration into the UK in 2023 which shows over 600,000 work and over 600,000 student visas were issues with just over 100,000 for Ukraine and Hong Kong citizens and 80,000 family
Included in the work visas were health and care workers which are vital to that sector and of course the student numbers underpin the university sector without whom UK student fees would be astronomical
Just over 30,000 crossed the channel and stopping the boats is essential not least for those attempting the perilous crossing, but the conservatives have made it an enormous political issue
The BBC interviewed Braverman on whose watch this happened and she said Sunak ignored her ( good for him) as she demanded a stop on these levels of immigration and he would only talk about the channel crossings to her
The reality, as this BBC article affirms is that no political party is going to be able to reduce the numbers significantly
The BBC also said they had asked Labour to appear on the programme but they refused which in itself is interesting
Immigration will very probably come down when Labour are elected. This won't be because Labour have been elected, but student numbers will stabilise (i.e. outflow equals inflow, so minimal contribution to net immigration) and numbers on the Hong Kong and Ukraine schemes will fall.
I think voter interest in immigration will also come down because the government won't be banging on about it all the time. The Conservatives are constantly talking about controlling immigration while delivering record high immigration. It's bizarre behaviour. I am sensible enough not to bang on about the staff I'm bad at! Campaigning as if you are in opposition doesn't work when you've been in power for 14 years.
The immigration talk seems to me to be a very poor attempt at distraction - don’t look there, look at this tiny item here.
Problem is the tiny item they want people to focus on is unfixable
They haven't fixed it. That doesn't mean it's unfixable.
Go on then - how do you stop people traveling by boat from France?
Remember that employing an illegal worker now carries a £40,000+ fine
The problem isn't around the employment of illegal workers. The people coming over on boats are claiming asylum. The people working illegally are more likely to be visa overstayers.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
But what could change very quickly and cheaply is the lying and dissembling about it.
We could also build the infrastructure and housing required to make immigration more comfortable for society generally.
Why would we do that when we are not building anything for our own citizens ?
Immigrants on visa's and their families will be contributing to the economy with their taxes, NI contributions and extra NHS tax, thus raising the growth figures which help pay for the NHS etc. Why shouldn't the immigrants be catered for with infrastructure and house building? You never know...perhaps the indigenous population would benefit from the extra doctor surgeries and hospital places and school places which would be created?
I have nothing agaisnt immigration per se, we're an immigrant nation. But to have nearly 10 million extra people since 2000 and nothing being done for national infrastructure, housing or social fabric suggests we need to digest what we have first rather than go getting more.
Furthermore why is it ok to steal other nations skilled employees ? A doctor in a less developed country is of more value there than over here managing diseases brought on by first world lifestyles. We should be training our own people.
It's all very well saying we have to digest who we have already, but isn't it about time we started doing stuff about? It's like taking the money before doing the job. We have benfitted from immigant labour without doing anything in return. As far as the second paragraph is concerned, many skilled employees work abroad so we shouldn't be protectionist in that way. I remember at University many engineers training in the UK and promptly going back to their countries.
You mean the rich have benefited from immigrant labour as it has put downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on property values.
Most workers, and especially the low paid, have not benefited from immigrant labour.
That will be a surprise to all the working class folk being looked after on my ward, where more than half the staff are immigrants.
Likewise the clients of the NHS dental practice that I use, the staff of which are, with just one exception, of south Asian heritage.
Why do you equate people with south Asian heritage with immigrants ?
In reality continuous waves of immigration, used to keep wages down, adversely effects those of earlier immigrant groups or their children / grandchildren working in the same profession.
Yet when low paid healthworkers ask for more pay, they are told to piss off.
That's because they can be replaced by cheaper immigrant workers.
Stop/reduce those waves of migration and basic supply and demand forces up wages.
As I said previously the rich benefit from immigrant labour as it puts downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on property values.
Why doesn't it put downward pressure on wages in other countries with high immigration - especially ones with relatively strong trade unions and employment protection laws?
It does, perhaps at a different rate.
And the NHS has strong trade unions and employment protection laws.
The downward pressure of immigration on wages is even stronger in sectors such as fast food outlets and agriculture.
Living standards in Germany and the Nordic countries - where there is also very high immigration - are far higher than they are in the UK. Strong trade unions is a relative term. All unions in this country are bound by our trade union laws, which are far harsher than they are in, say, Germany and the Nordic countries - as are basic employment laws, of course.
Marginally higher while the UK is also higher than many other western countries:
But what you are suggesting is a wealth transfer from non-workers to workers.
Something I favour via changing the taxation system.
Now perhaps in Germany and Scandinavia trade unions are able to aid in boosting both productivity and workers pay.
But in the UK trade unions, deservedly or not, have a Red Robbo / Scargill reputation of running industries into bankruptcy and losing the jobs of their members.
Yes, we do not trust working people in this country. You can elect a Tory or Labour leader by electronic voting, for example, (and by implication a Prime Minister) but you cannot elect a trade union leader the same way.
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
23% of voters in 2010 went for Clegg’s orange book LDs, which is pretty much what Tory Lite is; plus arguably Cameron certainly ‘presented’ as Tory-lite (even if austerity was not, in practice).
It’s not in favour at the moment simply because we did it and it was rubbish, pretty much.
I don’t think Starmer’s Labour is Tory-lite either. But I think making outward displays of intent around spending constraint is just electorally sensible.
All this "Support for Reform (and Green) will be squeezed in the election" argument ignores how, in 2010, LibDem support went up over the course of the election campaign. Indeed, if not as spectacularly, LibDem support often rises in election campaigns. Maybe Reform and Green will benefit from similar forces.
Yebbut the 2010 Cleggasm is, let's face it, unlikely to manifest as a 2024 Daveygasm.... The guy has zero charisma, sex appeal, showbiz razzamatazz.
He will offer the WASPI women some cash. That will be a fabulous aphrodisiac from Mr Dull. The home counties will be hot for Ed's party.
He could offer them £50k each. So what? He'll never be in a position to deliver it. Even if Starmer needs him for a coalition, Labour won't have the money to spare.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
But what could change very quickly and cheaply is the lying and dissembling about it.
We could also build the infrastructure and housing required to make immigration more comfortable for society generally.
Why would we do that when we are not building anything for our own citizens ?
Immigrants on visa's and their families will be contributing to the economy with their taxes, NI contributions and extra NHS tax, thus raising the growth figures which help pay for the NHS etc. Why shouldn't the immigrants be catered for with infrastructure and house building? You never know...perhaps the indigenous population would benefit from the extra doctor surgeries and hospital places and school places which would be created?
I have nothing agaisnt immigration per se, we're an immigrant nation. But to have nearly 10 million extra people since 2000 and nothing being done for national infrastructure, housing or social fabric suggests we need to digest what we have first rather than go getting more.
Furthermore why is it ok to steal other nations skilled employees ? A doctor in a less developed country is of more value there than over here managing diseases brought on by first world lifestyles. We should be training our own people.
It's all very well saying we have to digest who we have already, but isn't it about time we started doing stuff about? It's like taking the money before doing the job. We have benfitted from immigant labour without doing anything in return. As far as the second paragraph is concerned, many skilled employees work abroad so we shouldn't be protectionist in that way. I remember at University many engineers training in the UK and promptly going back to their countries.
You mean the rich have benefited from immigrant labour as it has put downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on property values.
Most workers, and especially the low paid, have not benefited from immigrant labour.
That will be a surprise to all the working class folk being looked after on my ward, where more than half the staff are immigrants.
Likewise the clients of the NHS dental practice that I use, the staff of which are, with just one exception, of south Asian heritage.
Why do you equate people with south Asian heritage with immigrants ?
In reality continuous waves of immigration, used to keep wages down, adversely effects those of earlier immigrant groups or their children / grandchildren working in the same profession.
Yet when low paid healthworkers ask for more pay, they are told to piss off.
That's because they can be replaced by cheaper immigrant workers.
Stop/reduce those waves of migration and basic supply and demand forces up wages.
As I said previously the rich benefit from immigrant labour as it puts downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on property values.
Why doesn't it put downward pressure on wages in other countries with high immigration - especially ones with relatively strong trade unions and employment protection laws?
It does, perhaps at a different rate.
And the NHS has strong trade unions and employment protection laws.
The downward pressure of immigration on wages is even stronger in sectors such as fast food outlets and agriculture.
Living standards in Germany and the Nordic countries - where there is also very high immigration - are far higher than they are in the UK. Strong trade unions is a relative term. All unions in this country are bound by our trade union laws, which are far harsher than they are in, say, Germany and the Nordic countries - as are basic employment laws, of course.
Immigration law is changing in Sweden though
“In November 2023 a new requirement for labour migrants from third countries was introduced in Sweden: in order to obtain a work permit, labour migrants must have secured a monthly salary amounting to at least 80% of the gross median salary in Sweden, which is SEK 27 360 (approximately 2 200 EUR).
The report contains several proposals aimed at tightening conditions for low-skilled labour immigration to Sweden, while concurrently fostering the influx of highly skilled labour migrants. Key proposals here include:
Focus should be redirected towards skilled labour, with a requirement for wages equivalent to 100% of the median income to be met for individuals seeking residence work permits in Sweden. This corresponds to a gross salary of SEK 34 200 a month (2 800 EUR). Exemptions from wage requirements should be made for recent graduates, in order to promote highly skilled labour immigration. The option for individuals with failed asylum applications to apply, from within the country, for a residence permit for work or a work permit should be cancelled Certain professions should be excluded from eligibility for work permits, such as domestic care workers. “
Ignoring tidal and getting the taxpayer to stump up for more offshore wind (when companies won't even invest unless the Government raises the price per kh to stupid levels) is cretinous. £8.3bn to erect floating windmills in case it's blowy, meanwhile the tides come in and go out every day like clockwork and we fail to harness them.
It doesn't have to be either or.
Given that this announcement would have been an opportunity to revive the prospect of tidal going ahead, I think this windmill announcement shows it's absolutely an either or. *This* is what they've been percolating away in all those years of having zero policies?
If the next government did nothing else other than speed up planning for major projects, it would be a vast improvement on what we have.
I really think that the failure of tidal to take off thus far is because there's no grifting money in things that actually work, and produce power for sensible money and in a timely fashion. Contrast with the truly eye watering sums involved in nuclear investment, or the subsidy jungle of wind.
Tidal is big bang expensive construction projects; lots of concrete. It’s a lot like nuclear in that respect. Not as big as nuclear, but still.
Wind is incremental - you can build it out one turbine at a time if you want to.
Why not do both if feasible. We all know problem with the wind is you cannot depend on it.
The tides we know are a given. Can it be made to work though ?
One problem with tidal is that it’s predictable but annoyingly periodic in a way that doesn’t line up with the 24 hour day over time. So you still have the problem that to actually use this power you really need to be able to store it somewhere, which drives up costs. Otherwise you’re going to spend half the year selling it into the market at off-peak times when you have power, so your return on capital is nowhere near what you’d expect from a naive calculation based on the mean electricity price.
Neither wind nor tidal can delivery power at short notice when you need it. You either need peak power plants (basically natgas at the moment) or batteries on a huge scale.
This isn’t actually too bad though - in the short term we already have the natgas plants & if we only use them for filling in the gaps then the CO2 impact is small & batteries are only getting cheaper over time. It’s already getting to the point that installing a battery in your house (+ ancillery gear) and paying spot for electricity is a net win for many people.
I think natural gas has a bigger role to play for us in the medium-long term than some think. It simply fits better around the lows in wind, solar and tidal generated power than nuclear which is more difficult to turn on and off.
Nuclear is baseline supply - the question is then what do you do when it’s a winter night and the wind isn’t blowing for the 2nd/3rd night in a row. At that point something like gas is essential as all stored electricity (batteries, hydro) will have been used up leaving gas or a supplies from elsewhere in the world as the only options
Labour are very happy to sit back and let the Tories take the flack on immigration. What makes it even funnier for Starmer is that Sunak has dreamed up this supposed attack line - "Labour doesn't have a plan" when it is perfectly clear that the Conservatives don't have a plan. Its a great attack line - but as the polls show most voters fire it straight back at Sunak.
YOU are PM. YOU are in government. YOU chose to make STOP THE BOATS one of your big 5 issues. And you've done nothing. Where is YOUR plan? Etc. Why would Labour want to say anything more? They do have a plan, and as we eventually get to the election people will look at it and go "its better than what the Tories have done".
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
All the longstanding Tory voters I know want a return to a One Nation Toryism. They are generally drifting to the LDs down here in the South West. (I appreciate that's anecdotal, unscientific, and not reflected in the polls but that's what they say.)
You're out of date. Since Boris and Brexit these are the new Tories......
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
23% of voters in 2010 went for Clegg’s orange book LDs, which is pretty much what Tory Lite is; plus arguably Cameron certainly ‘presented’ as Tory-lite (even if austerity was not, in practice).
It’s not in favour at the moment simply because we did it and it was rubbish, pretty much.
I don’t think Starmer’s Labour is Tory-lite either. But I think making outward displays of intent around spending constraint is just electorally sensible.
All this "Support for Reform (and Green) will be squeezed in the election" argument ignores how, in 2010, LibDem support went up over the course of the election campaign. Indeed, if not as spectacularly, LibDem support often rises in election campaigns. Maybe Reform and Green will benefit from similar forces.
Yebbut the 2010 Cleggasm is, let's face it, unlikely to manifest as a 2024 Daveygasm.... The guy has zero charisma, sex appeal, showbiz razzamatazz.
He will offer the WASPI women some cash. That will be a fabulous aphrodisiac from Mr Dull. The home counties will be hot for Ed's party.
He could offer them £50k each. So what? He'll never be in a position to deliver it. Even if Starmer needs him for a coalition, Labour won't have the money to spare.
They better not - apart from a limited amount of money from dire communications most women had more than enough notice and people really should be taught to pay attention to their finances
This government has broken Britain. Sunak disagrees, and seems to think its marvellous. This is the basic issue they have - they can't accept reality, so they can't propose solutions, so they don't have any policies, so they are sliding into the abyss.
That isn't even a left / right issue. Truss managed to identify things are broken from the right, its just that her prescription was from the lunatic asylum.
Unless the Tories can even face up to the mess, never mind proposing a way forward, they are sunk. This is much bigger than the kind of STOP THE BOATS retail politics Sunak has failed at. Our problems are much deeper. And he doesn't get it.
Most of this country's problems can be solved by a couple of decades of it living within its means, an improvement in public sector productivity and a bit of intergenerational wealth transfer.
The amount of investment required to get public infrastructure and public sector productivity to the correct levels makes that virtually impossible.
In future times the Tory Government from 2010-2024 will be regarded as a period of lost opportunities where this country lost its position in the world
It has been easily the worst government since WW2. Of course the global financial crisis meant they had a poor hand, but boy have they played it badly.
Since 2010 the Tories have had two flagship policies - austerity and then Brexit. Both of these have proved ignominious failures - austerity did not reduce the public sector deficit and Brexit has proved to be a political and economic albatross around the necks of both the UK and the Tories.
The scale of the Tory failure is unusual - most governments can point to some policies (Blair investment in public services & devolution, Thatcher privatisation etc) which can be argued to have been successful - there have been no such achievements over the past 14 years. The record is one of unmitigated failure.
I would add in completely fucking up HS2. The creation of the OBR is their only achievement.
Hardly the creation of the OBR simply continually reinforces the stupidity of austerity.
I think the OBR fulfills a useful service in enforcing a degree of truthfulness on the Treasury forecast and highlighting long term fiscal policy challenges, similar to the CBO in the US. By making the forecasts more credible it probably let's us borrow a little more cheaply. The policy choices are the government's.
Given that the OBR can’t differentiate between capital investment (HS2) and ongoing repairs (fixing holes in roads) I don’t think it’s any use
But it's remit could be changed to allow it differentiate between capital and current expenditure. Since Rachel Reeves has said that she intends to balance the current budget and only borrow to invest the OBR will presumably have to monitor capital and current expenditure separately.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
But what could change very quickly and cheaply is the lying and dissembling about it.
We could also build the infrastructure and housing required to make immigration more comfortable for society generally.
Why would we do that when we are not building anything for our own citizens ?
Immigrants on visa's and their families will be contributing to the economy with their taxes, NI contributions and extra NHS tax, thus raising the growth figures which help pay for the NHS etc. Why shouldn't the immigrants be catered for with infrastructure and house building? You never know...perhaps the indigenous population would benefit from the extra doctor surgeries and hospital places and school places which would be created?
I have nothing agaisnt immigration per se, we're an immigrant nation. But to have nearly 10 million extra people since 2000 and nothing being done for national infrastructure, housing or social fabric suggests we need to digest what we have first rather than go getting more.
Furthermore why is it ok to steal other nations skilled employees ? A doctor in a less developed country is of more value there than over here managing diseases brought on by first world lifestyles. We should be training our own people.
It's all very well saying we have to digest who we have already, but isn't it about time we started doing stuff about? It's like taking the money before doing the job. We have benfitted from immigant labour without doing anything in return. As far as the second paragraph is concerned, many skilled employees work abroad so we shouldn't be protectionist in that way. I remember at University many engineers training in the UK and promptly going back to their countries.
Weirdly, while the government prioritises health workers for immigrant visas, it makes it almost impossible for British-born students to get university places to study medicine. It's as if it wants to be dependent on immigration indefinitely.
For extra comic value - while telling universities that the places for medical school are limited, the government then uses part of the overseas aid budget to pay for foreign medical students.
The only foreign resident medical students we get are self funding Malaysian Chinese. This is because of their own governments race quota system for their medical schools. They pretty much all go back.
Our Medical Students are diverse ethnically, but almost all were born here, and even the oothers usually arrived as children.
Incidentally, it isn't particularly difficult to get into Medical School any more for those with A levels of the right calibre, indeed we often now have places in clearing.
That last comment is really interesting. Do you think that the publicity of the junior doctors pay row night be having an impact? People realising that a medical degree is no longer the golden ticket it once was?
It's not just the ongoing Jr doctors pay dispute, but also the expansion in recruitment, student debt for a 5 year course, and general poor morale within the NHS. It's not an enticing career any more, particularly for tha ambitious.
It makes me sound a bit of the old codger that I am, but the calibre of the Undergraduates that I interviewed this season seemed lower than previous years.
I regularly get adverts on YouTube inviting me (as a putative healthcare professional) to emigrate to Canada. One of the key benefits cited is “respect for our employees”.
They will have focus grouped that approach & it would be entirely unsurprising sadly to discover that NHS workers don’t feel that they are held in any kind of regard, never mind high regard, by the current government.
Canada has such 'respect for our employees' that it has a severe shortage of health workers:
As Canada faces a severe shortage of nurses and doctors, the federal government recently announced measures to attract more health-care professionals in underserved regions, especially rural and remote areas.
In mid-February, the government announced it is increasing student loan debt relief for rural doctors and nurses by 50 per cent.
Canada is expected to face significant labour shortages in general practitioners and family physicians across the country from 2022 to 2031, according to data from the federal government. The data shows Canada has fewer doctors per capita than most OECD countries, which may hurt the ability of Canadians to receive timely care.
Similar problems exist in pretty much all the western world.
Yes, obviously. Good grief.
The point (which you appear to have so egregiously missed that you wrote an entire screed about something else entirely) is that the claim that “we will respect you” with “unlike your current employers” implied is a very effective one when placed before current NHS staff because NHS morale is crashingly awful.
& it’s not merely pay (although pay is obviously nice). It’s the way staff are treated at a basic level - you only have to look at the way whistleblowers are treated by upper management to see that there are profound problems.
Every organisation which is trying to recruit emphasises its good points (whether real or not), makes promises and claims to be an improvement on what potential recruits currently have.
The reality for the newly recruited can be very different.
So are NHS treated worse, shown less respect, have lower morale than equivalent workers in other western countries ?
At a guess I'd say worse than in some countries and better in some other countries but the differences likely being small.
Whether the feel they are treated worse is another matter - but that's perceptions versus realities.
This government has broken Britain. Sunak disagrees, and seems to think its marvellous. This is the basic issue they have - they can't accept reality, so they can't propose solutions, so they don't have any policies, so they are sliding into the abyss.
That isn't even a left / right issue. Truss managed to identify things are broken from the right, its just that her prescription was from the lunatic asylum.
Unless the Tories can even face up to the mess, never mind proposing a way forward, they are sunk. This is much bigger than the kind of STOP THE BOATS retail politics Sunak has failed at. Our problems are much deeper. And he doesn't get it.
Most of this country's problems can be solved by a couple of decades of it living within its means, an improvement in public sector productivity and a bit of intergenerational wealth transfer.
The amount of investment required to get public infrastructure and public sector productivity to the correct levels makes that virtually impossible.
In future times the Tory Government from 2010-2024 will be regarded as a period of lost opportunities where this country lost its position in the world
It has been easily the worst government since WW2. Of course the global financial crisis meant they had a poor hand, but boy have they played it badly.
Since 2010 the Tories have had two flagship policies - austerity and then Brexit. Both of these have proved ignominious failures - austerity did not reduce the public sector deficit and Brexit has proved to be a political and economic albatross around the necks of both the UK and the Tories.
The scale of the Tory failure is unusual - most governments can point to some policies (Blair investment in public services & devolution, Thatcher privatisation etc) which can be argued to have been successful - there have been no such achievements over the past 14 years. The record is one of unmitigated failure.
I would add in completely fucking up HS2. The creation of the OBR is their only achievement.
Hardly the creation of the OBR simply continually reinforces the stupidity of austerity.
I think the OBR fulfills a useful service in enforcing a degree of truthfulness on the Treasury forecast and highlighting long term fiscal policy challenges, similar to the CBO in the US. By making the forecasts more credible it probably let's us borrow a little more cheaply. The policy choices are the government's.
Given that the OBR can’t differentiate between capital investment (HS2) and ongoing repairs (fixing holes in roads) I don’t think it’s any use
But it's remit could be changed to allow it differentiate between capital and current expenditure. Since Rachel Reeves has said that she intends to balance the current budget and only borrow to invest the OBR will presumably have to monitor capital and current expenditure separately.
Which was my point - the OBR with its current remit simply reinforces austerity and is stupid.
The idea may be worthwhile (I doubt it) but the implementation is dire.
This government has broken Britain. Sunak disagrees, and seems to think its marvellous. This is the basic issue they have - they can't accept reality, so they can't propose solutions, so they don't have any policies, so they are sliding into the abyss.
That isn't even a left / right issue. Truss managed to identify things are broken from the right, its just that her prescription was from the lunatic asylum.
Unless the Tories can even face up to the mess, never mind proposing a way forward, they are sunk. This is much bigger than the kind of STOP THE BOATS retail politics Sunak has failed at. Our problems are much deeper. And he doesn't get it.
Most of this country's problems can be solved by a couple of decades of it living within its means, an improvement in public sector productivity and a bit of intergenerational wealth transfer.
The amount of investment required to get public infrastructure and public sector productivity to the correct levels makes that virtually impossible.
In future times the Tory Government from 2010-2024 will be regarded as a period of lost opportunities where this country lost its position in the world
It has been easily the worst government since WW2. Of course the global financial crisis meant they had a poor hand, but boy have they played it badly.
Since 2010 the Tories have had two flagship policies - austerity and then Brexit. Both of these have proved ignominious failures - austerity did not reduce the public sector deficit and Brexit has proved to be a political and economic albatross around the necks of both the UK and the Tories.
The scale of the Tory failure is unusual - most governments can point to some policies (Blair investment in public services & devolution, Thatcher privatisation etc) which can be argued to have been successful - there have been no such achievements over the past 14 years. The record is one of unmitigated failure.
I would add in completely fucking up HS2. The creation of the OBR is their only achievement.
Hardly the creation of the OBR simply continually reinforces the stupidity of austerity.
I think the OBR fulfills a useful service in enforcing a degree of truthfulness on the Treasury forecast and highlighting long term fiscal policy challenges, similar to the CBO in the US. By making the forecasts more credible it probably let's us borrow a little more cheaply. The policy choices are the government's.
Given that the OBR can’t differentiate between capital investment (HS2) and ongoing repairs (fixing holes in roads) I don’t think it’s any use
The OBR doesn't make the fiscal rules, it simply assesses them. Having a degree of honesty and independence in that assessment is better than HMT marking its own homework, IMHO. My preference would be to establish a long term capital budget for transformational infrastructure projects, to allow for cross party support and lower costs by having a rolling pipeline of projects.
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
23% of voters in 2010 went for Clegg’s orange book LDs, which is pretty much what Tory Lite is; plus arguably Cameron certainly ‘presented’ as Tory-lite (even if austerity was not, in practice).
It’s not in favour at the moment simply because we did it and it was rubbish, pretty much.
I don’t think Starmer’s Labour is Tory-lite either. But I think making outward displays of intent around spending constraint is just electorally sensible.
All this "Support for Reform (and Green) will be squeezed in the election" argument ignores how, in 2010, LibDem support went up over the course of the election campaign. Indeed, if not as spectacularly, LibDem support often rises in election campaigns. Maybe Reform and Green will benefit from similar forces.
Yebbut the 2010 Cleggasm is, let's face it, unlikely to manifest as a 2024 Daveygasm.... The guy has zero charisma, sex appeal, showbiz razzamatazz.
He will offer the WASPI women some cash. That will be a fabulous aphrodisiac from Mr Dull. The home counties will be hot for Ed's party.
He could offer them £50k each. So what? He'll never be in a position to deliver it. Even if Starmer needs him for a coalition, Labour won't have the money to spare.
They better not - apart from a limited amount of money from dire communications most women had more than enough notice and people really should be taught to pay attention to their finances
What's more, within a year of the general election we're likely to have announced the next increase in the retirement age for those currently working.
With pretty much everyone under the age of 60 having a future loss of £11k.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
But what could change very quickly and cheaply is the lying and dissembling about it.
We could also build the infrastructure and housing required to make immigration more comfortable for society generally.
Why would we do that when we are not building anything for our own citizens ?
Immigrants on visa's and their families will be contributing to the economy with their taxes, NI contributions and extra NHS tax, thus raising the growth figures which help pay for the NHS etc. Why shouldn't the immigrants be catered for with infrastructure and house building? You never know...perhaps the indigenous population would benefit from the extra doctor surgeries and hospital places and school places which would be created?
I have nothing agaisnt immigration per se, we're an immigrant nation. But to have nearly 10 million extra people since 2000 and nothing being done for national infrastructure, housing or social fabric suggests we need to digest what we have first rather than go getting more.
Furthermore why is it ok to steal other nations skilled employees ? A doctor in a less developed country is of more value there than over here managing diseases brought on by first world lifestyles. We should be training our own people.
It's all very well saying we have to digest who we have already, but isn't it about time we started doing stuff about? It's like taking the money before doing the job. We have benfitted from immigant labour without doing anything in return. As far as the second paragraph is concerned, many skilled employees work abroad so we shouldn't be protectionist in that way. I remember at University many engineers training in the UK and promptly going back to their countries.
Weirdly, while the government prioritises health workers for immigrant visas, it makes it almost impossible for British-born students to get university places to study medicine. It's as if it wants to be dependent on immigration indefinitely.
For extra comic value - while telling universities that the places for medical school are limited, the government then uses part of the overseas aid budget to pay for foreign medical students.
The only foreign resident medical students we get are self funding Malaysian Chinese. This is because of their own governments race quota system for their medical schools. They pretty much all go back.
Our Medical Students are diverse ethnically, but almost all were born here, and even the oothers usually arrived as children.
Incidentally, it isn't particularly difficult to get into Medical School any more for those with A levels of the right calibre, indeed we often now have places in clearing.
That last comment is really interesting. Do you think that the publicity of the junior doctors pay row night be having an impact? People realising that a medical degree is no longer the golden ticket it once was?
It's not just the ongoing Jr doctors pay dispute, but also the expansion in recruitment, student debt for a 5 year course, and general poor morale within the NHS. It's not an enticing career any more, particularly for tha ambitious.
It makes me sound a bit of the old codger that I am, but the calibre of the Undergraduates that I interviewed this season seemed lower than previous years.
I regularly get adverts on YouTube inviting me (as a putative healthcare professional) to emigrate to Canada. One of the key benefits cited is “respect for our employees”.
They will have focus grouped that approach & it would be entirely unsurprising sadly to discover that NHS workers don’t feel that they are held in any kind of regard, never mind high regard, by the current government.
Canada has such 'respect for our employees' that it has a severe shortage of health workers:
As Canada faces a severe shortage of nurses and doctors, the federal government recently announced measures to attract more health-care professionals in underserved regions, especially rural and remote areas.
In mid-February, the government announced it is increasing student loan debt relief for rural doctors and nurses by 50 per cent.
Canada is expected to face significant labour shortages in general practitioners and family physicians across the country from 2022 to 2031, according to data from the federal government. The data shows Canada has fewer doctors per capita than most OECD countries, which may hurt the ability of Canadians to receive timely care.
Similar problems exist in pretty much all the western world.
Yes, obviously. Good grief.
The point (which you appear to have so egregiously missed that you wrote an entire screed about something else entirely) is that the claim that “we will respect you” with “unlike your current employers” implied is a very effective one when placed before current NHS staff because NHS morale is crashingly awful.
& it’s not merely pay (although pay is obviously nice). It’s the way staff are treated at a basic level - you only have to look at the way whistleblowers are treated by upper management to see that there are profound problems.
Every organisation which is trying to recruit emphasises its good points (whether real or not), makes promises and claims to be an improvement on what potential recruits currently have.
The reality for the newly recruited can be very different.
So are NHS treated worse, shown less respect, have lower morale than equivalent workers in other western countries ?
At a guess I'd say worse than in some countries and better in some other countries but the differences likely being small.
Whether the feel they are treated worse is another matter - but that's perceptions versus realities.
You are countering an argument that I am not actually making.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
But what could change very quickly and cheaply is the lying and dissembling about it.
We could also build the infrastructure and housing required to make immigration more comfortable for society generally.
Why would we do that when we are not building anything for our own citizens ?
Immigrants on visa's and their families will be contributing to the economy with their taxes, NI contributions and extra NHS tax, thus raising the growth figures which help pay for the NHS etc. Why shouldn't the immigrants be catered for with infrastructure and house building? You never know...perhaps the indigenous population would benefit from the extra doctor surgeries and hospital places and school places which would be created?
I have nothing agaisnt immigration per se, we're an immigrant nation. But to have nearly 10 million extra people since 2000 and nothing being done for national infrastructure, housing or social fabric suggests we need to digest what we have first rather than go getting more.
Furthermore why is it ok to steal other nations skilled employees ? A doctor in a less developed country is of more value there than over here managing diseases brought on by first world lifestyles. We should be training our own people.
It's all very well saying we have to digest who we have already, but isn't it about time we started doing stuff about? It's like taking the money before doing the job. We have benfitted from immigant labour without doing anything in return. As far as the second paragraph is concerned, many skilled employees work abroad so we shouldn't be protectionist in that way. I remember at University many engineers training in the UK and promptly going back to their countries.
You mean the rich have benefited from immigrant labour as it has put downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on property values.
Most workers, and especially the low paid, have not benefited from immigrant labour.
That will be a surprise to all the working class folk being looked after on my ward, where more than half the staff are immigrants.
Likewise the clients of the NHS dental practice that I use, the staff of which are, with just one exception, of south Asian heritage.
Why do you equate people with south Asian heritage with immigrants ?
In reality continuous waves of immigration, used to keep wages down, adversely effects those of earlier immigrant groups or their children / grandchildren working in the same profession.
Yet when low paid healthworkers ask for more pay, they are told to piss off.
That's because they can be replaced by cheaper immigrant workers.
Stop/reduce those waves of migration and basic supply and demand forces up wages.
As I said previously the rich benefit from immigrant labour as it puts downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on property values.
Why doesn't it put downward pressure on wages in other countries with high immigration - especially ones with relatively strong trade unions and employment protection laws?
It does, perhaps at a different rate.
And the NHS has strong trade unions and employment protection laws.
The downward pressure of immigration on wages is even stronger in sectors such as fast food outlets and agriculture.
Living standards in Germany and the Nordic countries - where there is also very high immigration - are far higher than they are in the UK. Strong trade unions is a relative term. All unions in this country are bound by our trade union laws, which are far harsher than they are in, say, Germany and the Nordic countries - as are basic employment laws, of course.
Immigration law is changing in Sweden though
“In November 2023 a new requirement for labour migrants from third countries was introduced in Sweden: in order to obtain a work permit, labour migrants must have secured a monthly salary amounting to at least 80% of the gross median salary in Sweden, which is SEK 27 360 (approximately 2 200 EUR).
The report contains several proposals aimed at tightening conditions for low-skilled labour immigration to Sweden, while concurrently fostering the influx of highly skilled labour migrants. Key proposals here include:
Focus should be redirected towards skilled labour, with a requirement for wages equivalent to 100% of the median income to be met for individuals seeking residence work permits in Sweden. This corresponds to a gross salary of SEK 34 200 a month (2 800 EUR). Exemptions from wage requirements should be made for recent graduates, in order to promote highly skilled labour immigration. The option for individuals with failed asylum applications to apply, from within the country, for a residence permit for work or a work permit should be cancelled Certain professions should be excluded from eligibility for work permits, such as domestic care workers. “
Yep, Sweden has a ready supply of EU workers. We don't.
The salary controls are pretty low anyway, as they were here. 2200 EUR is about £1900 so about UK minimum wage for a 40 hour week. Hardly a deterrent for employers if they are struggling to recruit domestically.
The conflation of recent graduates and highly skilled is a bit weird. Most of the people I have recruited were recent graduates and hardly any would I consider highly skilled at the time of recruitment. High potential, fast learners, sure, but they are typically not highly skilled at that stage.
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
23% of voters in 2010 went for Clegg’s orange book LDs, which is pretty much what Tory Lite is; plus arguably Cameron certainly ‘presented’ as Tory-lite (even if austerity was not, in practice).
It’s not in favour at the moment simply because we did it and it was rubbish, pretty much.
I don’t think Starmer’s Labour is Tory-lite either. But I think making outward displays of intent around spending constraint is just electorally sensible.
All this "Support for Reform (and Green) will be squeezed in the election" argument ignores how, in 2010, LibDem support went up over the course of the election campaign. Indeed, if not as spectacularly, LibDem support often rises in election campaigns. Maybe Reform and Green will benefit from similar forces.
Yebbut the 2010 Cleggasm is, let's face it, unlikely to manifest as a 2024 Daveygasm.... The guy has zero charisma, sex appeal, showbiz razzamatazz.
He will offer the WASPI women some cash. That will be a fabulous aphrodisiac from Mr Dull. The home counties will be hot for Ed's party.
He could offer them £50k each. So what? He'll never be in a position to deliver it. Even if Starmer needs him for a coalition, Labour won't have the money to spare.
Davey's problem is that he has history. He was a cabinet minister in a Tory-led govt. He didn't deliver then for WASPI. I don't think he will necessarily prosper during the election campaign when these points are raised.
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
All the longstanding Tory voters I know want a return to a One Nation Toryism. They are generally drifting to the LDs down here in the South West. (I appreciate that's anecdotal, unscientific, and not reflected in the polls but that's what they say.)
You're out of date. Since Boris and Brexit these are the new Tories......
There is a cultural problem with quite a few Tory MPs, and even more allegedly Tory media cheerleaders, who seem to think that people who went Lab-UKIP-Leave-BxP-Tory-Ref form their natural base. They don't. At best, they're a target swing vote - and one swing vote group out of several. Chasing them is likely to alienate the remaining members of other swing groups still planning to vote Tory, as well as firming up intention among those who've already made the move away.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
But what could change very quickly and cheaply is the lying and dissembling about it.
We could also build the infrastructure and housing required to make immigration more comfortable for society generally.
Why would we do that when we are not building anything for our own citizens ?
Immigrants on visa's and their families will be contributing to the economy with their taxes, NI contributions and extra NHS tax, thus raising the growth figures which help pay for the NHS etc. Why shouldn't the immigrants be catered for with infrastructure and house building? You never know...perhaps the indigenous population would benefit from the extra doctor surgeries and hospital places and school places which would be created?
Except that hasn’t happened. Record immigration figures and the economy crawling along.
..and whose fault is that?
You appear to assume that high migration will automagically advance the economy. There is no evidence for that.
This government has broken Britain. Sunak disagrees, and seems to think its marvellous. This is the basic issue they have - they can't accept reality, so they can't propose solutions, so they don't have any policies, so they are sliding into the abyss.
That isn't even a left / right issue. Truss managed to identify things are broken from the right, its just that her prescription was from the lunatic asylum.
Unless the Tories can even face up to the mess, never mind proposing a way forward, they are sunk. This is much bigger than the kind of STOP THE BOATS retail politics Sunak has failed at. Our problems are much deeper. And he doesn't get it.
Most of this country's problems can be solved by a couple of decades of it living within its means, an improvement in public sector productivity and a bit of intergenerational wealth transfer.
The amount of investment required to get public infrastructure and public sector productivity to the correct levels makes that virtually impossible.
In future times the Tory Government from 2010-2024 will be regarded as a period of lost opportunities where this country lost its position in the world
It has been easily the worst government since WW2. Of course the global financial crisis meant they had a poor hand, but boy have they played it badly.
Since 2010 the Tories have had two flagship policies - austerity and then Brexit. Both of these have proved ignominious failures - austerity did not reduce the public sector deficit and Brexit has proved to be a political and economic albatross around the necks of both the UK and the Tories.
The scale of the Tory failure is unusual - most governments can point to some policies (Blair investment in public services & devolution, Thatcher privatisation etc) which can be argued to have been successful - there have been no such achievements over the past 14 years. The record is one of unmitigated failure.
I would add in completely fucking up HS2. The creation of the OBR is their only achievement.
Hardly the creation of the OBR simply continually reinforces the stupidity of austerity.
I think the OBR fulfills a useful service in enforcing a degree of truthfulness on the Treasury forecast and highlighting long term fiscal policy challenges, similar to the CBO in the US. By making the forecasts more credible it probably let's us borrow a little more cheaply. The policy choices are the government's.
Given that the OBR can’t differentiate between capital investment (HS2) and ongoing repairs (fixing holes in roads) I don’t think it’s any use
The OBR doesn't make the fiscal rules, it simply assesses them. Having a degree of honesty and independence in that assessment is better than HMT marking its own homework, IMHO. My preference would be to establish a long term capital budget for transformational infrastructure projects, to allow for cross party support and lower costs by having a rolling pipeline of projects.
Absolutely. Chancellors set their own homework. The OBR just marks it.
Objections to the OBR are just displacement activity.
Nick Ferrari decides to lead on the people we really should be sorry for: those who would have to pay VAT on their private school fees.
I went to two private schools. The idea VAT shouldn't be paid is absurd.
Well, it's not, because introducing VAT for private schools is going to lead to worse outcomes. It will be revenue negative: it will cost more (in having to fund the state school places of kids who would have previously gone private) than it raises. And to take a very self-interested view: it will be harder for my youngest to get into the (state) senior school her sisters attend because there will be more parents seeking state school places.
It seems curiously self-destructive to implement a policy you see as logical which will harm many and benefit no-one. I'd happily stick with an illogical position over a bad position.
Nick Ferrari decides to lead on the people we really should be sorry for: those who would have to pay VAT on their private school fees.
I went to two private schools. The idea VAT shouldn't be paid is absurd.
Well, it's not, because introducing VAT for private schools is going to lead to worse outcomes. It will be revenue negative: it will cost more (in having to fund the state school places of kids who would have previously gone private) than it raises. And to take a very self-interested view: it will be harder for my youngest to get into the (state) senior school her sisters attend because there will be more parents seeking state school places.
It seems curiously self-destructive to implement a policy you see as logical which will harm many and benefit no-one. I'd happily stick with an illogical position over a bad position.
So why not remove VAT on other things? What about buying a car, why should I pay VAT on that?
I don't see how things can get any better for the tories between now and the election.
Try a scandal hitting the Labour leadership (not just "Keir had a curry", but a proper scandal) or the Tories replacing their current leader. The latter is almost inevitable because Sunak is so shit (literally laughing at voters isn't a good sign) and everyone knows it.
The BBC have just reported on the findings of immigration into the UK in 2023 which shows over 600,000 work and over 600,000 student visas were issues with just over 100,000 for Ukraine and Hong Kong citizens and 80,000 family
Included in the work visas were health and care workers which are vital to that sector and of course the student numbers underpin the university sector without whom UK student fees would be astronomical
Just over 30,000 crossed the channel and stopping the boats is essential not least for those attempting the perilous crossing, but the conservatives have made it an enormous political issue
The BBC interviewed Braverman on whose watch this happened and she said Sunak ignored her ( good for him) as she demanded a stop on these levels of immigration and he would only talk about the channel crossings to her
The reality, as this BBC article affirms is that no political party is going to be able to reduce the numbers significantly
The BBC also said they had asked Labour to appear on the programme but they refused which in itself is interesting
Immigration will very probably come down when Labour are elected. This won't be because Labour have been elected, but student numbers will stabilise (i.e. outflow equals inflow, so minimal contribution to net immigration) and numbers on the Hong Kong and Ukraine schemes will fall.
I think voter interest in immigration will also come down because the government won't be banging on about it all the time. The Conservatives are constantly talking about controlling immigration while delivering record high immigration. It's bizarre behaviour. I am sensible enough not to bang on about the staff I'm bad at! Campaigning as if you are in opposition doesn't work when you've been in power for 14 years.
The immigration talk seems to me to be a very poor attempt at distraction - don’t look there, look at this tiny item here.
Problem is the tiny item they want people to focus on is unfixable
They haven't fixed it. That doesn't mean it's unfixable.
Go on then - how do you stop people traveling by boat from France?
Remember that employing an illegal worker now carries a £40,000+ fine
The problem isn't around the employment of illegal workers. The people coming over on boats are claiming asylum. The people working illegally are more likely to be visa overstayers.
The paradox of immigration preferences in a nutshell -Majority of Conservative voters support large cuts to immigration, but most also oppose cutting the specific migrant groups who drive current inflows - in fact they want *more* migration from these groups
The "cut hard, cut harder" lobby never explain why it is they think voters will reward cutting migrant groups they approve of, and worsening services they are already unhappy with.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
But what could change very quickly and cheaply is the lying and dissembling about it.
We could also build the infrastructure and housing required to make immigration more comfortable for society generally.
Why would we do that when we are not building anything for our own citizens ?
Immigrants on visa's and their families will be contributing to the economy with their taxes, NI contributions and extra NHS tax, thus raising the growth figures which help pay for the NHS etc. Why shouldn't the immigrants be catered for with infrastructure and house building? You never know...perhaps the indigenous population would benefit from the extra doctor surgeries and hospital places and school places which would be created?
I have nothing agaisnt immigration per se, we're an immigrant nation. But to have nearly 10 million extra people since 2000 and nothing being done for national infrastructure, housing or social fabric suggests we need to digest what we have first rather than go getting more.
Furthermore why is it ok to steal other nations skilled employees ? A doctor in a less developed country is of more value there than over here managing diseases brought on by first world lifestyles. We should be training our own people.
It's all very well saying we have to digest who we have already, but isn't it about time we started doing stuff about? It's like taking the money before doing the job. We have benfitted from immigant labour without doing anything in return. As far as the second paragraph is concerned, many skilled employees work abroad so we shouldn't be protectionist in that way. I remember at University many engineers training in the UK and promptly going back to their countries.
You mean the rich have benefited from immigrant labour as it has put downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on property values.
Most workers, and especially the low paid, have not benefited from immigrant labour.
It has certainly put downward pressure on wages, but how do you work out the upward pressure on property prices bit? Many immigrants are nowhere near as trusting of moneylenders as those among native British workers who are happy to be "given" the largest possible mortgage loan. In fact, not having to make mortgage repayments is a big part of why many immigrant workers can afford to survive on such low wages.
Nick Ferrari decides to lead on the people we really should be sorry for: those who would have to pay VAT on their private school fees.
I went to two private schools. The idea VAT shouldn't be paid is absurd.
Well, it's not, because introducing VAT for private schools is going to lead to worse outcomes. It will be revenue negative: it will cost more (in having to fund the state school places of kids who would have previously gone private) than it raises. And to take a very self-interested view: it will be harder for my youngest to get into the (state) senior school her sisters attend because there will be more parents seeking state school places.
It seems curiously self-destructive to implement a policy you see as logical which will harm many and benefit no-one. I'd happily stick with an illogical position over a bad position.
I'm not that bothered about this issue TBH. But even if what you say is true, I would still do so.
Why?
Because the current exemption is egregiously unfair on everyone else who has to pay VAT on services. Education is a service. Services are VATable. So pay VAT.
I have absolutely no problem in funding more state school places for people who can no longer afford private school. As we need to invest in state schools - buildings, teachers, basic provision - anyway, the additional cost is a drop in the ocean.
They've lost the centre to the left and the right to the right. That spells doom.
They did not lose the centre. They walked away from it towards a right that can never be satisfied.
Spot on. But once they started on that journey, I would suggest that at least some of the centre (right) moved slightly left in reaction to that. Speaking personally, it highlighted that some views I held were uncomfortably close to that rightward move, and, when contrasted in that way, I decided I didn't like them and I needed to rethink.
I really cannot conceive of such a mental journey taking place for anyone who isn't extremely suggestible and weak-minded. What were these right wing views that Lee Anderson being ghastly has forced you to abandon?
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
23% of voters in 2010 went for Clegg’s orange book LDs, which is pretty much what Tory Lite is; plus arguably Cameron certainly ‘presented’ as Tory-lite (even if austerity was not, in practice).
It’s not in favour at the moment simply because we did it and it was rubbish, pretty much.
I don’t think Starmer’s Labour is Tory-lite either. But I think making outward displays of intent around spending constraint is just electorally sensible.
All this "Support for Reform (and Green) will be squeezed in the election" argument ignores how, in 2010, LibDem support went up over the course of the election campaign. Indeed, if not as spectacularly, LibDem support often rises in election campaigns. Maybe Reform and Green will benefit from similar forces.
Yebbut the 2010 Cleggasm is, let's face it, unlikely to manifest as a 2024 Daveygasm.... The guy has zero charisma, sex appeal, showbiz razzamatazz.
He will offer the WASPI women some cash. That will be a fabulous aphrodisiac from Mr Dull. The home counties will be hot for Ed's party.
He could offer them £50k each. So what? He'll never be in a position to deliver it. Even if Starmer needs him for a coalition, Labour won't have the money to spare.
Davey's problem is that he has history. He was a cabinet minister in a Tory-led govt. He didn't deliver then for WASPI. I don't think he will necessarily prosper during the election campaign when these points are raised.
No-one will be at all interested in what the LDs or Davey say during the campaign.
The discussions that attract the most attention in order will be:
Con v Refuk Con internal arguments Con v Labour
Then various nationalists locally and the greens. Then Ed Davey.
I am not sure this is necessarily a bad thing for the LDs.....
I don't see how things can get any better for the tories between now and the election.
Try a scandal hitting the Labour leadership (not just "Keir had a curry", but a proper scandal) or the Tories replacing their current leader. The latter is almost inevitable because Sunak is so shit (literally laughing at voters isn't a good sign) and everyone knows it.
There's no real polling evidence that a new leader will help the Tories much. And Labour will just say that the Tories change leaders more often than they change their socks - under them stability is impossible.
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
I think providing big reason why Labour party's plans match the Tory's is
1) it removes points where the Tories can attack Labour 2) it provides a "reason" for Toryish voters to stay on the sofa rather than brave the rain to vote in December...
Or put it another way it's designed to reduce Tory turnout
A very cynical approach and one that won’t help the country face the radical change it needs
This government has broken Britain. Sunak disagrees, and seems to think its marvellous. This is the basic issue they have - they can't accept reality, so they can't propose solutions, so they don't have any policies, so they are sliding into the abyss.
That isn't even a left / right issue. Truss managed to identify things are broken from the right, its just that her prescription was from the lunatic asylum.
Unless the Tories can even face up to the mess, never mind proposing a way forward, they are sunk. This is much bigger than the kind of STOP THE BOATS retail politics Sunak has failed at. Our problems are much deeper. And he doesn't get it.
Most of this country's problems can be solved by a couple of decades of it living within its means, an improvement in public sector productivity and a bit of intergenerational wealth transfer.
The amount of investment required to get public infrastructure and public sector productivity to the correct levels makes that virtually impossible.
In future times the Tory Government from 2010-2024 will be regarded as a period of lost opportunities where this country lost its position in the world
It has been easily the worst government since WW2. Of course the global financial crisis meant they had a poor hand, but boy have they played it badly.
Since 2010 the Tories have had two flagship policies - austerity and then Brexit. Both of these have proved ignominious failures - austerity did not reduce the public sector deficit and Brexit has proved to be a political and economic albatross around the necks of both the UK and the Tories.
The scale of the Tory failure is unusual - most governments can point to some policies (Blair investment in public services & devolution, Thatcher privatisation etc) which can be argued to have been successful - there have been no such achievements over the past 14 years. The record is one of unmitigated failure.
I would add in completely fucking up HS2. The creation of the OBR is their only achievement.
Hardly the creation of the OBR simply continually reinforces the stupidity of austerity.
I think the OBR fulfills a useful service in enforcing a degree of truthfulness on the Treasury forecast and highlighting long term fiscal policy challenges, similar to the CBO in the US. By making the forecasts more credible it probably let's us borrow a little more cheaply. The policy choices are the government's.
Given that the OBR can’t differentiate between capital investment (HS2) and ongoing repairs (fixing holes in roads) I don’t think it’s any use
For some reason the OBR has a degree of credibility with the financial markets, and so its continued existence allows Britain to borrow more, at a lower rate of interest, then would be possible without it.
Doubtless there's are a large number of ways in which the OBR could perform a role in improving British government budget processes more effectively - in Ireland, for example, an equivalent body publishes forecasts for the budget in advance, so there's time for a public debate over the tax and spending policies to include in the budget.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
But what could change very quickly and cheaply is the lying and dissembling about it.
We could also build the infrastructure and housing required to make immigration more comfortable for society generally.
Why would we do that when we are not building anything for our own citizens ?
Immigrants on visa's and their families will be contributing to the economy with their taxes, NI contributions and extra NHS tax, thus raising the growth figures which help pay for the NHS etc. Why shouldn't the immigrants be catered for with infrastructure and house building? You never know...perhaps the indigenous population would benefit from the extra doctor surgeries and hospital places and school places which would be created?
Except that hasn’t happened. Record immigration figures and the economy crawling along.
..and whose fault is that?
You appear to assume that high migration will automagically advance the economy. There is no evidence for that.
I don't assume anything, it was just an idea. Surely, though, advancing the economy needs people to do jobs? Windrush? US immigration of the 1800s 1900s?
Nick Ferrari decides to lead on the people we really should be sorry for: those who would have to pay VAT on their private school fees.
I went to two private schools. The idea VAT shouldn't be paid is absurd.
Well, it's not, because introducing VAT for private schools is going to lead to worse outcomes. It will be revenue negative: it will cost more (in having to fund the state school places of kids who would have previously gone private) than it raises. And to take a very self-interested view: it will be harder for my youngest to get into the (state) senior school her sisters attend because there will be more parents seeking state school places.
It seems curiously self-destructive to implement a policy you see as logical which will harm many and benefit no-one. I'd happily stick with an illogical position over a bad position.
You suggest it will be "revenue negative" and "cost more", but I don't see the evidence for that. Do you have some detailed modelling to prove this?
Were this to be the case, there would be an argument that subsidising private school fees would save money.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
In the case of universities, it's not really conditional future any more- there's a steady flow of closures happening at course and department level because we don't want foreigners coming in paying our bills.
For a certain mindset, that's fine. Fewer students, more workers available for social care.
Do all these foreign university students actually generate a surplus when you take into account the full cost of teaching, additional capacity and overhead, infrastructure, negative externalities (eg less tutor time) for domestic students and impact on broader society (capacity utilisation)?
If not then they may not actually be beneficial to the country in this number.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
But what could change very quickly and cheaply is the lying and dissembling about it.
We could also build the infrastructure and housing required to make immigration more comfortable for society generally.
Why would we do that when we are not building anything for our own citizens ?
Immigrants on visa's and their families will be contributing to the economy with their taxes, NI contributions and extra NHS tax, thus raising the growth figures which help pay for the NHS etc. Why shouldn't the immigrants be catered for with infrastructure and house building? You never know...perhaps the indigenous population would benefit from the extra doctor surgeries and hospital places and school places which would be created?
I have nothing agaisnt immigration per se, we're an immigrant nation. But to have nearly 10 million extra people since 2000 and nothing being done for national infrastructure, housing or social fabric suggests we need to digest what we have first rather than go getting more.
Furthermore why is it ok to steal other nations skilled employees ? A doctor in a less developed country is of more value there than over here managing diseases brought on by first world lifestyles. We should be training our own people.
It's all very well saying we have to digest who we have already, but isn't it about time we started doing stuff about? It's like taking the money before doing the job. We have benfitted from immigant labour without doing anything in return. As far as the second paragraph is concerned, many skilled employees work abroad so we shouldn't be protectionist in that way. I remember at University many engineers training in the UK and promptly going back to their countries.
You mean the rich have benefited from immigrant labour as it has put downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on property values.
Most workers, and especially the low paid, have not benefited from immigrant labour.
That will be a surprise to all the working class folk being looked after on my ward, where more than half the staff are immigrants.
Likewise the clients of the NHS dental practice that I use, the staff of which are, with just one exception, of south Asian heritage.
Why do you equate people with south Asian heritage with immigrants ?
In reality continuous waves of immigration, used to keep wages down, adversely effects those of earlier immigrant groups or their children / grandchildren working in the same profession.
Yet when low paid healthworkers ask for more pay, they are told to piss off.
Eh ? Nurses and auxillary workers have reached agreement with the Gov't over pay, it's the higher paid doctors and consultants over 100k that can't seem to...
Looks like Consultants have agreed the latest offer, both BMA and HCSA are recommending accept the improved offer, and the previous one was 51/49, so should tip the balance.
Junior doctors and Specialist doctors are still in dispute with no improved offer on the horizon.
Nurses and AFC grades got a substantial real terms pay cut last year.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
And making matters worse is that the more highly trained migrants appear to tend to leave.
It’s part of the great circle of life. If we train people well we should be pleased to see them progress in their career and (hopefully) have fond memories of the UK.
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
I think providing big reason why Labour party's plans match the Tory's is
1) it removes points where the Tories can attack Labour 2) it provides a "reason" for Toryish voters to stay on the sofa rather than brave the rain to vote in December...
Or put it another way it's designed to reduce Tory turnout
A very cynical approach and one that won’t help the country face the radical change it needs
It's not just cynical; it's absurdly defensive. It's tacitly admitting that they can't make the case for change (other than in the management team) even though it's blatantly obvious that change is needed, and the public supports it. Granted, public expectations / solutions may be misguided or not work but correcting that is part of the job of political leadership.
It will be a lot harder in government if you don't do the groundwork in opposition.
The BBC have just reported on the findings of immigration into the UK in 2023 which shows over 600,000 work and over 600,000 student visas were issues with just over 100,000 for Ukraine and Hong Kong citizens and 80,000 family
Included in the work visas were health and care workers which are vital to that sector and of course the student numbers underpin the university sector without whom UK student fees would be astronomical
Just over 30,000 crossed the channel and stopping the boats is essential not least for those attempting the perilous crossing, but the conservatives have made it an enormous political issue
The BBC interviewed Braverman on whose watch this happened and she said Sunak ignored her ( good for him) as she demanded a stop on these levels of immigration and he would only talk about the channel crossings to her
The reality, as this BBC article affirms is that no political party is going to be able to reduce the numbers significantly
The BBC also said they had asked Labour to appear on the programme but they refused which in itself is interesting
Immigration will very probably come down when Labour are elected. This won't be because Labour have been elected, but student numbers will stabilise (i.e. outflow equals inflow, so minimal contribution to net immigration) and numbers on the Hong Kong and Ukraine schemes will fall.
I think voter interest in immigration will also come down because the government won't be banging on about it all the time. The Conservatives are constantly talking about controlling immigration while delivering record high immigration. It's bizarre behaviour. I am sensible enough not to bang on about the staff I'm bad at! Campaigning as if you are in opposition doesn't work when you've been in power for 14 years.
The immigration talk seems to me to be a very poor attempt at distraction - don’t look there, look at this tiny item here.
Problem is the tiny item they want people to focus on is unfixable
They haven't fixed it. That doesn't mean it's unfixable.
Go on then - how do you stop people traveling by boat from France?
Remember that employing an illegal worker now carries a £40,000+ fine
The problem isn't around the employment of illegal workers. The people coming over on boats are claiming asylum. The people working illegally are more likely to be visa overstayers.
The success of the Albania agreement just points out what a waste of time, money and political capital is the Rwanda scheme.
And which of the two have nine out of ten voters heard about ?
Quite. The government has an actual success, but they don't want to talk about it, because a bilateral negotiation with a European country is seen as weak and too much like pandering to Europe? It's ridiculous!
Nick Ferrari decides to lead on the people we really should be sorry for: those who would have to pay VAT on their private school fees.
I went to two private schools. The idea VAT shouldn't be paid is absurd.
Well, it's not, because introducing VAT for private schools is going to lead to worse outcomes. It will be revenue negative: it will cost more (in having to fund the state school places of kids who would have previously gone private) than it raises. And to take a very self-interested view: it will be harder for my youngest to get into the (state) senior school her sisters attend because there will be more parents seeking state school places.
It seems curiously self-destructive to implement a policy you see as logical which will harm many and benefit no-one. I'd happily stick with an illogical position over a bad position.
VAT on school fees is a policy that polls well and that's why Labour have it.
The evidence such as it is the policy will raise more revenue than the additional cost to the state sector to educate students of parents who can no longer afford the fees. Albeit it may not raise that much net revenue.
I don't see how things can get any better for the tories between now and the election.
Try a scandal hitting the Labour leadership (not just "Keir had a curry", but a proper scandal) or the Tories replacing their current leader. The latter is almost inevitable because Sunak is so shit (literally laughing at voters isn't a good sign) and everyone knows it.
There's no real polling evidence that a new leader will help the Tories much. And Labour will just say that the Tories change leaders more often than they change their socks - under them stability is impossible.
A new leader following a leader who is widely viewed as shit will cause a poll bounce and no evidence from polls asking respondents whether eventuality X would cause them to vote Y is required. I'm not sure Labour will want to market themselves to the skies as selling stability. There is still some mileage in "better the devil you know". The side that will be selling "time for a change" might be expected to face the question "What kind of change would that be, then?" - on which Labour might easily find that they come a cropper, because they don't have any very persuasive answers other than the usual bollocks about the NHS.
I would be happy to wager 1 pound against 10000 pounds if anyone really supposes the Tories have "zero" chance of having most seats after the election.
I don't see how things can get any better for the tories between now and the election.
Try a scandal hitting the Labour leadership (not just "Keir had a curry", but a proper scandal) or the Tories replacing their current leader. The latter is almost inevitable because Sunak is so shit (literally laughing at voters isn't a good sign) and everyone knows it.
There's no real polling evidence that a new leader will help the Tories much. And Labour will just say that the Tories change leaders more often than they change their socks - under them stability is impossible.
It also gives extra potency to the Labour campaign.
"How do you know that they will stick with Penny*? Isn't it likely she will be dumped for Braverman? Voting Tory is buying a pig in a poke."
I am sure Labour is planning such an attack line already, but it will be turbocharged by a further change.
I don't see how things can get any better for the tories between now and the election.
Try a scandal hitting the Labour leadership (not just "Keir had a curry", but a proper scandal) or the Tories replacing their current leader. The latter is almost inevitable because Sunak is so shit (literally laughing at voters isn't a good sign) and everyone knows it.
There's no real polling evidence that a new leader will help the Tories much. And Labour will just say that the Tories change leaders more often than they change their socks - under them stability is impossible.
A new leader following a leader who is widely viewed as shit will cause a poll bounce and no evidence from polls asking respondents whether eventuality X would cause them to vote Y is required. I'm not sure Labour will want to market themselves to the skies as selling stability. There is still some mileage in "better the devil you know". The side that will be selling "time for a change" might be expected to face the question "What kind of change would that be, then?" - on which Labour might easily find that they come a cropper, because they don't have any very persuasive answers other than the usual bollocks about the NHS.
I would be happy to wager 1 pound against 10000 pounds if anyone really supposes the Tories have "zero" chance of having most seats after the election.
The last 2 Tory leaders have both been dire - given the likely winner of the next leadership election it wouldn’t surprise me to see zero bounce and for many options the bounce could easily be negative as they may repeal more people than they attract
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
23% of voters in 2010 went for Clegg’s orange book LDs, which is pretty much what Tory Lite is; plus arguably Cameron certainly ‘presented’ as Tory-lite (even if austerity was not, in practice).
It’s not in favour at the moment simply because we did it and it was rubbish, pretty much.
I don’t think Starmer’s Labour is Tory-lite either. But I think making outward displays of intent around spending constraint is just electorally sensible.
All this "Support for Reform (and Green) will be squeezed in the election" argument ignores how, in 2010, LibDem support went up over the course of the election campaign. Indeed, if not as spectacularly, LibDem support often rises in election campaigns. Maybe Reform and Green will benefit from similar forces.
Yebbut the 2010 Cleggasm is, let's face it, unlikely to manifest as a 2024 Daveygasm.... The guy has zero charisma, sex appeal, showbiz razzamatazz.
He will offer the WASPI women some cash. That will be a fabulous aphrodisiac from Mr Dull. The home counties will be hot for Ed's party.
He could offer them £50k each. So what? He'll never be in a position to deliver it. Even if Starmer needs him for a coalition, Labour won't have the money to spare.
Davey's problem is that he has history. He was a cabinet minister in a Tory-led govt. He didn't deliver then for WASPI. I don't think he will necessarily prosper during the election campaign when these points are raised.
No-one will be at all interested in what the LDs or Davey say during the campaign.
The discussions that attract the most attention in order will be:
Con v Refuk Con internal arguments Con v Labour
Then various nationalists locally and the greens. Then Ed Davey.
I am not sure this is necessarily a bad thing for the LDs.....
Election campaigns have reporting rules that guarantee coverage for smaller parties. Sure, that doesn't mean the public will pay attention to that coverage, but it helps.
Several election campaigns have surprised in terms of what the public chose to pay attention to (Cleggasm in 2010, paying for social care and policing in 2017), while others were more predictable (getting Brexit done in 2019).
My original point upthread was not predicting that the LibDems would benefit from increased campaign-mandated attention (although I think they probably will to a degree), but about what might happen with Reform UK and the Greens. Will they get their equivalent of the Cleggasm? Lots of people assume that Reform UK and Greens will be squeezed during the campaign, but they'll be getting lots of mandated coverage. They could go up in the polls over the campaign, not down.
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
23% of voters in 2010 went for Clegg’s orange book LDs, which is pretty much what Tory Lite is; plus arguably Cameron certainly ‘presented’ as Tory-lite (even if austerity was not, in practice).
It’s not in favour at the moment simply because we did it and it was rubbish, pretty much.
I don’t think Starmer’s Labour is Tory-lite either. But I think making outward displays of intent around spending constraint is just electorally sensible.
All this "Support for Reform (and Green) will be squeezed in the election" argument ignores how, in 2010, LibDem support went up over the course of the election campaign. Indeed, if not as spectacularly, LibDem support often rises in election campaigns. Maybe Reform and Green will benefit from similar forces.
Yebbut the 2010 Cleggasm is, let's face it, unlikely to manifest as a 2024 Daveygasm.... The guy has zero charisma, sex appeal, showbiz razzamatazz.
He will offer the WASPI women some cash. That will be a fabulous aphrodisiac from Mr Dull. The home counties will be hot for Ed's party.
He could offer them £50k each. So what? He'll never be in a position to deliver it. Even if Starmer needs him for a coalition, Labour won't have the money to spare.
Davey's problem is that he has history. He was a cabinet minister in a Tory-led govt. He didn't deliver then for WASPI. I don't think he will necessarily prosper during the election campaign when these points are raised.
No-one will be at all interested in what the LDs or Davey say during the campaign.
The discussions that attract the most attention in order will be:
Con v Refuk Con internal arguments Con v Labour
Then various nationalists locally and the greens. Then Ed Davey.
I am not sure this is necessarily a bad thing for the LDs.....
Election campaigns have reporting rules that guarantee coverage for smaller parties. Sure, that doesn't mean the public will pay attention to that coverage, but it helps.
Several election campaigns have surprised in terms of what the public chose to pay attention to (Cleggasm in 2010, paying for social care and policing in 2017), while others were more predictable (getting Brexit done in 2019).
My original point upthread was not predicting that the LibDems would benefit from increased campaign-mandated attention (although I think they probably will to a degree), but about what might happen with Reform UK and the Greens. Will they get their equivalent of the Cleggasm? Lots of people assume that Reform UK and Greens will be squeezed during the campaign, but they'll be getting lots of mandated coverage. They could go up in the polls over the campaign, not down.
No-one will be interested in what the Lib Dems have to say because they don't have anything interesting to say. That's quite different from no-one - media or public - being willing to listen to what they have to say.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
In the case of universities, it's not really conditional future any more- there's a steady flow of closures happening at course and department level because we don't want foreigners coming in paying our bills.
For a certain mindset, that's fine. Fewer students, more workers available for social care.
Do all these foreign university students actually generate a surplus when you take into account the full cost of teaching, additional capacity and overhead, infrastructure, negative externalities (eg less tutor time) for domestic students and impact on broader society (capacity utilisation)?
If not then they may not actually be beneficial to the country in this number.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
In the case of universities, it's not really conditional future any more- there's a steady flow of closures happening at course and department level because we don't want foreigners coming in paying our bills.
For a certain mindset, that's fine. Fewer students, more workers available for social care.
Do all these foreign university students actually generate a surplus when you take into account the full cost of teaching, additional capacity and overhead, infrastructure, negative externalities (eg less tutor time) for domestic students and impact on broader society (capacity utilisation)?
If not then they may not actually be beneficial to the country in this number.
Not only do foreign students pay huge fees (usually at least £30k per year) they also bring in cash to pay for accommodation and living expenses (probably another £20k per year at least) so they are a massive positive for the UK balance of payments (there being far more foreign students in the UK than UK students studying abroad). And then there are the soft power aspects - people who study in the UK are likely to take back positive memories about the country and the institution they studied at. This is immensely beneficial to perceptions of the UK abroad.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
In the case of universities, it's not really conditional future any more- there's a steady flow of closures happening at course and department level because we don't want foreigners coming in paying our bills.
For a certain mindset, that's fine. Fewer students, more workers available for social care.
Do all these foreign university students actually generate a surplus when you take into account the full cost of teaching, additional capacity and overhead, infrastructure, negative externalities (eg less tutor time) for domestic students and impact on broader society (capacity utilisation)?
If not then they may not actually be beneficial to the country in this number.
Yes. At least, they generate a surplus for universities. Overseas student fees are high. Universities make a profit on teaching overseas students, whereas they generally lose money on doing research, lose a bit on home undergrads, and maybe break even or make a small profit on home postgrads. Thus, overseas student fees are subsidising other university activity.
The main MSc I teach on charges £15,100 to home students and £34,400 to overseas students.
I don't see how things can get any better for the tories between now and the election.
Try a scandal hitting the Labour leadership (not just "Keir had a curry", but a proper scandal) or the Tories replacing their current leader. The latter is almost inevitable because Sunak is so shit (literally laughing at voters isn't a good sign) and everyone knows it.
There's no real polling evidence that a new leader will help the Tories much. And Labour will just say that the Tories change leaders more often than they change their socks - under them stability is impossible.
It also gives extra potency to the Labour campaign.
"How do you know that they will stick with Penny*? Isn't it likely she will be dumped for Braverman? Voting Tory is buying a pig in a poke."
I am sure Labour is planning such an attack line already, but it will be turbocharged by a further change.
*assuming the most voter friendly candidate wins.
I've been thinking about why this sort of attack hasn't worked in the past. It's after all not been unusual for there to be a mid-Parliament change in PM.
I think the reason is that most voters have been glad that these changes of leader have happened. People were glad (at least at the time) to see the back of Thatcher / Blair / Cameron / May and so reminding them that an unpopular leader had been ousted didn't really hit home.
Obviously the Truss Experience was a bit different, but a few voters might quite like the idea that if they vote Tory they might end up with someone other than Sunak as PM.
Ignoring tidal and getting the taxpayer to stump up for more offshore wind (when companies won't even invest unless the Government raises the price per kh to stupid levels) is cretinous. £8.3bn to erect floating windmills in case it's blowy, meanwhile the tides come in and go out every day like clockwork and we fail to harness them.
It doesn't have to be either or.
Given that this announcement would have been an opportunity to revive the prospect of tidal going ahead, I think this windmill announcement shows it's absolutely an either or. *This* is what they've been percolating away in all those years of having zero policies?
If the next government did nothing else other than speed up planning for major projects, it would be a vast improvement on what we have.
I really think that the failure of tidal to take off thus far is because there's no grifting money in things that actually work, and produce power for sensible money and in a timely fashion. Contrast with the truly eye watering sums involved in nuclear investment, or the subsidy jungle of wind.
Tidal is big bang expensive construction projects; lots of concrete. It’s a lot like nuclear in that respect. Not as big as nuclear, but still.
Wind is incremental - you can build it out one turbine at a time if you want to.
Why not do both if feasible. We all know problem with the wind is you cannot depend on it.
The tides we know are a given. Can it be made to work though ?
One problem with tidal is that it’s predictable but annoyingly periodic in a way that doesn’t line up with the 24 hour day over time. So you still have the problem that to actually use this power you really need to be able to store it somewhere, which drives up costs. Otherwise you’re going to spend half the year selling it into the market at off-peak times when you have power, so your return on capital is nowhere near what you’d expect from a naive calculation based on the mean electricity price.
Neither wind nor tidal can delivery power at short notice when you need it. You either need peak power plants (basically natgas at the moment) or batteries on a huge scale.
This isn’t actually too bad though - in the short term we already have the natgas plants & if we only use them for filling in the gaps then the CO2 impact is small & batteries are only getting cheaper over time. It’s already getting to the point that installing a battery in your house (+ ancillery gear) and paying spot for electricity is a net win for many people.
It is a very superficial analysis to conflate the periodical nature of tides with the totally unpredictable intermittency of wind. Along with the constraint payments to wind providers, use of wind has also driven up the price of gas, as gas providers are forced to switch their plants on and off at extremely short notice, which they charge for, and adds to the price of gas (something never mentioned by those who try to sell the idea that wind will become cheaper than gas). You don't get that with tidal - it is totally predictable, and you can line up your other power generators accordingly.
Besides which (@MarqueeMark can maybe remind us the answer here) do tidal barrages not generate power when the tide comes in, and then again when it goes out? Seems like it would be working for much of the time.
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
23% of voters in 2010 went for Clegg’s orange book LDs, which is pretty much what Tory Lite is; plus arguably Cameron certainly ‘presented’ as Tory-lite (even if austerity was not, in practice).
It’s not in favour at the moment simply because we did it and it was rubbish, pretty much.
I don’t think Starmer’s Labour is Tory-lite either. But I think making outward displays of intent around spending constraint is just electorally sensible.
All this "Support for Reform (and Green) will be squeezed in the election" argument ignores how, in 2010, LibDem support went up over the course of the election campaign. Indeed, if not as spectacularly, LibDem support often rises in election campaigns. Maybe Reform and Green will benefit from similar forces.
Yebbut the 2010 Cleggasm is, let's face it, unlikely to manifest as a 2024 Daveygasm.... The guy has zero charisma, sex appeal, showbiz razzamatazz.
He will offer the WASPI women some cash. That will be a fabulous aphrodisiac from Mr Dull. The home counties will be hot for Ed's party.
He could offer them £50k each. So what? He'll never be in a position to deliver it. Even if Starmer needs him for a coalition, Labour won't have the money to spare.
Davey's problem is that he has history. He was a cabinet minister in a Tory-led govt. He didn't deliver then for WASPI. I don't think he will necessarily prosper during the election campaign when these points are raised.
No-one will be at all interested in what the LDs or Davey say during the campaign.
The discussions that attract the most attention in order will be:
Con v Refuk Con internal arguments Con v Labour
Then various nationalists locally and the greens. Then Ed Davey.
I am not sure this is necessarily a bad thing for the LDs.....
Election campaigns have reporting rules that guarantee coverage for smaller parties. Sure, that doesn't mean the public will pay attention to that coverage, but it helps.
Several election campaigns have surprised in terms of what the public chose to pay attention to (Cleggasm in 2010, paying for social care and policing in 2017), while others were more predictable (getting Brexit done in 2019).
My original point upthread was not predicting that the LibDems would benefit from increased campaign-mandated attention (although I think they probably will to a degree), but about what might happen with Reform UK and the Greens. Will they get their equivalent of the Cleggasm? Lots of people assume that Reform UK and Greens will be squeezed during the campaign, but they'll be getting lots of mandated coverage. They could go up in the polls over the campaign, not down.
No-one will be interested in what the Lib Dems have to say because they don't have anything interesting to say. That's quite different from no-one - media or public - being willing to listen to what they have to say.
It has been noticeable that every time Ed Davey comes on screen he is asked why he didn't help the sub postmasters
I don't see how things can get any better for the tories between now and the election.
Try a scandal hitting the Labour leadership (not just "Keir had a curry", but a proper scandal) or the Tories replacing their current leader. The latter is almost inevitable because Sunak is so shit (literally laughing at voters isn't a good sign) and everyone knows it.
There's no real polling evidence that a new leader will help the Tories much. And Labour will just say that the Tories change leaders more often than they change their socks - under them stability is impossible.
A new leader following a leader who is widely viewed as shit will cause a poll bounce and no evidence from polls asking respondents whether eventuality X would cause them to vote Y is required. I'm not sure Labour will want to market themselves to the skies as selling stability. There is still some mileage in "better the devil you know". The side that will be selling "time for a change" might be expected to face the question "What kind of change would that be, then?" - on which Labour might easily find that they come a cropper, because they don't have any very persuasive answers other than the usual bollocks about the NHS.
I would be happy to wager 1 pound against 10000 pounds if anyone really supposes the Tories have "zero" chance of having most seats after the election.
The last 2 Tory leaders have both been dire - given the likely winner of the next leadership election it wouldn’t surprise me to see zero bounce and for many options the bounce could easily be negative as they may repeal more people than they attract
If there was a good leader available in the Tory party, one wonders why they haven't chosen them the last two times they were given a choice. The idea that third time lucky, they'll find a superstar, is laughable.
Nick Ferrari decides to lead on the people we really should be sorry for: those who would have to pay VAT on their private school fees.
I went to two private schools. The idea VAT shouldn't be paid is absurd.
Well, it's not, because introducing VAT for private schools is going to lead to worse outcomes. It will be revenue negative: it will cost more (in having to fund the state school places of kids who would have previously gone private) than it raises. And to take a very self-interested view: it will be harder for my youngest to get into the (state) senior school her sisters attend because there will be more parents seeking state school places.
It seems curiously self-destructive to implement a policy you see as logical which will harm many and benefit no-one. I'd happily stick with an illogical position over a bad position.
VAT on school fees is a policy that polls well and that's why Labour have it.
The evidence such as it is the policy will raise more revenue than the additional cost to the state sector to educate students of parents who can no longer afford the fees. Albeit it may not raise that much net revenue.
The policy is unique in ticking all the following:
Polls well with target voters Appeals to the left Easy to implement Revenue neutral to positive
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
23% of voters in 2010 went for Clegg’s orange book LDs, which is pretty much what Tory Lite is; plus arguably Cameron certainly ‘presented’ as Tory-lite (even if austerity was not, in practice).
It’s not in favour at the moment simply because we did it and it was rubbish, pretty much.
I don’t think Starmer’s Labour is Tory-lite either. But I think making outward displays of intent around spending constraint is just electorally sensible.
All this "Support for Reform (and Green) will be squeezed in the election" argument ignores how, in 2010, LibDem support went up over the course of the election campaign. Indeed, if not as spectacularly, LibDem support often rises in election campaigns. Maybe Reform and Green will benefit from similar forces.
Yebbut the 2010 Cleggasm is, let's face it, unlikely to manifest as a 2024 Daveygasm.... The guy has zero charisma, sex appeal, showbiz razzamatazz.
He will offer the WASPI women some cash. That will be a fabulous aphrodisiac from Mr Dull. The home counties will be hot for Ed's party.
He could offer them £50k each. So what? He'll never be in a position to deliver it. Even if Starmer needs him for a coalition, Labour won't have the money to spare.
Davey's problem is that he has history. He was a cabinet minister in a Tory-led govt. He didn't deliver then for WASPI. I don't think he will necessarily prosper during the election campaign when these points are raised.
No-one will be at all interested in what the LDs or Davey say during the campaign.
The discussions that attract the most attention in order will be:
Con v Refuk Con internal arguments Con v Labour
Then various nationalists locally and the greens. Then Ed Davey.
I am not sure this is necessarily a bad thing for the LDs.....
Election campaigns have reporting rules that guarantee coverage for smaller parties. Sure, that doesn't mean the public will pay attention to that coverage, but it helps.
Several election campaigns have surprised in terms of what the public chose to pay attention to (Cleggasm in 2010, paying for social care and policing in 2017), while others were more predictable (getting Brexit done in 2019).
My original point upthread was not predicting that the LibDems would benefit from increased campaign-mandated attention (although I think they probably will to a degree), but about what might happen with Reform UK and the Greens. Will they get their equivalent of the Cleggasm? Lots of people assume that Reform UK and Greens will be squeezed during the campaign, but they'll be getting lots of mandated coverage. They could go up in the polls over the campaign, not down.
I don't disagree that there is uncertainty in how the election will go, especially with Refuk and the Tories.
But the LDs best way to get back in the game as the third party in the Commons is simply to keep quiet and let the right argue amongst themselves, just as this is the best path for Labour. So I'm expecting a quiet election from both Labour and LDs whilst the Tories won't be able to help themselves from continuing their silly drama games.
The Greens are slightly interesting for once, with this being the first time in recent memory that the major parties are backing away from green policies at an election, normally they slightly accelerate towards the Greens policy wise at this stage. But they suffer terribly from FPTP so I suspect given anti-Tory being the dominant voting intention, they will still struggle.
I note the state pension will be going up 8.5% in April, due this time to wage tracking.
"September 2023’s figures show that average wages rose by 8.5%, which is much higher than 2.5% and the inflation rate of 6.7%."
Previously going up by 10.1% in line with inflation.
So a 19.5% increase over 2 years.
If it had been done in line with inflation, the increase would have been up 17.5% over 2 years; in line with wages would have been 16.4%. But because of the idiosyncratic formula it's 19.5% !
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
But what could change very quickly and cheaply is the lying and dissembling about it.
We could also build the infrastructure and housing required to make immigration more comfortable for society generally.
Why would we do that when we are not building anything for our own citizens ?
Immigrants on visa's and their families will be contributing to the economy with their taxes, NI contributions and extra NHS tax, thus raising the growth figures which help pay for the NHS etc. Why shouldn't the immigrants be catered for with infrastructure and house building? You never know...perhaps the indigenous population would benefit from the extra doctor surgeries and hospital places and school places which would be created?
I have nothing agaisnt immigration per se, we're an immigrant nation. But to have nearly 10 million extra people since 2000 and nothing being done for national infrastructure, housing or social fabric suggests we need to digest what we have first rather than go getting more.
Furthermore why is it ok to steal other nations skilled employees ? A doctor in a less developed country is of more value there than over here managing diseases brought on by first world lifestyles. We should be training our own people.
It's all very well saying we have to digest who we have already, but isn't it about time we started doing stuff about? It's like taking the money before doing the job. We have benfitted from immigant labour without doing anything in return. As far as the second paragraph is concerned, many skilled employees work abroad so we shouldn't be protectionist in that way. I remember at University many engineers training in the UK and promptly going back to their countries.
Weirdly, while the government prioritises health workers for immigrant visas, it makes it almost impossible for British-born students to get university places to study medicine. It's as if it wants to be dependent on immigration indefinitely.
For extra comic value - while telling universities that the places for medical school are limited, the government then uses part of the overseas aid budget to pay for foreign medical students.
The only foreign resident medical students we get are self funding Malaysian Chinese. This is because of their own governments race quota system for their medical schools. They pretty much all go back.
Our Medical Students are diverse ethnically, but almost all were born here, and even the oothers usually arrived as children.
Incidentally, it isn't particularly difficult to get into Medical School any more for those with A levels of the right calibre, indeed we often now have places in clearing.
Really?! My understanding was that three As in the right subjects are no longer anywhere near enough, and as a bare minimum you need to have been working in a hospital for two years. So I'm glad to hear that's not necessarily the case.
Candidates need an A in Chemistry, pass the aptitude test and preferrably have some work or volunteer experience of a care environment. Often this is a volunteer for a few weeks in an old folks home.
At Leicester we prefer post A level candidates for a number of reasons: Greater maturity, ability to make definite rather than conditional offers, but also it brings a wider range of candidates. Independent schools often overegg predictions while state schools often underestimate their best students. So we get quite a lot who unexpectedly got better results than they anticipated, mostly from state schools.
There's a whole story around the aptitude tests and whether they really measure aptitude and what that means. I think there's evidence that they've been a mistake and that GCSE/A'level performance remains the better indicator of ability, as we* showed here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1741-7015-11-243
* I'm a co-author. I did very little on this, but the first author insisted I'd been helpful!
I have long been sceptical of the aptitude tests, but the decision to use them is above my level. I am just a front line grunt, albeit one with an interest in why we use our methods.
Nick Ferrari decides to lead on the people we really should be sorry for: those who would have to pay VAT on their private school fees.
I went to two private schools. The idea VAT shouldn't be paid is absurd.
Well, it's not, because introducing VAT for private schools is going to lead to worse outcomes. It will be revenue negative: it will cost more (in having to fund the state school places of kids who would have previously gone private) than it raises. And to take a very self-interested view: it will be harder for my youngest to get into the (state) senior school her sisters attend because there will be more parents seeking state school places.
It seems curiously self-destructive to implement a policy you see as logical which will harm many and benefit no-one. I'd happily stick with an illogical position over a bad position.
VAT on school fees is a policy that polls well and that's why Labour have it.
The evidence such as it is the policy will raise more revenue than the additional cost to the state sector to educate students of parents who can no longer afford the fees. Albeit it may not raise that much net revenue.
The policy is unique in ticking all the following:
Polls well with target voters Appeals to the left Easy to implement Revenue neutral to positive
Political gold dust.
On the first point - I suspect the share of the electorate who would vote Labour if only they introduced VAT on private schools is much less than 0.5%, whereas the proportion of the electorate who might vote Labour but are put off by fear of VAT on private schools is about 2%. Now they have a big enough lead to get away with it this time, and it is probably a good policy on balance, but I am pretty sure it is not electorally helpful.
I don't see how things can get any better for the tories between now and the election.
Try a scandal hitting the Labour leadership (not just "Keir had a curry", but a proper scandal) or the Tories replacing their current leader. The latter is almost inevitable because Sunak is so shit (literally laughing at voters isn't a good sign) and everyone knows it.
There's no real polling evidence that a new leader will help the Tories much. And Labour will just say that the Tories change leaders more often than they change their socks - under them stability is impossible.
A new leader following a leader who is widely viewed as shit will cause a poll bounce and no evidence from polls asking respondents whether eventuality X would cause them to vote Y is required. I'm not sure Labour will want to market themselves to the skies as selling stability. There is still some mileage in "better the devil you know". The side that will be selling "time for a change" might be expected to face the question "What kind of change would that be, then?" - on which Labour might easily find that they come a cropper, because they don't have any very persuasive answers other than the usual bollocks about the NHS.
I would be happy to wager 1 pound against 10000 pounds if anyone really supposes the Tories have "zero" chance of having most seats after the election.
The last 2 Tory leaders have both been dire - given the likely winner of the next leadership election it wouldn’t surprise me to see zero bounce and for many options the bounce could easily be negative as they may repeal more people than they attract
That depends on their agenda for their remaining months in power, including a budget. If that's going to remain the same, with the final 'flourish' being a penny off income tax, I agree, just keep Sunak. If they are on the other hand, going to spend the next 9 months auditioning to be a dynamic party that is worthy to govern for another decade, that will make a difference, and needs a new leader. Sunak can't sell that change in direction, even if he wanted to.
I don't see how things can get any better for the tories between now and the election.
Try a scandal hitting the Labour leadership (not just "Keir had a curry", but a proper scandal) or the Tories replacing their current leader. The latter is almost inevitable because Sunak is so shit (literally laughing at voters isn't a good sign) and everyone knows it.
There's no real polling evidence that a new leader will help the Tories much. And Labour will just say that the Tories change leaders more often than they change their socks - under them stability is impossible.
It also gives extra potency to the Labour campaign.
"How do you know that they will stick with Penny*? Isn't it likely she will be dumped for Braverman? Voting Tory is buying a pig in a poke."
I am sure Labour is planning such an attack line already, but it will be turbocharged by a further change.
*assuming the most voter friendly candidate wins.
I've been thinking about why this sort of attack hasn't worked in the past. It's after all not been unusual for there to be a mid-Parliament change in PM.
I think the reason is that most voters have been glad that these changes of leader have happened. People were glad (at least at the time) to see the back of Thatcher / Blair / Cameron / May and so reminding them that an unpopular leader had been ousted didn't really hit home.
Obviously the Truss Experience was a bit different, but a few voters might quite like the idea that if they vote Tory they might end up with someone other than Sunak as PM.
Sure, and it seems pretty certain that voters will evict Sunak, but safer to not let the desk bangers of the 1922 pick the next PM.
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
23% of voters in 2010 went for Clegg’s orange book LDs, which is pretty much what Tory Lite is; plus arguably Cameron certainly ‘presented’ as Tory-lite (even if austerity was not, in practice).
It’s not in favour at the moment simply because we did it and it was rubbish, pretty much.
I don’t think Starmer’s Labour is Tory-lite either. But I think making outward displays of intent around spending constraint is just electorally sensible.
All this "Support for Reform (and Green) will be squeezed in the election" argument ignores how, in 2010, LibDem support went up over the course of the election campaign. Indeed, if not as spectacularly, LibDem support often rises in election campaigns. Maybe Reform and Green will benefit from similar forces.
Yebbut the 2010 Cleggasm is, let's face it, unlikely to manifest as a 2024 Daveygasm.... The guy has zero charisma, sex appeal, showbiz razzamatazz.
He will offer the WASPI women some cash. That will be a fabulous aphrodisiac from Mr Dull. The home counties will be hot for Ed's party.
He could offer them £50k each. So what? He'll never be in a position to deliver it. Even if Starmer needs him for a coalition, Labour won't have the money to spare.
Davey's problem is that he has history. He was a cabinet minister in a Tory-led govt. He didn't deliver then for WASPI. I don't think he will necessarily prosper during the election campaign when these points are raised.
No-one will be at all interested in what the LDs or Davey say during the campaign.
The discussions that attract the most attention in order will be:
Con v Refuk Con internal arguments Con v Labour
Then various nationalists locally and the greens. Then Ed Davey.
I am not sure this is necessarily a bad thing for the LDs.....
Election campaigns have reporting rules that guarantee coverage for smaller parties. Sure, that doesn't mean the public will pay attention to that coverage, but it helps.
Several election campaigns have surprised in terms of what the public chose to pay attention to (Cleggasm in 2010, paying for social care and policing in 2017), while others were more predictable (getting Brexit done in 2019).
My original point upthread was not predicting that the LibDems would benefit from increased campaign-mandated attention (although I think they probably will to a degree), but about what might happen with Reform UK and the Greens. Will they get their equivalent of the Cleggasm? Lots of people assume that Reform UK and Greens will be squeezed during the campaign, but they'll be getting lots of mandated coverage. They could go up in the polls over the campaign, not down.
I don't disagree that there is uncertainty in how the election will go, especially with Refuk and the Tories.
But the LDs best way to get back in the game as the third party in the Commons is simply to keep quiet and let the right argue amongst themselves, just as this is the best path for Labour. So I'm expecting a quiet election from both Labour and LDs whilst the Tories won't be able to help themselves from continuing their silly drama games.
The Greens are slightly interesting for once, with this being the first time in recent memory that the major parties are backing away from green policies at an election, normally they slightly accelerate towards the Greens policy wise at this stage. But they suffer terribly from FPTP so I suspect given anti-Tory being the dominant voting intention, they will still struggle.
I think now, pre-campaign, it's sensible for Labour to keep quiet while the Tories keep shooting themselves in the foot/arguing with Reform UK. Come an election campaign, all the parties are going to have to, at least to a degree, put forth something saying what they are about.
This isn’t the best argument for £100k a year not to be considered all that much
"You are absolutely right, that is not very much."
This caller manages to convince ＠RachelSJohnson that £100k doesn't go very far, as he tells her he and his wife are left with approximately £600 a week after taxes and bills.
I don't see how things can get any better for the tories between now and the election.
Try a scandal hitting the Labour leadership (not just "Keir had a curry", but a proper scandal) or the Tories replacing their current leader. The latter is almost inevitable because Sunak is so shit (literally laughing at voters isn't a good sign) and everyone knows it.
There's no real polling evidence that a new leader will help the Tories much. And Labour will just say that the Tories change leaders more often than they change their socks - under them stability is impossible.
A new leader following a leader who is widely viewed as shit will cause a poll bounce and no evidence from polls asking respondents whether eventuality X would cause them to vote Y is required. I'm not sure Labour will want to market themselves to the skies as selling stability. There is still some mileage in "better the devil you know". The side that will be selling "time for a change" might be expected to face the question "What kind of change would that be, then?" - on which Labour might easily find that they come a cropper, because they don't have any very persuasive answers other than the usual bollocks about the NHS.
I would be happy to wager 1 pound against 10000 pounds if anyone really supposes the Tories have "zero" chance of having most seats after the election.
The last 2 Tory leaders have both been dire - given the likely winner of the next leadership election it wouldn’t surprise me to see zero bounce and for many options the bounce could easily be negative as they may repeal more people than they attract
That depends on their agenda for their remaining months in power, including a budget. If that's going to remain the same, with the final 'flourish' being a penny off income tax, I agree, just keep Sunak. If they are on the other hand, going to spend the next 9 months auditioning to be a dynamic party that is worthy to govern for another decade, that will make a difference, and needs a new leader. Sunak can't sell that change in direction, even if he wanted to.
Nick Ferrari decides to lead on the people we really should be sorry for: those who would have to pay VAT on their private school fees.
I went to two private schools. The idea VAT shouldn't be paid is absurd.
Well, it's not, because introducing VAT for private schools is going to lead to worse outcomes. It will be revenue negative: it will cost more (in having to fund the state school places of kids who would have previously gone private) than it raises. And to take a very self-interested view: it will be harder for my youngest to get into the (state) senior school her sisters attend because there will be more parents seeking state school places.
It seems curiously self-destructive to implement a policy you see as logical which will harm many and benefit no-one. I'd happily stick with an illogical position over a bad position.
VAT on school fees is a policy that polls well and that's why Labour have it.
The evidence such as it is the policy will raise more revenue than the additional cost to the state sector to educate students of parents who can no longer afford the fees. Albeit it may not raise that much net revenue.
The policy is unique in ticking all the following:
Polls well with target voters Appeals to the left Easy to implement Revenue neutral to positive
Political gold dust.
On the first point - I suspect the share of the electorate who would vote Labour if only they introduced VAT on private schools is much less than 0.5%, whereas the proportion of the electorate who might vote Labour but are put off by fear of VAT on private schools is about 2%. Now they have a big enough lead to get away with it this time, and it is probably a good policy on balance, but I am pretty sure it is not electorally helpful.
Yes, but if that 2% is currently voting Tory anyway, while the 0.5% isn't voting Labour then it is a net improvement for Labour.
Not that this is a definite formulation, nor a sensible way to choose policies.
I don't see how things can get any better for the tories between now and the election.
Try a scandal hitting the Labour leadership (not just "Keir had a curry", but a proper scandal) or the Tories replacing their current leader. The latter is almost inevitable because Sunak is so shit (literally laughing at voters isn't a good sign) and everyone knows it.
There's no real polling evidence that a new leader will help the Tories much. And Labour will just say that the Tories change leaders more often than they change their socks - under them stability is impossible.
A new leader following a leader who is widely viewed as shit will cause a poll bounce and no evidence from polls asking respondents whether eventuality X would cause them to vote Y is required. I'm not sure Labour will want to market themselves to the skies as selling stability. There is still some mileage in "better the devil you know". The side that will be selling "time for a change" might be expected to face the question "What kind of change would that be, then?" - on which Labour might easily find that they come a cropper, because they don't have any very persuasive answers other than the usual bollocks about the NHS.
I would be happy to wager 1 pound against 10000 pounds if anyone really supposes the Tories have "zero" chance of having most seats after the election.
The last 2 Tory leaders have both been dire - given the likely winner of the next leadership election it wouldn’t surprise me to see zero bounce and for many options the bounce could easily be negative as they may repeal more people than they attract
That depends on their agenda for their remaining months in power, including a budget. If that's going to remain the same, with the final 'flourish' being a penny off income tax, I agree, just keep Sunak. If they are on the other hand, going to spend the next 9 months auditioning to be a dynamic party that is worthy to govern for another decade, that will make a difference, and needs a new leader. Sunak can't sell that change in direction, even if he wanted to.
You mean the return of Liz Truss?
No, but I do mean the return of some of the Truss reforms that can be managed in the time available.
Ignoring tidal and getting the taxpayer to stump up for more offshore wind (when companies won't even invest unless the Government raises the price per kh to stupid levels) is cretinous. £8.3bn to erect floating windmills in case it's blowy, meanwhile the tides come in and go out every day like clockwork and we fail to harness them.
It doesn't have to be either or.
Given that this announcement would have been an opportunity to revive the prospect of tidal going ahead, I think this windmill announcement shows it's absolutely an either or. *This* is what they've been percolating away in all those years of having zero policies?
If the next government did nothing else other than speed up planning for major projects, it would be a vast improvement on what we have.
I really think that the failure of tidal to take off thus far is because there's no grifting money in things that actually work, and produce power for sensible money and in a timely fashion. Contrast with the truly eye watering sums involved in nuclear investment, or the subsidy jungle of wind.
Tidal is big bang expensive construction projects; lots of concrete. It’s a lot like nuclear in that respect. Not as big as nuclear, but still.
Wind is incremental - you can build it out one turbine at a time if you want to.
Why not do both if feasible. We all know problem with the wind is you cannot depend on it.
The tides we know are a given. Can it be made to work though ?
One problem with tidal is that it’s predictable but annoyingly periodic in a way that doesn’t line up with the 24 hour day over time. So you still have the problem that to actually use this power you really need to be able to store it somewhere, which drives up costs. Otherwise you’re going to spend half the year selling it into the market at off-peak times when you have power, so your return on capital is nowhere near what you’d expect from a naive calculation based on the mean electricity price.
Neither wind nor tidal can delivery power at short notice when you need it. You either need peak power plants (basically natgas at the moment) or batteries on a huge scale.
This isn’t actually too bad though - in the short term we already have the natgas plants & if we only use them for filling in the gaps then the CO2 impact is small & batteries are only getting cheaper over time. It’s already getting to the point that installing a battery in your house (+ ancillery gear) and paying spot for electricity is a net win for many people.
It is a very superficial analysis to conflate the periodical nature of tides with the totally unpredictable intermittency of wind. Along with the constraint payments to wind providers, use of wind has also driven up the price of gas, as gas providers are forced to switch their plants on and off at extremely short notice, which they charge for, and adds to the price of gas (something never mentioned by those who try to sell the idea that wind will become cheaper than gas). You don't get that with tidal - it is totally predictable, and you can line up your other power generators accordingly.
Besides which (@MarqueeMark can maybe remind us the answer here) do tidal barrages not generate power when the tide comes in, and then again when it goes out? Seems like it would be working for much of the time.
I'm a big fan of tidal, and I don't think we should have a big argument of tidal v wind. Just do both.
However, it's not true to say that wind power is totally unpredictable. Wind power forecasts for a few days in advance are reasonably accurate.
The things that really are unpredictable, and caused a challenge for the grid, are when a whole power plant falls off the grid instantly. This happened in the St Jude's Day storm when the cable connecting a nuclear power plant to the grid was knocked out, and more recently when the cable connecting a wind farm to the grid failed.
The predictable gradual increase/decrease of wind power as a cyclone moves across the country is much easier to deal with.
I note the state pension will be going up 8.5% in April, due this time to wage tracking.
"September 2023’s figures show that average wages rose by 8.5%, which is much higher than 2.5% and the inflation rate of 6.7%."
Previously going up by 10.1% in line with inflation.
So a 19.5% increase over 2 years.
If it had been done in line with inflation, the increase would have been up 17.5% over 2 years; in line with wages would have been 16.4%. But because of the idiosyncratic formula it's 19.5% !
As we all appreciate by now, there's nothing idiosyncratic about the Triple Lock. It's a one-way ratchet that's custom built to ensure that increases in pensioner incomes outstrip wage inflation, and is yet another example of catastrophically myopic policy making.
The response to some pensioners still being a bit hard up was to give the lot of them these gold-plated hikes, so that their incomes would catch up with those of younger people. Of course, having been created, pensioners now expect the perk to be maintained in perpetuity, and they're such an important constituency that nobody dare alienate them by junking the policy, because their political opponents won't make the same mistake and the grey vote will simply flow away. Therefore we really are lumbered with the bloody thing.
Of course, with compound interest (or inflation) being the most powerful force in the universe, the logical end point of the Triple Lock is that (unless wages outstrip both inflation and 2.5% every single year, which ain't happening,) the working age population will eventually be obliged to hand over its entire income in tax simply to fund oldies' handouts. The system will implode before things get quite that out of hand, of course, but when the guarantee is finally binned there will be scenes. You can well appreciate why nobody wants to be the one in charge when the call is eventually forced upon them.
I don't see how things can get any better for the tories between now and the election.
Try a scandal hitting the Labour leadership (not just "Keir had a curry", but a proper scandal) or the Tories replacing their current leader. The latter is almost inevitable because Sunak is so shit (literally laughing at voters isn't a good sign) and everyone knows it.
There's no real polling evidence that a new leader will help the Tories much. And Labour will just say that the Tories change leaders more often than they change their socks - under them stability is impossible.
A new leader following a leader who is widely viewed as shit will cause a poll bounce and no evidence from polls asking respondents whether eventuality X would cause them to vote Y is required. I'm not sure Labour will want to market themselves to the skies as selling stability. There is still some mileage in "better the devil you know". The side that will be selling "time for a change" might be expected to face the question "What kind of change would that be, then?" - on which Labour might easily find that they come a cropper, because they don't have any very persuasive answers other than the usual bollocks about the NHS.
I would be happy to wager 1 pound against 10000 pounds if anyone really supposes the Tories have "zero" chance of having most seats after the election.
The last 2 Tory leaders have both been dire - given the likely winner of the next leadership election it wouldn’t surprise me to see zero bounce and for many options the bounce could easily be negative as they may repeal more people than they attract
That depends on their agenda for their remaining months in power, including a budget. If that's going to remain the same, with the final 'flourish' being a penny off income tax, I agree, just keep Sunak. If they are on the other hand, going to spend the next 9 months auditioning to be a dynamic party that is worthy to govern for another decade, that will make a difference, and needs a new leader. Sunak can't sell that change in direction, even if he wanted to.
The Tories' problem is that there is no one in the Cabinet, and probably no one on the backbenches either, who could convincingly present them as "a dynamic party worthy to govern for another decade."
Ignoring tidal and getting the taxpayer to stump up for more offshore wind (when companies won't even invest unless the Government raises the price per kh to stupid levels) is cretinous. £8.3bn to erect floating windmills in case it's blowy, meanwhile the tides come in and go out every day like clockwork and we fail to harness them.
It doesn't have to be either or.
Given that this announcement would have been an opportunity to revive the prospect of tidal going ahead, I think this windmill announcement shows it's absolutely an either or. *This* is what they've been percolating away in all those years of having zero policies?
If the next government did nothing else other than speed up planning for major projects, it would be a vast improvement on what we have.
I really think that the failure of tidal to take off thus far is because there's no grifting money in things that actually work, and produce power for sensible money and in a timely fashion. Contrast with the truly eye watering sums involved in nuclear investment, or the subsidy jungle of wind.
Tidal is big bang expensive construction projects; lots of concrete. It’s a lot like nuclear in that respect. Not as big as nuclear, but still.
Wind is incremental - you can build it out one turbine at a time if you want to.
Why not do both if feasible. We all know problem with the wind is you cannot depend on it.
The tides we know are a given. Can it be made to work though ?
One problem with tidal is that it’s predictable but annoyingly periodic in a way that doesn’t line up with the 24 hour day over time. So you still have the problem that to actually use this power you really need to be able to store it somewhere, which drives up costs. Otherwise you’re going to spend half the year selling it into the market at off-peak times when you have power, so your return on capital is nowhere near what you’d expect from a naive calculation based on the mean electricity price.
Neither wind nor tidal can delivery power at short notice when you need it. You either need peak power plants (basically natgas at the moment) or batteries on a huge scale.
This isn’t actually too bad though - in the short term we already have the natgas plants & if we only use them for filling in the gaps then the CO2 impact is small & batteries are only getting cheaper over time. It’s already getting to the point that installing a battery in your house (+ ancillery gear) and paying spot for electricity is a net win for many people.
It is a very superficial analysis to conflate the periodical nature of tides with the totally unpredictable intermittency of wind. Along with the constraint payments to wind providers, use of wind has also driven up the price of gas, as gas providers are forced to switch their plants on and off at extremely short notice, which they charge for, and adds to the price of gas (something never mentioned by those who try to sell the idea that wind will become cheaper than gas). You don't get that with tidal - it is totally predictable, and you can line up your other power generators accordingly.
Besides which (@MarqueeMark can maybe remind us the answer here) do tidal barrages not generate power when the tide comes in, and then again when it goes out? Seems like it would be working for much of the time.
I'm a big fan of tidal, and I don't think we should have a big argument of tidal v wind. Just do both.
However, it's not true to say that wind power is totally unpredictable. Wind power forecasts for a few days in advance are reasonably accurate.
The things that really are unpredictable, and caused a challenge for the grid, are when a whole power plant falls off the grid instantly. This happened in the St Jude's Day storm when the cable connecting a nuclear power plant to the grid was knocked out, and more recently when the cable connecting a wind farm to the grid failed.
The predictable gradual increase/decrease of wind power as a cyclone moves across the country is much easier to deal with.
This isn’t the best argument for £100k a year not to be considered all that much
"You are absolutely right, that is not very much."
This caller manages to convince ＠RachelSJohnson that £100k doesn't go very far, as he tells her he and his wife are left with approximately £600 a week after taxes and bills.
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
23% of voters in 2010 went for Clegg’s orange book LDs, which is pretty much what Tory Lite is; plus arguably Cameron certainly ‘presented’ as Tory-lite (even if austerity was not, in practice).
It’s not in favour at the moment simply because we did it and it was rubbish, pretty much.
I don’t think Starmer’s Labour is Tory-lite either. But I think making outward displays of intent around spending constraint is just electorally sensible.
All this "Support for Reform (and Green) will be squeezed in the election" argument ignores how, in 2010, LibDem support went up over the course of the election campaign. Indeed, if not as spectacularly, LibDem support often rises in election campaigns. Maybe Reform and Green will benefit from similar forces.
Yebbut the 2010 Cleggasm is, let's face it, unlikely to manifest as a 2024 Daveygasm.... The guy has zero charisma, sex appeal, showbiz razzamatazz.
He will offer the WASPI women some cash. That will be a fabulous aphrodisiac from Mr Dull. The home counties will be hot for Ed's party.
He could offer them £50k each. So what? He'll never be in a position to deliver it. Even if Starmer needs him for a coalition, Labour won't have the money to spare.
Davey's problem is that he has history. He was a cabinet minister in a Tory-led govt. He didn't deliver then for WASPI. I don't think he will necessarily prosper during the election campaign when these points are raised.
No-one will be at all interested in what the LDs or Davey say during the campaign.
The discussions that attract the most attention in order will be:
Con v Refuk Con internal arguments Con v Labour
Then various nationalists locally and the greens. Then Ed Davey.
I am not sure this is necessarily a bad thing for the LDs.....
Election campaigns have reporting rules that guarantee coverage for smaller parties. Sure, that doesn't mean the public will pay attention to that coverage, but it helps.
Several election campaigns have surprised in terms of what the public chose to pay attention to (Cleggasm in 2010, paying for social care and policing in 2017), while others were more predictable (getting Brexit done in 2019).
My original point upthread was not predicting that the LibDems would benefit from increased campaign-mandated attention (although I think they probably will to a degree), but about what might happen with Reform UK and the Greens. Will they get their equivalent of the Cleggasm? Lots of people assume that Reform UK and Greens will be squeezed during the campaign, but they'll be getting lots of mandated coverage. They could go up in the polls over the campaign, not down.
No-one will be interested in what the Lib Dems have to say because they don't have anything interesting to say. That's quite different from no-one - media or public - being willing to listen to what they have to say.
Apart from the detailed draft manifesto they have already published containing policies that are distinct (in some cases very distinct - see water renationalisation, CGT reform, allowing asylum seekers to work etc) from the two main parties https://www.libdems.org.uk/plan, being the only party with a coherent and balanced line on the Gaza conflict, and being the only UK-wide party even tentatively proposing re-entry of the European single market.
Lib Dem local activity is ramping up in target seats and almost non-existent elsewhere. In areas like mine where there is no Lib Dem challenge the party is invisible, but in places like Carshalton and Wallington it's ubiquitous.
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
23% of voters in 2010 went for Clegg’s orange book LDs, which is pretty much what Tory Lite is; plus arguably Cameron certainly ‘presented’ as Tory-lite (even if austerity was not, in practice).
It’s not in favour at the moment simply because we did it and it was rubbish, pretty much.
I don’t think Starmer’s Labour is Tory-lite either. But I think making outward displays of intent around spending constraint is just electorally sensible.
All this "Support for Reform (and Green) will be squeezed in the election" argument ignores how, in 2010, LibDem support went up over the course of the election campaign. Indeed, if not as spectacularly, LibDem support often rises in election campaigns. Maybe Reform and Green will benefit from similar forces.
Yebbut the 2010 Cleggasm is, let's face it, unlikely to manifest as a 2024 Daveygasm.... The guy has zero charisma, sex appeal, showbiz razzamatazz.
He will offer the WASPI women some cash. That will be a fabulous aphrodisiac from Mr Dull. The home counties will be hot for Ed's party.
He could offer them £50k each. So what? He'll never be in a position to deliver it. Even if Starmer needs him for a coalition, Labour won't have the money to spare.
Davey's problem is that he has history. He was a cabinet minister in a Tory-led govt. He didn't deliver then for WASPI. I don't think he will necessarily prosper during the election campaign when these points are raised.
No-one will be at all interested in what the LDs or Davey say during the campaign.
The discussions that attract the most attention in order will be:
Con v Refuk Con internal arguments Con v Labour
Then various nationalists locally and the greens. Then Ed Davey.
I am not sure this is necessarily a bad thing for the LDs.....
Election campaigns have reporting rules that guarantee coverage for smaller parties. Sure, that doesn't mean the public will pay attention to that coverage, but it helps.
Several election campaigns have surprised in terms of what the public chose to pay attention to (Cleggasm in 2010, paying for social care and policing in 2017), while others were more predictable (getting Brexit done in 2019).
My original point upthread was not predicting that the LibDems would benefit from increased campaign-mandated attention (although I think they probably will to a degree), but about what might happen with Reform UK and the Greens. Will they get their equivalent of the Cleggasm? Lots of people assume that Reform UK and Greens will be squeezed during the campaign, but they'll be getting lots of mandated coverage. They could go up in the polls over the campaign, not down.
No-one will be interested in what the Lib Dems have to say because they don't have anything interesting to say. That's quite different from no-one - media or public - being willing to listen to what they have to say.
It has been noticeable that every time Ed Davey comes on screen he is asked why he didn't help the sub postmasters
It hasn't helped him in political terms
It is a key part of Conservative strategy, when they come under attack, is to deflect the blame and claim that everybody would do the same and/or actually did the same. This is a ploy that they use in particular against the Lib Dems and Ed Davey, who was of course following the guidance of his civil servants and of his government colleagues (Cons of course).
If the employees of the media are giving prominence to this question, it just shows how much the Conservatives have won control over our media.
Nick Ferrari decides to lead on the people we really should be sorry for: those who would have to pay VAT on their private school fees.
I went to two private schools. The idea VAT shouldn't be paid is absurd.
Well, it's not, because introducing VAT for private schools is going to lead to worse outcomes. It will be revenue negative: it will cost more (in having to fund the state school places of kids who would have previously gone private) than it raises. And to take a very self-interested view: it will be harder for my youngest to get into the (state) senior school her sisters attend because there will be more parents seeking state school places.
It seems curiously self-destructive to implement a policy you see as logical which will harm many and benefit no-one. I'd happily stick with an illogical position over a bad position.
VAT on school fees is a policy that polls well and that's why Labour have it.
The evidence such as it is the policy will raise more revenue than the additional cost to the state sector to educate students of parents who can no longer afford the fees. Albeit it may not raise that much net revenue.
The policy is unique in ticking all the following:
Polls well with target voters Appeals to the left Easy to implement Revenue neutral to positive
Political gold dust.
Yes, it doesn't raise that much in the grand scheme of things but it's excellent PR. When it comes to the spectacle of a handful of sobbing upper middle class parents being forced to send their Oscars and Jemimas to Dumpsville Comp, there's no violin in the world small enough.
I don't see how things can get any better for the tories between now and the election.
Try a scandal hitting the Labour leadership (not just "Keir had a curry", but a proper scandal) or the Tories replacing their current leader. The latter is almost inevitable because Sunak is so shit (literally laughing at voters isn't a good sign) and everyone knows it.
There's no real polling evidence that a new leader will help the Tories much. And Labour will just say that the Tories change leaders more often than they change their socks - under them stability is impossible.
A new leader following a leader who is widely viewed as shit will cause a poll bounce and no evidence from polls asking respondents whether eventuality X would cause them to vote Y is required. I'm not sure Labour will want to market themselves to the skies as selling stability. There is still some mileage in "better the devil you know". The side that will be selling "time for a change" might be expected to face the question "What kind of change would that be, then?" - on which Labour might easily find that they come a cropper, because they don't have any very persuasive answers other than the usual bollocks about the NHS.
I would be happy to wager 1 pound against 10000 pounds if anyone really supposes the Tories have "zero" chance of having most seats after the election.
The last 2 Tory leaders have both been dire - given the likely winner of the next leadership election it wouldn’t surprise me to see zero bounce and for many options the bounce could easily be negative as they may repeal more people than they attract
That depends on their agenda for their remaining months in power, including a budget. If that's going to remain the same, with the final 'flourish' being a penny off income tax, I agree, just keep Sunak. If they are on the other hand, going to spend the next 9 months auditioning to be a dynamic party that is worthy to govern for another decade, that will make a difference, and needs a new leader. Sunak can't sell that change in direction, even if he wanted to.
The Tories' problem is that there is no one in the Cabinet, and probably no one on the backbenches either, who could convincingly present them as "a dynamic party worthy to govern for another decade."
You're probably right, but I think this is about policy, not personality. Penny is good enough at presentation if she has great policies and stays away from women with penises.
It's also worth saying that there are all sorts of contingencies that might happen and cause us problems, and the easier to predict ones, that will happen more often (like a week-long calm spell in winter), will be easier to deal with.
It's the unlikely, unexpected, events that will be more problematic - like the problems France had recently with cracks in its nuclear reactors, or perhaps a disaster at Milford Haven that blocked LNG imports for a period.
Turnout, or lack of it, is going to be crucial in the General Election. How many previous Tory voters will sit on their hands? Labour's Conservative Lite policies won't scare them back to the polling booths.
How many former Conservative voters want "Tory Lite"?
How many current Labour voters want "Tory Lite"?
It is a product without a market.
All the longstanding Tory voters I know want a return to a One Nation Toryism. They are generally drifting to the LDs down here in the South West. (I appreciate that's anecdotal, unscientific, and not reflected in the polls but that's what they say.)
You're out of date. Since Boris and Brexit these are the new Tories......
There is a cultural problem with quite a few Tory MPs, and even more allegedly Tory media cheerleaders, who seem to think that people who went Lab-UKIP-Leave-BxP-Tory-Ref form their natural base. They don't. At best, they're a target swing vote - and one swing vote group out of several. Chasing them is likely to alienate the remaining members of other swing groups still planning to vote Tory, as well as firming up intention among those who've already made the move away.
If you're correct -and I hope you are-then Rishi with his Cabinet appointments his lectern messaging and his Rwandan obsession are seriously misinterpreting what should be their brief.
Ignoring tidal and getting the taxpayer to stump up for more offshore wind (when companies won't even invest unless the Government raises the price per kh to stupid levels) is cretinous. £8.3bn to erect floating windmills in case it's blowy, meanwhile the tides come in and go out every day like clockwork and we fail to harness them.
It doesn't have to be either or.
Given that this announcement would have been an opportunity to revive the prospect of tidal going ahead, I think this windmill announcement shows it's absolutely an either or. *This* is what they've been percolating away in all those years of having zero policies?
If the next government did nothing else other than speed up planning for major projects, it would be a vast improvement on what we have.
I really think that the failure of tidal to take off thus far is because there's no grifting money in things that actually work, and produce power for sensible money and in a timely fashion. Contrast with the truly eye watering sums involved in nuclear investment, or the subsidy jungle of wind.
Tidal is big bang expensive construction projects; lots of concrete. It’s a lot like nuclear in that respect. Not as big as nuclear, but still.
Wind is incremental - you can build it out one turbine at a time if you want to.
Why not do both if feasible. We all know problem with the wind is you cannot depend on it.
The tides we know are a given. Can it be made to work though ?
One problem with tidal is that it’s predictable but annoyingly periodic in a way that doesn’t line up with the 24 hour day over time. So you still have the problem that to actually use this power you really need to be able to store it somewhere, which drives up costs. Otherwise you’re going to spend half the year selling it into the market at off-peak times when you have power, so your return on capital is nowhere near what you’d expect from a naive calculation based on the mean electricity price.
Neither wind nor tidal can delivery power at short notice when you need it. You either need peak power plants (basically natgas at the moment) or batteries on a huge scale.
This isn’t actually too bad though - in the short term we already have the natgas plants & if we only use them for filling in the gaps then the CO2 impact is small & batteries are only getting cheaper over time. It’s already getting to the point that installing a battery in your house (+ ancillery gear) and paying spot for electricity is a net win for many people.
It is a very superficial analysis to conflate the periodical nature of tides with the totally unpredictable intermittency of wind. Along with the constraint payments to wind providers, use of wind has also driven up the price of gas, as gas providers are forced to switch their plants on and off at extremely short notice, which they charge for, and adds to the price of gas (something never mentioned by those who try to sell the idea that wind will become cheaper than gas). You don't get that with tidal - it is totally predictable, and you can line up your other power generators accordingly.
Besides which (@MarqueeMark can maybe remind us the answer here) do tidal barrages not generate power when the tide comes in, and then again when it goes out? Seems like it would be working for much of the time.
I'm a big fan of tidal, and I don't think we should have a big argument of tidal v wind. Just do both.
However, it's not true to say that wind power is totally unpredictable. Wind power forecasts for a few days in advance are reasonably accurate.
The things that really are unpredictable, and caused a challenge for the grid, are when a whole power plant falls off the grid instantly. This happened in the St Jude's Day storm when the cable connecting a nuclear power plant to the grid was knocked out, and more recently when the cable connecting a wind farm to the grid failed.
The predictable gradual increase/decrease of wind power as a cyclone moves across the country is much easier to deal with.
It does remain the case, though, that there are occasional period when there is virtually no useful wind across most of Europe, for perhaps two weeks at a time.
So even with continent wide interconnects, we'll have to plan for it. But that's far from impossible or impossibly expensive.
Ignoring tidal and getting the taxpayer to stump up for more offshore wind (when companies won't even invest unless the Government raises the price per kh to stupid levels) is cretinous. £8.3bn to erect floating windmills in case it's blowy, meanwhile the tides come in and go out every day like clockwork and we fail to harness them.
It doesn't have to be either or.
Given that this announcement would have been an opportunity to revive the prospect of tidal going ahead, I think this windmill announcement shows it's absolutely an either or. *This* is what they've been percolating away in all those years of having zero policies?
If the next government did nothing else other than speed up planning for major projects, it would be a vast improvement on what we have.
I really think that the failure of tidal to take off thus far is because there's no grifting money in things that actually work, and produce power for sensible money and in a timely fashion. Contrast with the truly eye watering sums involved in nuclear investment, or the subsidy jungle of wind.
Tidal is big bang expensive construction projects; lots of concrete. It’s a lot like nuclear in that respect. Not as big as nuclear, but still.
Wind is incremental - you can build it out one turbine at a time if you want to.
Why not do both if feasible. We all know problem with the wind is you cannot depend on it.
The tides we know are a given. Can it be made to work though ?
One problem with tidal is that it’s predictable but annoyingly periodic in a way that doesn’t line up with the 24 hour day over time. So you still have the problem that to actually use this power you really need to be able to store it somewhere, which drives up costs. Otherwise you’re going to spend half the year selling it into the market at off-peak times when you have power, so your return on capital is nowhere near what you’d expect from a naive calculation based on the mean electricity price.
Neither wind nor tidal can delivery power at short notice when you need it. You either need peak power plants (basically natgas at the moment) or batteries on a huge scale.
This isn’t actually too bad though - in the short term we already have the natgas plants & if we only use them for filling in the gaps then the CO2 impact is small & batteries are only getting cheaper over time. It’s already getting to the point that installing a battery in your house (+ ancillery gear) and paying spot for electricity is a net win for many people.
It is a very superficial analysis to conflate the periodical nature of tides with the totally unpredictable intermittency of wind. Along with the constraint payments to wind providers, use of wind has also driven up the price of gas, as gas providers are forced to switch their plants on and off at extremely short notice, which they charge for, and adds to the price of gas (something never mentioned by those who try to sell the idea that wind will become cheaper than gas). You don't get that with tidal - it is totally predictable, and you can line up your other power generators accordingly.
Besides which (@MarqueeMark can maybe remind us the answer here) do tidal barrages not generate power when the tide comes in, and then again when it goes out? Seems like it would be working for much of the time.
I'm a big fan of tidal, and I don't think we should have a big argument of tidal v wind. Just do both.
However, it's not true to say that wind power is totally unpredictable. Wind power forecasts for a few days in advance are reasonably accurate.
The things that really are unpredictable, and caused a challenge for the grid, are when a whole power plant falls off the grid instantly. This happened in the St Jude's Day storm when the cable connecting a nuclear power plant to the grid was knocked out, and more recently when the cable connecting a wind farm to the grid failed.
The predictable gradual increase/decrease of wind power as a cyclone moves across the country is much easier to deal with.
Michael Fish begs to differ.
Forty years ago. Forecasting is a tad more sophisticated now.
Ignoring tidal and getting the taxpayer to stump up for more offshore wind (when companies won't even invest unless the Government raises the price per kh to stupid levels) is cretinous. £8.3bn to erect floating windmills in case it's blowy, meanwhile the tides come in and go out every day like clockwork and we fail to harness them.
It doesn't have to be either or.
Given that this announcement would have been an opportunity to revive the prospect of tidal going ahead, I think this windmill announcement shows it's absolutely an either or. *This* is what they've been percolating away in all those years of having zero policies?
If the next government did nothing else other than speed up planning for major projects, it would be a vast improvement on what we have.
I really think that the failure of tidal to take off thus far is because there's no grifting money in things that actually work, and produce power for sensible money and in a timely fashion. Contrast with the truly eye watering sums involved in nuclear investment, or the subsidy jungle of wind.
Tidal is big bang expensive construction projects; lots of concrete. It’s a lot like nuclear in that respect. Not as big as nuclear, but still.
Wind is incremental - you can build it out one turbine at a time if you want to.
Why not do both if feasible. We all know problem with the wind is you cannot depend on it.
The tides we know are a given. Can it be made to work though ?
One problem with tidal is that it’s predictable but annoyingly periodic in a way that doesn’t line up with the 24 hour day over time. So you still have the problem that to actually use this power you really need to be able to store it somewhere, which drives up costs. Otherwise you’re going to spend half the year selling it into the market at off-peak times when you have power, so your return on capital is nowhere near what you’d expect from a naive calculation based on the mean electricity price.
Neither wind nor tidal can delivery power at short notice when you need it. You either need peak power plants (basically natgas at the moment) or batteries on a huge scale.
This isn’t actually too bad though - in the short term we already have the natgas plants & if we only use them for filling in the gaps then the CO2 impact is small & batteries are only getting cheaper over time. It’s already getting to the point that installing a battery in your house (+ ancillery gear) and paying spot for electricity is a net win for many people.
It is a very superficial analysis to conflate the periodical nature of tides with the totally unpredictable intermittency of wind. Along with the constraint payments to wind providers, use of wind has also driven up the price of gas, as gas providers are forced to switch their plants on and off at extremely short notice, which they charge for, and adds to the price of gas (something never mentioned by those who try to sell the idea that wind will become cheaper than gas). You don't get that with tidal - it is totally predictable, and you can line up your other power generators accordingly.
Besides which (@MarqueeMark can maybe remind us the answer here) do tidal barrages not generate power when the tide comes in, and then again when it goes out? Seems like it would be working for much of the time.
I'm a big fan of tidal, and I don't think we should have a big argument of tidal v wind. Just do both.
However, it's not true to say that wind power is totally unpredictable. Wind power forecasts for a few days in advance are reasonably accurate.
The things that really are unpredictable, and caused a challenge for the grid, are when a whole power plant falls off the grid instantly. This happened in the St Jude's Day storm when the cable connecting a nuclear power plant to the grid was knocked out, and more recently when the cable connecting a wind farm to the grid failed.
The predictable gradual increase/decrease of wind power as a cyclone moves across the country is much easier to deal with.
Michael Fish begs to differ.
If you're that ignorant about the subject matter then it's pointless discussing it.
I don't see how things can get any better for the tories between now and the election.
Try a scandal hitting the Labour leadership (not just "Keir had a curry", but a proper scandal) or the Tories replacing their current leader. The latter is almost inevitable because Sunak is so shit (literally laughing at voters isn't a good sign) and everyone knows it.
There's no real polling evidence that a new leader will help the Tories much. And Labour will just say that the Tories change leaders more often than they change their socks - under them stability is impossible.
A new leader following a leader who is widely viewed as shit will cause a poll bounce and no evidence from polls asking respondents whether eventuality X would cause them to vote Y is required. I'm not sure Labour will want to market themselves to the skies as selling stability. There is still some mileage in "better the devil you know". The side that will be selling "time for a change" might be expected to face the question "What kind of change would that be, then?" - on which Labour might easily find that they come a cropper, because they don't have any very persuasive answers other than the usual bollocks about the NHS.
I would be happy to wager 1 pound against 10000 pounds if anyone really supposes the Tories have "zero" chance of having most seats after the election.
The last 2 Tory leaders have both been dire - given the likely winner of the next leadership election it wouldn’t surprise me to see zero bounce and for many options the bounce could easily be negative as they may repeal more people than they attract
That depends on their agenda for their remaining months in power, including a budget. If that's going to remain the same, with the final 'flourish' being a penny off income tax, I agree, just keep Sunak. If they are on the other hand, going to spend the next 9 months auditioning to be a dynamic party that is worthy to govern for another decade, that will make a difference, and needs a new leader. Sunak can't sell that change in direction, even if he wanted to.
The Tories' problem is that there is no one in the Cabinet, and probably no one on the backbenches either, who could convincingly present them as "a dynamic party worthy to govern for another decade."
You're probably right, but I think this is about policy, not personality. Penny is good enough at presentation if she has great policies and stays away from women with penises.
"Great policies?" Like the ones the Tories have had over the past 14 years, all of which have proved to be spectacular flops? The voters are not listening to Tory policies any more - their record speaks for itself.
I note the state pension will be going up 8.5% in April, due this time to wage tracking.
"September 2023’s figures show that average wages rose by 8.5%, which is much higher than 2.5% and the inflation rate of 6.7%."
Previously going up by 10.1% in line with inflation.
So a 19.5% increase over 2 years.
If it had been done in line with inflation, the increase would have been up 17.5% over 2 years; in line with wages would have been 16.4%. But because of the idiosyncratic formula it's 19.5% !
The triple lock is one of the most absurd and stupid policies I've ever seen. Why should pensioners' incomes always grow in real terms and rise in relation to wages? If continued indefinitely it would result in all of national income being given to pensioners! It's a farce, a joke, and an insult to working people and their children who are being fleeced by the pensioner lobby and the politicians they have captured. If pensioners want to have more money they can work for it or save for it like the rest of us. Enough!
Ignoring tidal and getting the taxpayer to stump up for more offshore wind (when companies won't even invest unless the Government raises the price per kh to stupid levels) is cretinous. £8.3bn to erect floating windmills in case it's blowy, meanwhile the tides come in and go out every day like clockwork and we fail to harness them.
It doesn't have to be either or.
Given that this announcement would have been an opportunity to revive the prospect of tidal going ahead, I think this windmill announcement shows it's absolutely an either or. *This* is what they've been percolating away in all those years of having zero policies?
If the next government did nothing else other than speed up planning for major projects, it would be a vast improvement on what we have.
I really think that the failure of tidal to take off thus far is because there's no grifting money in things that actually work, and produce power for sensible money and in a timely fashion. Contrast with the truly eye watering sums involved in nuclear investment, or the subsidy jungle of wind.
Tidal is big bang expensive construction projects; lots of concrete. It’s a lot like nuclear in that respect. Not as big as nuclear, but still.
Wind is incremental - you can build it out one turbine at a time if you want to.
Why not do both if feasible. We all know problem with the wind is you cannot depend on it.
The tides we know are a given. Can it be made to work though ?
One problem with tidal is that it’s predictable but annoyingly periodic in a way that doesn’t line up with the 24 hour day over time. So you still have the problem that to actually use this power you really need to be able to store it somewhere, which drives up costs. Otherwise you’re going to spend half the year selling it into the market at off-peak times when you have power, so your return on capital is nowhere near what you’d expect from a naive calculation based on the mean electricity price.
Neither wind nor tidal can delivery power at short notice when you need it. You either need peak power plants (basically natgas at the moment) or batteries on a huge scale.
This isn’t actually too bad though - in the short term we already have the natgas plants & if we only use them for filling in the gaps then the CO2 impact is small & batteries are only getting cheaper over time. It’s already getting to the point that installing a battery in your house (+ ancillery gear) and paying spot for electricity is a net win for many people.
It is a very superficial analysis to conflate the periodical nature of tides with the totally unpredictable intermittency of wind. Along with the constraint payments to wind providers, use of wind has also driven up the price of gas, as gas providers are forced to switch their plants on and off at extremely short notice, which they charge for, and adds to the price of gas (something never mentioned by those who try to sell the idea that wind will become cheaper than gas). You don't get that with tidal - it is totally predictable, and you can line up your other power generators accordingly.
Besides which (@MarqueeMark can maybe remind us the answer here) do tidal barrages not generate power when the tide comes in, and then again when it goes out? Seems like it would be working for much of the time.
I'm a big fan of tidal, and I don't think we should have a big argument of tidal v wind. Just do both.
However, it's not true to say that wind power is totally unpredictable. Wind power forecasts for a few days in advance are reasonably accurate.
The things that really are unpredictable, and caused a challenge for the grid, are when a whole power plant falls off the grid instantly. This happened in the St Jude's Day storm when the cable connecting a nuclear power plant to the grid was knocked out, and more recently when the cable connecting a wind farm to the grid failed.
The predictable gradual increase/decrease of wind power as a cyclone moves across the country is much easier to deal with.
It does remain the case, though, that there are occasional period when there is virtually no useful wind across most of Europe, for perhaps two weeks at a time.
So even with continent wide interconnects, we'll have to plan for it. But that's far from impossible or impossibly expensive.
Ignoring tidal and getting the taxpayer to stump up for more offshore wind (when companies won't even invest unless the Government raises the price per kh to stupid levels) is cretinous. £8.3bn to erect floating windmills in case it's blowy, meanwhile the tides come in and go out every day like clockwork and we fail to harness them.
It doesn't have to be either or.
Given that this announcement would have been an opportunity to revive the prospect of tidal going ahead, I think this windmill announcement shows it's absolutely an either or. *This* is what they've been percolating away in all those years of having zero policies?
If the next government did nothing else other than speed up planning for major projects, it would be a vast improvement on what we have.
I really think that the failure of tidal to take off thus far is because there's no grifting money in things that actually work, and produce power for sensible money and in a timely fashion. Contrast with the truly eye watering sums involved in nuclear investment, or the subsidy jungle of wind.
Tidal is big bang expensive construction projects; lots of concrete. It’s a lot like nuclear in that respect. Not as big as nuclear, but still.
Wind is incremental - you can build it out one turbine at a time if you want to.
Why not do both if feasible. We all know problem with the wind is you cannot depend on it.
The tides we know are a given. Can it be made to work though ?
One problem with tidal is that it’s predictable but annoyingly periodic in a way that doesn’t line up with the 24 hour day over time. So you still have the problem that to actually use this power you really need to be able to store it somewhere, which drives up costs. Otherwise you’re going to spend half the year selling it into the market at off-peak times when you have power, so your return on capital is nowhere near what you’d expect from a naive calculation based on the mean electricity price.
Neither wind nor tidal can delivery power at short notice when you need it. You either need peak power plants (basically natgas at the moment) or batteries on a huge scale.
This isn’t actually too bad though - in the short term we already have the natgas plants & if we only use them for filling in the gaps then the CO2 impact is small & batteries are only getting cheaper over time. It’s already getting to the point that installing a battery in your house (+ ancillery gear) and paying spot for electricity is a net win for many people.
It is a very superficial analysis to conflate the periodical nature of tides with the totally unpredictable intermittency of wind. Along with the constraint payments to wind providers, use of wind has also driven up the price of gas, as gas providers are forced to switch their plants on and off at extremely short notice, which they charge for, and adds to the price of gas (something never mentioned by those who try to sell the idea that wind will become cheaper than gas). You don't get that with tidal - it is totally predictable, and you can line up your other power generators accordingly.
Besides which (@MarqueeMark can maybe remind us the answer here) do tidal barrages not generate power when the tide comes in, and then again when it goes out? Seems like it would be working for much of the time.
I'm a big fan of tidal, and I don't think we should have a big argument of tidal v wind. Just do both.
However, it's not true to say that wind power is totally unpredictable. Wind power forecasts for a few days in advance are reasonably accurate.
The things that really are unpredictable, and caused a challenge for the grid, are when a whole power plant falls off the grid instantly. This happened in the St Jude's Day storm when the cable connecting a nuclear power plant to the grid was knocked out, and more recently when the cable connecting a wind farm to the grid failed.
The predictable gradual increase/decrease of wind power as a cyclone moves across the country is much easier to deal with.
It does remain the case, though, that there are occasional period when there is virtually no useful wind across most of Europe, for perhaps two weeks at a time.
So even with continent wide interconnects, we'll have to plan for it. But that's far from impossible or impossibly expensive.
So health & social care employees (and their dependents), to gather with students (and their dependents) account for the majority of immigration (by some distance). Encouraged by government policy.
And without them both healthcare, and the university system (which now gets the majority of its fee income from overseas), would collapse.
That is not a situation which can be changed significantly without a great deal of effort, over a long period of time. Certainly not in a single Parliament.
But what could change very quickly and cheaply is the lying and dissembling about it.
We could also build the infrastructure and housing required to make immigration more comfortable for society generally.
Why would we do that when we are not building anything for our own citizens ?
Immigrants on visa's and their families will be contributing to the economy with their taxes, NI contributions and extra NHS tax, thus raising the growth figures which help pay for the NHS etc. Why shouldn't the immigrants be catered for with infrastructure and house building? You never know...perhaps the indigenous population would benefit from the extra doctor surgeries and hospital places and school places which would be created?
I have nothing agaisnt immigration per se, we're an immigrant nation. But to have nearly 10 million extra people since 2000 and nothing being done for national infrastructure, housing or social fabric suggests we need to digest what we have first rather than go getting more.
Furthermore why is it ok to steal other nations skilled employees ? A doctor in a less developed country is of more value there than over here managing diseases brought on by first world lifestyles. We should be training our own people.
It's all very well saying we have to digest who we have already, but isn't it about time we started doing stuff about? It's like taking the money before doing the job. We have benfitted from immigant labour without doing anything in return. As far as the second paragraph is concerned, many skilled employees work abroad so we shouldn't be protectionist in that way. I remember at University many engineers training in the UK and promptly going back to their countries.
You mean the rich have benefited from immigrant labour as it has put downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on property values.
Most workers, and especially the low paid, have not benefited from immigrant labour.
It has certainly put downward pressure on wages, but how do you work out the upward pressure on property prices bit? Many immigrants are nowhere near as trusting of moneylenders as those among native British workers who are happy to be "given" the largest possible mortgage loan. In fact, not having to make mortgage repayments is a big part of why many immigrant workers can afford to survive on such low wages.
Immigrants need a place to live. So they rent (at least at first).
Property prices are a function of what you can rent/sell the place for.
The reason that *some* immigrants can work cheap in expensive areas, is the nasty end of the HMO business. Homes in Multiple Occupation.
I’ve seen these places - the worst has bunkbeds in every room. A dozen adults in a moderate sized house. Then you go up the scale to one person/couple per bedroom.
“Garden Rooms” (aka posh sheds) are also often occupied.
Most do not register as HMO - so the fire alarms and escape provision do not meet legal requirements.
Nick Ferrari decides to lead on the people we really should be sorry for: those who would have to pay VAT on their private school fees.
I went to two private schools. The idea VAT shouldn't be paid is absurd.
Well, it's not, because introducing VAT for private schools is going to lead to worse outcomes. It will be revenue negative: it will cost more (in having to fund the state school places of kids who would have previously gone private) than it raises. And to take a very self-interested view: it will be harder for my youngest to get into the (state) senior school her sisters attend because there will be more parents seeking state school places.
It seems curiously self-destructive to implement a policy you see as logical which will harm many and benefit no-one. I'd happily stick with an illogical position over a bad position.
VAT on school fees is a policy that polls well and that's why Labour have it.
The evidence such as it is the policy will raise more revenue than the additional cost to the state sector to educate students of parents who can no longer afford the fees. Albeit it may not raise that much net revenue.
The policy is unique in ticking all the following:
Polls well with target voters Appeals to the left Easy to implement Revenue neutral to positive
Political gold dust.
The risk is that its revenue neutral but will result in extra costs as some children will end up being state rather than privately educated. That literally is the only card that can be played against the policy but would only work with a few people like @Cookie who understand how educational selection works
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That brings in to play the whole doctrine of infallibility of the Church. Before you know it, people will be questioning if premature cremation of people for reading Holy Writ translated from the Latin is a good idea
You could change the system to start trending in the opposite direction - but that's not going to satisfy the immigration obsessives.
Davey is unexceptional but I think at the election, people will be looking more for figures like him and SKS, colourful Tory figures having landed us in a mess.
The point (which you appear to have so egregiously missed that you wrote an entire screed about something else entirely) is that the claim that “we will respect you” with “unlike your current employers” implied is a very effective one when placed before current NHS staff because NHS morale is crashingly awful.
& it’s not merely pay (although pay is obviously nice). It’s the way staff are treated at a basic level - you only have to look at the way whistleblowers are treated by upper management to see that there are profound problems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index
But what you are suggesting is a wealth transfer from non-workers to workers.
Something I favour via changing the taxation system.
Now perhaps in Germany and Scandinavia trade unions are able to aid in boosting both productivity and workers pay.
But in the UK trade unions, deservedly or not, have a Red Robbo / Scargill reputation of running industries into bankruptcy and losing the jobs of their members.
But that doesn’t help if you don’t have the internal grid capacity to shift the power around, something the UK government has been dragging its feet on for years at this point - it’s another piece of vital UK infrastructure that seems to have been caught up in the impossibility of getting anything through planning in this country - the local veto seems to be insurmountable, no matter how necessary the project in the medium term.
How do you solve the problem of people coming over on boats? Process them promptly (employ more Home Office staff as needed). Deport the ones you can deport promptly (deportations have collapsed over the course of the last 14 years -- see Figure 5 at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-march-2023/how-many-people-are-detained-or-returned ). Work on bilateral agreements (the one with Albania had a huge impact on Albanians coming over). Work with the EU (reverse Brexit!). This, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68653368 , isn't actually a bad idea.
Nick Ferrari decides to lead on the people we really should be sorry for: those who would have to pay VAT on their private school fees.
I went to two private schools. The idea VAT shouldn't be paid is absurd.
YOU are PM. YOU are in government. YOU chose to make STOP THE BOATS one of your big 5 issues. And you've done nothing. Where is YOUR plan? Etc. Why would Labour want to say anything more? They do have a plan, and as we eventually get to the election people will look at it and go "its better than what the Tories have done".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUej2pWLUUc
I worry what our Country is turning into.
Take this for example
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13234375/Church-England-archdeacon-anti-whiteness-smashing-patriarchy.html
The reality for the newly recruited can be very different.
So are NHS treated worse, shown less respect, have lower morale than equivalent workers in other western countries ?
At a guess I'd say worse than in some countries and better in some other countries but the differences likely being small.
Whether the feel they are treated worse is another matter - but that's perceptions versus realities.
The idea may be worthwhile (I doubt it) but the implementation is dire.
My preference would be to establish a long term capital budget for transformational infrastructure projects, to allow for cross party support and lower costs by having a rolling pipeline of projects.
With pretty much everyone under the age of 60 having a future loss of £11k.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba7GEFAFz-s
Clever ad.
The conflation of recent graduates and highly skilled is a bit weird. Most of the people I have recruited were recent graduates and hardly any would I consider highly skilled at the time of recruitment. High potential, fast learners, sure, but they are typically not highly skilled at that stage.
The pettiness of waiting to the last day is typical.
Chancellors set their own homework. The OBR just marks it.
Objections to the OBR are just displacement activity.
It seems curiously self-destructive to implement a policy you see as logical which will harm many and benefit no-one. I'd happily stick with an illogical position over a bad position.
And which of the two have nine out of ten voters heard about ?
The paradox of immigration preferences in a nutshell -Majority of Conservative voters support large cuts to immigration, but most also oppose cutting the specific migrant groups who drive current inflows - in fact they want *more* migration from these groups
The "cut hard, cut harder" lobby never explain why it is they think voters will reward cutting migrant groups they approve of, and worsening services they are already unhappy with.
Why?
Because the current exemption is egregiously unfair on everyone else who has to pay VAT on services. Education is a service. Services are VATable. So pay VAT.
I have absolutely no problem in funding more state school places for people who can no longer afford private school. As we need to invest in state schools - buildings, teachers, basic provision - anyway, the additional cost is a drop in the ocean.
The discussions that attract the most attention in order will be:
Con v Refuk
Con internal arguments
Con v Labour
Then various nationalists locally and the greens. Then Ed Davey.
I am not sure this is necessarily a bad thing for the LDs.....
Even so, clearly Con are in for one hell of a shellacking and the longer they put it off, the worse it's going to be.
Doubtless there's are a large number of ways in which the OBR could perform a role in improving British government budget processes more effectively - in Ireland, for example, an equivalent body publishes forecasts for the budget in advance, so there's time for a public debate over the tax and spending policies to include in the budget.
Windrush?
US immigration of the 1800s 1900s?
Were this to be the case, there would be an argument that subsidising private school fees would save money.
If not then they may not actually be beneficial to the country in this number.
Junior doctors and Specialist doctors are still in dispute with no improved offer on the horizon.
Nurses and AFC grades got a substantial real terms pay cut last year.
It will be a lot harder in government if you don't do the groundwork in opposition.
The evidence such as it is the policy will raise more revenue than the additional cost to the state sector to educate students of parents who can no longer afford the fees. Albeit it may not raise that much net revenue.
I would be happy to wager 1 pound against 10000 pounds if anyone really supposes the Tories have "zero" chance of having most seats after the election.
"How do you know that they will stick with Penny*? Isn't it likely she will be dumped for Braverman? Voting Tory is buying a pig in a poke."
I am sure Labour is planning such an attack line already, but it will be turbocharged by a further change.
*assuming the most voter friendly candidate wins.
Several election campaigns have surprised in terms of what the public chose to pay attention to (Cleggasm in 2010, paying for social care and policing in 2017), while others were more predictable (getting Brexit done in 2019).
My original point upthread was not predicting that the LibDems would benefit from increased campaign-mandated attention (although I think they probably will to a degree), but about what might happen with Reform UK and the Greens. Will they get their equivalent of the Cleggasm? Lots of people assume that Reform UK and Greens will be squeezed during the campaign, but they'll be getting lots of mandated coverage. They could go up in the polls over the campaign, not down.
The main MSc I teach on charges £15,100 to home students and £34,400 to overseas students.
I think the reason is that most voters have been glad that these changes of leader have happened. People were glad (at least at the time) to see the back of Thatcher / Blair / Cameron / May and so reminding them that an unpopular leader had been ousted didn't really hit home.
Obviously the Truss Experience was a bit different, but a few voters might quite like the idea that if they vote Tory they might end up with someone other than Sunak as PM.
Besides which (@MarqueeMark can maybe remind us the answer here) do tidal barrages not generate power when the tide comes in, and then again when it goes out? Seems like it would be working for much of the time.
It hasn't helped him in political terms
Polls well with target voters
Appeals to the left
Easy to implement
Revenue neutral to positive
Political gold dust.
But the LDs best way to get back in the game as the third party in the Commons is simply to keep quiet and let the right argue amongst themselves, just as this is the best path for Labour. So I'm expecting a quiet election from both Labour and LDs whilst the Tories won't be able to help themselves from continuing their silly drama games.
The Greens are slightly interesting for once, with this being the first time in recent memory that the major parties are backing away from green policies at an election, normally they slightly accelerate towards the Greens policy wise at this stage. But they suffer terribly from FPTP so I suspect given anti-Tory being the dominant voting intention, they will still struggle.
"September 2023’s figures show that average wages rose by 8.5%, which is much higher than 2.5% and the inflation rate of 6.7%."
Previously going up by 10.1% in line with inflation.
So a 19.5% increase over 2 years.
If it had been done in line with inflation, the increase would have been up 17.5% over 2 years;
in line with wages would have been 16.4%.
But because of the idiosyncratic formula it's 19.5% !
"You are absolutely right, that is not very much."
This caller manages to convince ＠RachelSJohnson that £100k doesn't go very far, as he tells her he and his wife are left with approximately £600 a week after taxes and bills.
https://x.com/lbc/status/1771997733743693844?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Not that this is a definite formulation, nor a sensible way to choose policies.
However, it's not true to say that wind power is totally unpredictable. Wind power forecasts for a few days in advance are reasonably accurate.
The things that really are unpredictable, and caused a challenge for the grid, are when a whole power plant falls off the grid instantly. This happened in the St Jude's Day storm when the cable connecting a nuclear power plant to the grid was knocked out, and more recently when the cable connecting a wind farm to the grid failed.
The predictable gradual increase/decrease of wind power as a cyclone moves across the country is much easier to deal with.
The response to some pensioners still being a bit hard up was to give the lot of them these gold-plated hikes, so that their incomes would catch up with those of younger people. Of course, having been created, pensioners now expect the perk to be maintained in perpetuity, and they're such an important constituency that nobody dare alienate them by junking the policy, because their political opponents won't make the same mistake and the grey vote will simply flow away. Therefore we really are lumbered with the bloody thing.
Of course, with compound interest (or inflation) being the most powerful force in the universe, the logical end point of the Triple Lock is that (unless wages outstrip both inflation and 2.5% every single year, which ain't happening,) the working age population will eventually be obliged to hand over its entire income in tax simply to fund oldies' handouts. The system will implode before things get quite that out of hand, of course, but when the guarantee is finally binned there will be scenes. You can well appreciate why nobody wants to be the one in charge when the call is eventually forced upon them.
Lib Dem local activity is ramping up in target seats and almost non-existent elsewhere. In areas like mine where there is no Lib Dem challenge the party is invisible, but in places like Carshalton and Wallington it's ubiquitous.
If the employees of the media are giving prominence to this question, it just shows how much the Conservatives have won control over our media.
It's the unlikely, unexpected, events that will be more problematic - like the problems France had recently with cracks in its nuclear reactors, or perhaps a disaster at Milford Haven that blocked LNG imports for a period.
So even with continent wide interconnects, we'll have to plan for it.
But that's far from impossible or impossibly expensive.
Forecasting is a tad more sophisticated now.
This is why people build Wind Farms:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/24/wind-farms-investigated-after-overcharging-customers-100m/
Absolutely none of that nonsense with tidal. Hence they don't get built.
Property prices are a function of what you can rent/sell the place for.
The reason that *some* immigrants can work cheap in expensive areas, is the nasty end of the HMO business. Homes in Multiple Occupation.
I’ve seen these places - the worst has bunkbeds in every room. A dozen adults in a moderate sized house. Then you go up the scale to one person/couple per bedroom.
“Garden Rooms” (aka posh sheds) are also often occupied.
Most do not register as HMO - so the fire alarms and escape provision do not meet legal requirements.