Making some assumptions, it appears 41% think taxes will go up whoever wins the election, but 8% think they will only if Labour win. The next question would be whether that 8% think taxes should go up or not! Presuming they don't, then that's 8% for the Tories... yeah, they're not gonna win on 8%.
I assume you are joking because, of course, many of the 41% who think taxes will go up think that taxes should NOT go up.
This will come as a massive shock to you but a lot of people think taxes SHOULD go up. People who recognise the needs to pay one's way and balance the books, people who think that public services are crap and need to improve, people who believe we should invest for the future.
A lot of people do indeed taxes should go up, a lot of those people also assume it won't apply to them. If the state fully funded everything it does I doubt even adding 5% to every tax rate would cover it. The simple fact is when people say just tax the rich they don't realise there aren't enough of them to cover the cost and basic rate tax will also need to rise significantly....those people struggling, having to claim tax credits and use food banks will see more of their pay go on tax
It could definitely be done without raising basic rate taxes (or indeed freezing personal allowances). The question is, a) will the government be brave enough, and b) would the impact on the rich be manageable?
I happen to think the deficit could be closed, or public services be boosted, or some combination of the two achieved by raising wealth taxes. The rich will squeal, they will threaten to quit the country (99% won't), they will plead poverty, but ultimately they would suck it up. (For 'they' I should put 'we' as I'm in my own target.)
Apart from every country that has already tried it has found it raises next to nothing and has pretty much abandoned it. So no wealth taxes will only work if you hit ordinary people with ordinary pension funds and living in ordinary houses....to make public services work with out deficit with what the state does we are probably looking to raise tax revenue by 300 to 400 billion a year. You are not going to get that from just taxing the rich
It depends what you mean by wealth taxes.
If you mean taxing wealth like shares etc that can be easily moved abroad, of course it doesn't work.
If you mean taxing land, then that's a perfectly liberal tax to support which almost every country on the planet has. Including the USA.
That we don't tax land ownership and expect tenants to pay instead is quite unusual and extreme.
Even if you tax land making 300 to 400 billion from it is going to cripple plenty of ordinary people. This is my problem with a wealth tax, the people who think it will fund everything and then denying it will hit those that aren't what anyone would describe as wealthy
I am not actually opposed to a land tax, just the view of some that it will allow us to fully fund everything
This is absolutely correct: the total amount of tax that can be raised is a function of economic output. In aggregate, you can't tax what isn't being produced.
It's why those numbers bandied around by activists about how a small tax on financial transactions would fund everything is so wrong: simply, transaction volumes would collapse.
GDP was originally designed as a measure of understanding how much activity there was to tax, and it remains helpful for that reason. Extracting more than half of the value of all economic activity is tough take for anyone.
That said, I fully support a land tax.
Why?
Because the tax system should encourage the efficient allocation of scarce resources. And there are few things more scarce than housing and land. We want to discourage people from sitting on land that could be developed for housing. And we want to discourage people - particularly overseas "investors" - from buying up apartments that sit empty. (Or indeed homes that are hardly used.)
I would propose a small annual levy on undeveloped land, and a small annual levy on any properties that are occupied for less than 180 days per year. This second one would negatively impact me, as I have a flat in Central London, but it would make people really think "this is now much more expensive than it was... shall I just AirBnB in future?"
Nods as I said I am not opposed to a land tax being imposed as an alternative to council tax in fact I find it a good idea, I just reject the idea some seem to have formed that it will solve the funding gap and it won't hit the poorest in anyway. For example the idea than landlords wont just pass it on to renters just like they did for council tax
It couldn't be used as alternative to Council Tax without absolutely screwing the poorest. In London, prices are high and therefore land tax would only need to be (say) 0.1% to cover council expenses. Whereas in -say- Knowsley land prices are very low, and you would need to charge something like 5% to cover council expenses. It would absolutely shaft poor areas at the expense of rich.
I would implement it at a national level, and use the money received as (effectively) the pool that is used for local government grants.
If you don't replace council tax with it there are going to be even more people going effectively I can no longer afford to live. Even in london. For example if a house in london attracts 2400 land tax, the couple renting it will find their landlord raising their rent by at least 200 a month
The landlord can only pass on the tax if they have a tenant.
Implement this properly and abolish our planning system and suddenly more people will find themselves sitting on land they owe tax on, but have no tenants in that land. So they'll be encouraged to build houses or sell the land, so the tenants have more choice.
Why pay the full £200 extra to the landlord if a rival landlord is only asking for £170?
Competition works at driving down costs, if the state doesn't block competition as it does currently with our planning system.
Because finding somewhere to rent currently is a sellers market sadly. When I went for my last flat I was one of 20 that said yes we will take it
Because of our planning system.
As usual, it's nothing to do with the planning "system" to which some on here seem to have a particular aversion.
The Conservatives want home ownership because home owners are or become Conservative voters. The onus is therefore on the provision of new accommodation for outright ownership.
In many parts of the country and I cite my part of London as one, the real need is housing for rent. An active well regulated rental sector would be a huge benefit to this country and that means providing good quality accommodation for singles, couples and families who either cannot or do not want to take on full ownership.
Unfortunately, inadequate regulation has created a new generation of urban slums whether they be homes unfit for human habitation via damp or other issues or multiple occupation of semi detached houses as well as dwellings in gardens, sheds or wherever where I suspect many are rutlessly exploited by landlords.
Proper regulation of private landlords, proper regulation of HMOs and above all the revival of the public rented sector would all be beneficial as well as taking the profit motive out of housebuilding which is such a big part of the problem of supply (as is getting professional tradespeople in at the critical points of the build).
Its entirely to do with the planning system which prevents competition and artificially inflates house prices, both for ownership and rent.
Our planning system means we don't have sufficient homes, of any variety, and as a result we are operating at an over 99% occupation rate which is absurdly high.
In a healthy developed country any damp squalid slums are left unoccupied as tenants or prospective owners alike have better alternatives available (unless they're deliberately looking to transform it as an investment opportunity).
But our planning system means people have no choice but to take whatever scraps become available.
It seems Ukraine were not responsible (at least, the Russians haven't blamed Ukraine yet...). But this, along with the dam collapse and other incidents, seems to point to the Russians having problems with their infrastructure not directly caused by the war.
Nigel Farage thinks postal votes need to be scrapped because they create fraud.
And he doesn't think the American election was stolen but Biden won because of "legal" corrupt postal votes
The two points are connected. The Blessed Nigel is focusing on postal votes because US Republicans and especially Trump are fixated on them. If the Blessed Nigel is to profit from the Trump campaign and a possible Trump second tierm then he has to dance to the Orange One's tune.
I’ve got a postal vote. Poor old chap, can’t get down to the polling station without a wheelchair.
Care to join in with my (prospective) law suit? In the USA would be a class (in one sense anyway) action.
What’s the problem in the USA? Over this, I mean. There are lots of other problems around elections in your country.
Am talking about my proposed legal action, accusing Nigel Farrage with defamation, against the likes of you, me and fellow postal voters, by accusing us of being "corrupt". (see up thread)
Aren't you american? That means corrupt is a given its only to work how how corrupt
Aren't you Cornish?
Means a natural-born wrecker is a given? Just need to work out, what you're currently bent on wrecking!
Nigel Farage thinks postal votes need to be scrapped because they create fraud.
And he doesn't think the American election was stolen but Biden won because of "legal" corrupt postal votes
The two points are connected. The Blessed Nigel is focusing on postal votes because US Republicans and especially Trump are fixated on them. If the Blessed Nigel is to profit from the Trump campaign and a possible Trump second tierm then he has to dance to the Orange One's tune.
I’ve got a postal vote. Poor old chap, can’t get down to the polling station without a wheelchair.
Care to join in with my (prospective) law suit? In the USA would be a class (in one sense anyway) action.
What’s the problem in the USA? Over this, I mean. There are lots of other problems around elections in your country.
Am talking about my proposed legal action, accusing Nigel Farrage with defamation, against the likes of you, me and fellow postal voters, by accusing us of being "corrupt". (see up thread)
Aren't you american? That means corrupt is a given its only to work how how corrupt
Aren't you Cornish?
Means a natural-born wrecker is a given? Just need to work out, what you're currently bent on wrecking!
Wrecking is something I am sure my family took part in just as there more than a few cornish pirates. Was a long time ago and we only do it now for cultural festivities
Also the idea that teaching in the 1970s was ideology free, or even 'neutral' is laughable.
I didn't say teachers didn't have ideology but they did at least tell both sides
Did they ? There's no 'both sides' in a curriculum - it's a set thing. Similarly with the prevailing social attitudes of the time - that is ideology.
I think you mean party politics perhaps, rather than 'ideology' ?
My teachers didn't go with the mantra socialism good capitlism bad which my sons did
My children’s teachers certainly did no such thing. I think you’re judging a whole system from your own experience.
Overall, there was much more space for individual schools and individual teachers to get away with questionable stuff forty years ago than there is now.
I wouldn't deny anyone's experience, but two data points aren't, by themselves, a trend.
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Also the idea that teaching in the 1970s was ideology free, or even 'neutral' is laughable.
I didn't say teachers didn't have ideology but they did at least tell both sides
Did they ? There's no 'both sides' in a curriculum - it's a set thing. Similarly with the prevailing social attitudes of the time - that is ideology.
I think you mean party politics perhaps, rather than 'ideology' ?
My teachers didn't go with the mantra socialism good capitlism bad which my sons did
My children’s teachers certainly did no such thing. I think you’re judging a whole system from your own experience.
Overall, there was much more space for individual schools and individual teachers to get away with questionable stuff forty years ago than there is now.
I wouldn't deny anyone's experience, but two data points aren't, by themselves, a trend.
We also have the data points of left wing students demanding any voice that doesn't agree with them being denied a platform. Now you can argue it ain't true all you like. It is still becoming the general perception that the education sector is being hijacked
Nigel Farage thinks postal votes need to be scrapped because they create fraud.
And he doesn't think the American election was stolen but Biden won because of "legal" corrupt postal votes
The two points are connected. The Blessed Nigel is focusing on postal votes because US Republicans and especially Trump are fixated on them. If the Blessed Nigel is to profit from the Trump campaign and a possible Trump second tierm then he has to dance to the Orange One's tune.
I’ve got a postal vote. Poor old chap, can’t get down to the polling station without a wheelchair.
Care to join in with my (prospective) law suit? In the USA would be a class (in one sense anyway) action.
What’s the problem in the USA? Over this, I mean. There are lots of other problems around elections in your country.
Am talking about my proposed legal action, accusing Nigel Farrage with defamation, against the likes of you, me and fellow postal voters, by accusing us of being "corrupt". (see up thread)
Aren't you american? That means corrupt is a given its only to work how how corrupt
Aren't you Cornish?
Means a natural-born wrecker is a given? Just need to work out, what you're currently bent on wrecking!
Wrecking is something I am sure my family took part in just as there more than a few cornish pirates. Was a long time ago and we only do it now for cultural festivities
Also the idea that teaching in the 1970s was ideology free, or even 'neutral' is laughable.
Education involves choices, as Cleitophon notes.
Back then schooling was to create labour for industrial society which doesn't exist anymore. Now we live in a service and information society.
This reminds me of Foucault who in "Discipline and Punish" points out that all modern institutions from hospitals, schools, factories, offices etc, are all modeled on the prison. Their architectural capacity for surveillance and habitation of the "inmates". 🤣🤣🤣
Which is small difference to the society of the ussr or communist china, we moved on they didn't but you feel your ideology should be pushed on them and take them back to poverty?
I teach marketing at a business school mate. I literally teach capitalism. Undergrads, PGs, MBAs, PhDs. I think I have indoctrinated more money hoarders than you can count 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 your little barbs are nothing to me.
Nigel Farage thinks postal votes need to be scrapped because they create fraud.
And he doesn't think the American election was stolen but Biden won because of "legal" corrupt postal votes
The two points are connected. The Blessed Nigel is focusing on postal votes because US Republicans and especially Trump are fixated on them. If the Blessed Nigel is to profit from the Trump campaign and a possible Trump second tierm then he has to dance to the Orange One's tune.
I’ve got a postal vote. Poor old chap, can’t get down to the polling station without a wheelchair.
Care to join in with my (prospective) law suit? In the USA would be a class (in one sense anyway) action.
What’s the problem in the USA? Over this, I mean. There are lots of other problems around elections in your country.
Am talking about my proposed legal action, accusing Nigel Farrage with defamation, against the likes of you, me and fellow postal voters, by accusing us of being "corrupt". (see up thread)
Aren't you american? That means corrupt is a given its only to work how how corrupt
Aren't you Cornish?
Means a natural-born wrecker is a given? Just need to work out, what you're currently bent on wrecking!
Wrecking is something I am sure my family took part in just as there more than a few cornish pirates. Was a long time ago and we only do it now for cultural festivities
Including Fiesta de PB?
Difference is cornish wrecking happened mainly before you were a separate country. American political corruption is a current and present danger and increasing
Also the idea that teaching in the 1970s was ideology free, or even 'neutral' is laughable.
I didn't say teachers didn't have ideology but they did at least tell both sides
Did they ? There's no 'both sides' in a curriculum - it's a set thing. Similarly with the prevailing social attitudes of the time - that is ideology.
I think you mean party politics perhaps, rather than 'ideology' ?
My teachers didn't go with the mantra socialism good capitlism bad which my sons did
My children’s teachers certainly did no such thing. I think you’re judging a whole system from your own experience.
Overall, there was much more space for individual schools and individual teachers to get away with questionable stuff forty years ago than there is now.
I wouldn't deny anyone's experience, but two data points aren't, by themselves, a trend.
We also have the data points of left wing students demanding any voice that doesn't agree with them being denied a platform. Now you can argue it ain't true all you like. It is still becoming the general perception that the education sector is being hijacked
Leftie students were doing that in the 1970s, I can tell you!
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
AP (via Seattle Times) - Spain will scrap ‘golden visas’ that allow wealthy non-EU residents to stay if they buy real estate
MADRID (AP) — Spain’s government said Monday it plans to scrap so-called “golden visas” that allow wealthy people from outside the European Union to obtain residency permits on investing more than half a million euros (dollars) in real estate.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his minority coalition government would study the reform in the weekly Cabinet meeting Tuesday.
Speaking Monday, Sánchez said the reform was part of the government’s push to make housing “a right, not a speculative business.”
The government says some 10,000 such visas have been issued since the measure was brought into law in 2013 by a previous right-wing Popular Party government as a means to attract foreign investors.
“Golden visas” are strongly criticized for spurring property price hikes and speculation in the housing sector. Soaring house prices have long been a major problem for many Spaniards, particularly in the country’s major cities.
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
Also the idea that teaching in the 1970s was ideology free, or even 'neutral' is laughable.
I didn't say teachers didn't have ideology but they did at least tell both sides
Did they ? There's no 'both sides' in a curriculum - it's a set thing. Similarly with the prevailing social attitudes of the time - that is ideology.
I think you mean party politics perhaps, rather than 'ideology' ?
My teachers didn't go with the mantra socialism good capitlism bad which my sons did
My children’s teachers certainly did no such thing. I think you’re judging a whole system from your own experience.
Overall, there was much more space for individual schools and individual teachers to get away with questionable stuff forty years ago than there is now.
I wouldn't deny anyone's experience, but two data points aren't, by themselves, a trend.
Of course.
If Pagan is arguing that there considerable variability of all kinds in the education system, and that some schools fail their pupils, I wouldn’t disagree.
But I don’t think the system is currently doing what he thinks it is.
AP (via Seattle Times) - Spain will scrap ‘golden visas’ that allow wealthy non-EU residents to stay if they buy real estate
MADRID (AP) — Spain’s government said Monday it plans to scrap so-called “golden visas” that allow wealthy people from outside the European Union to obtain residency permits on investing more than half a million euros (dollars) in real estate.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his minority coalition government would study the reform in the weekly Cabinet meeting Tuesday.
Speaking Monday, Sánchez said the reform was part of the government’s push to make housing “a right, not a speculative business.”
The government says some 10,000 such visas have been issued since the measure was brought into law in 2013 by a previous right-wing Popular Party government as a means to attract foreign investors.
“Golden visas” are strongly criticized for spurring property price hikes and speculation in the housing sector. Soaring house prices have long been a major problem for many Spaniards, particularly in the country’s major cities.
10,000, less than 1,000 a year is not the issue in Spain.
Over 500,000 properties registered on airbnb, and the same again on other sites is a far more sensible place to start.
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
Alas moderate Tories are sort of left with no home! Sensible Starmer and Responsible Reeves are all very well, but they have some very nasty fellow bed-bugs.
AP (via Seattle Times) - Spain will scrap ‘golden visas’ that allow wealthy non-EU residents to stay if they buy real estate
MADRID (AP) — Spain’s government said Monday it plans to scrap so-called “golden visas” that allow wealthy people from outside the European Union to obtain residency permits on investing more than half a million euros (dollars) in real estate.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his minority coalition government would study the reform in the weekly Cabinet meeting Tuesday.
Speaking Monday, Sánchez said the reform was part of the government’s push to make housing “a right, not a speculative business.”
The government says some 10,000 such visas have been issued since the measure was brought into law in 2013 by a previous right-wing Popular Party government as a means to attract foreign investors.
“Golden visas” are strongly criticized for spurring property price hikes and speculation in the housing sector. Soaring house prices have long been a major problem for many Spaniards, particularly in the country’s major cities.
10,000, less than 1,000 a year is not the issue in Spain.
Over 500,000 properties registered on airbnb, and the same again on other sites is a far more sensible place to start.
IF you're an economist or housing advocate, heck yes! BUT if you're a Spanish politico, perhaps not?
AP (via Seattle Times) - Spain will scrap ‘golden visas’ that allow wealthy non-EU residents to stay if they buy real estate
MADRID (AP) — Spain’s government said Monday it plans to scrap so-called “golden visas” that allow wealthy people from outside the European Union to obtain residency permits on investing more than half a million euros (dollars) in real estate.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his minority coalition government would study the reform in the weekly Cabinet meeting Tuesday.
Speaking Monday, Sánchez said the reform was part of the government’s push to make housing “a right, not a speculative business.”
The government says some 10,000 such visas have been issued since the measure was brought into law in 2013 by a previous right-wing Popular Party government as a means to attract foreign investors.
“Golden visas” are strongly criticized for spurring property price hikes and speculation in the housing sector. Soaring house prices have long been a major problem for many Spaniards, particularly in the country’s major cities.
10,000, less than 1,000 a year is not the issue in Spain.
Over 500,000 properties registered on airbnb, and the same again on other sites is a far more sensible place to start.
IF you're an economist or housing advocate, heck yes! BUT if you're a Spanish politico, perhaps not?
I don't know Spanish politics but I would suggest a 10EUR per person per night airbnb tax could be more appealing than this.
AP (via Seattle Times) - Spain will scrap ‘golden visas’ that allow wealthy non-EU residents to stay if they buy real estate
MADRID (AP) — Spain’s government said Monday it plans to scrap so-called “golden visas” that allow wealthy people from outside the European Union to obtain residency permits on investing more than half a million euros (dollars) in real estate.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his minority coalition government would study the reform in the weekly Cabinet meeting Tuesday.
Speaking Monday, Sánchez said the reform was part of the government’s push to make housing “a right, not a speculative business.”
The government says some 10,000 such visas have been issued since the measure was brought into law in 2013 by a previous right-wing Popular Party government as a means to attract foreign investors.
“Golden visas” are strongly criticized for spurring property price hikes and speculation in the housing sector. Soaring house prices have long been a major problem for many Spaniards, particularly in the country’s major cities.
10,000, less than 1,000 a year is not the issue in Spain.
Over 500,000 properties registered on airbnb, and the same again on other sites is a far more sensible place to start.
Like the small boats, its significance is symbolic.
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Also the idea that teaching in the 1970s was ideology free, or even 'neutral' is laughable.
I didn't say teachers didn't have ideology but they did at least tell both sides
Did they ? There's no 'both sides' in a curriculum - it's a set thing. Similarly with the prevailing social attitudes of the time - that is ideology.
I think you mean party politics perhaps, rather than 'ideology' ?
My teachers didn't go with the mantra socialism good capitlism bad which my sons did
My children’s teachers certainly did no such thing. I think you’re judging a whole system from your own experience.
Overall, there was much more space for individual schools and individual teachers to get away with questionable stuff forty years ago than there is now.
I wouldn't deny anyone's experience, but two data points aren't, by themselves, a trend.
We also have the data points of left wing students demanding any voice that doesn't agree with them being denied a platform. Now you can argue it ain't true all you like. It is still becoming the general perception that the education sector is being hijacked
Leftie students were doing that in the 1970s, I can tell you!
The absence of historical memory on the right is quite surprising. The idea that students being left wing is some kind of recent phenomenon... Lol. My grandad was some kind of communist at Oxford, in the 1930s!
Quite surprised that the tories haven’t tried the ‘Vote Reform, Get Labour’ pitch. (Maybe because a lot of Reform voters would prefer Labour to Sunak’s shower?)
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
Yes - watching this has just inspired me to book on a short Cunard cruise in August 2026 that will hopefully catch the total eclipse that clips across northern Spain. Booked online while I watched the eclipse in Mexico. Modern technology, eh.
Also the idea that teaching in the 1970s was ideology free, or even 'neutral' is laughable.
I didn't say teachers didn't have ideology but they did at least tell both sides
Did they ? There's no 'both sides' in a curriculum - it's a set thing. Similarly with the prevailing social attitudes of the time - that is ideology.
I think you mean party politics perhaps, rather than 'ideology' ?
My teachers didn't go with the mantra socialism good capitlism bad which my sons did
My children’s teachers certainly did no such thing. I think you’re judging a whole system from your own experience.
Overall, there was much more space for individual schools and individual teachers to get away with questionable stuff forty years ago than there is now.
I wouldn't deny anyone's experience, but two data points aren't, by themselves, a trend.
We also have the data points of left wing students demanding any voice that doesn't agree with them being denied a platform. Now you can argue it ain't true all you like. It is still becoming the general perception that the education sector is being hijacked
Leftie students were doing that in the 1970s, I can tell you!
The absence of historical memory on the right is quite surprising. The idea that students being left wing is some kind of recent phenomenon... Lol. My grandad was some kind of communist at Oxford, in the 1930s!
Probably because no statue or something.
I remember visiting Cambridge and my friend's mother and a friend of hers talking about the riot at a local hotel a few years before. By Cambridge U students.
I have a feeling undergrads were also being blamed unfairly for burning it down, which happened quite separately, but apparently this was a common local thought at the time.
Oh - not great weather for most of the eclipse route sadly. Hope it turns out better than this.
Looks like Little Rock is the place to be.
Ian Rankin @Beathhigh · 20m Remember you need to take precautions if preparing to look at today’s eclipse, such as wearing sunglasses or living in Scotland…
Oh - not great weather for most of the eclipse route sadly. Hope it turns out better than this.
Looks like Little Rock is the place to be.
Ian Rankin @Beathhigh · 20m Remember you need to take precautions if preparing to look at today’s eclipse, such as wearing sunglasses or living in Scotland…
It's clouded over here. Was nice and sunny this morning ...
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, the Only The Exact Prescription of Generic Pills insanity.
The whole front of house needs immediate reform. It’s a pile of utter garbage.
Is the width of the total eclipse band across the Earth a decent measure of the diameter of the moon?
Not directly, no.
Isn't it? A quick check confirms that the ratio of sun to earth/moon to earth distances is about 400:1 so the projected shadow is not far off at all. Obviously the sun is not a point source, though, so it's sort of fuzzy at the sides, quite apart from the corona.
Trust fund kids latest vehicle for protest (they attacked Lab HQ this morning because Starmer hasn't personally stopped the bombings in Gaza)
Youth Demand @youth_demand Young people demanding that the Tories and the Labour party commit to a two-way arms embargo on Israel, and to stop all new oil and gas licences
Trust fund kids latest vehicle for protest (they attacked Lab HQ this morning because Starmer hasn't personally stopped the bombings in Gaza)
Youth Demand @youth_demand Young people demanding that the Tories and the Labour party commit to a two-way arms embargo on Israel, and to stop all new oil and gas licences
Perhaps we could close the deficit by confiscating trust funds of those convicted? Who knows, deprived of their trust funds they may even become useful members of society
It seems Ukraine were not responsible (at least, the Russians haven't blamed Ukraine yet...). But this, along with the dam collapse and other incidents, seems to point to the Russians having problems with their infrastructure not directly caused by the war.
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, .
Trust you !!!
His priority has to be sorting out car parks that take cash 😂😂😂
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, .
Trust you !!!
His priority has to be sorting out car parks that take cash 😂😂😂
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
Someone is unable to have a child for whatever reason. So someone helps. And a child desperately wanted comes into the world surrounded by love.
Who the hell can have a problem with this?
Raises his hand
Not for religous reasons however. You can't have a child why not adopt one of the millions looking for a loving family?
Adoption is a wonderful thing. When I did adoption reports for the court I always tried to fit in the idea that people say you cannot choose your relatives but you have.
I don’t see these as alternatives. One or the other is fine.
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, the Only The Exact Prescription of Generic Pills insanity.
The whole front of house needs immediate reform. It’s a pile of utter garbage.
My local hairdresser has a better appointment booking system than the GP. Get them on treatwell. And hospital appointments confirmed by text not letter.
Also, annual “compulsory” (strongly advised) health checkup for all over 50s. Could save a fortune in later costs.
Trust fund kids latest vehicle for protest (they attacked Lab HQ this morning because Starmer hasn't personally stopped the bombings in Gaza)
Youth Demand @youth_demand Young people demanding that the Tories and the Labour party commit to a two-way arms embargo on Israel, and to stop all new oil and gas licences
Perhaps we could close the deficit by confiscating trust funds of those convicted? Who knows, deprived of their trust funds they may even become useful members of society
Professor Henry Brubaker of the Institute for Studies said: “The potency of Ketamine is such it can make a barrister’s son from Windsor believe he is someone called ‘DJ Che Headfuck’ and organise dubstep raves in pub skittle alleys that smell of piss.
“Besides an obsession with ‘free parties’ and evil-looking mongrel dogs called things like Bender, there is a general sense of existing outside of the capitalist ‘regime’.
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, .
Trust you !!!
His priority has to be sorting out car parks that take cash 😂😂😂
I visited one in Leicestershire of all places the other day to see an elderly relative who had been transferred there. The car park only took coinage, no cards, no notes, no app, nothing. It was an utter embarrassment. Thankfully I could park instantly via the JustPark app 50 yards around the corner, although the antiquated shite meters deprived the NHS of cash.
But a minor issue compared to the moronic Call Exactly At 8am Or Get Fucked GP booking system. The whole admin of the service is a national embarrassment.
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
Someone is unable to have a child for whatever reason. So someone helps. And a child desperately wanted comes into the world surrounded by love.
Who the hell can have a problem with this?
Raises his hand
Not for religous reasons however. You can't have a child why not adopt one of the millions looking for a loving family?
Adoption is a wonderful thing. When I did adoption reports for the court I always tried to fit in the idea that people say you cannot choose your relatives but you have.
I don’t see these as alternatives. One or the other is fine.
My 3 daughters all chose me and despite they are all now adults they still keep in weekly contact at least. My eldest which might surprise people here is afro caribbean
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
Someone is unable to have a child for whatever reason. So someone helps. And a child desperately wanted comes into the world surrounded by love.
Who the hell can have a problem with this?
Raises his hand
Not for religous reasons however. You can't have a child why not adopt one of the millions looking for a loving family?
Adoption is a wonderful thing. When I did adoption reports for the court I always tried to fit in the idea that people say you cannot choose your relatives but you have.
I don’t see these as alternatives. One or the other is fine.
My 3 daughters all chose me and despite they are all now adults they still keep in weekly contact at least. My eldest which might surprise people here is afro caribbean
Is the width of the total eclipse band across the Earth a decent measure of the diameter of the moon?
Not directly, no.
Isn't it? A quick check confirms that the ratio of sun to earth/moon to earth distances is about 400:1 so the projected shadow is not far off at all. Obviously the sun is not a point source, though, so it's sort of fuzzy at the sides, quite apart from the corona.
That's why I said total eclipse band. I think it is a decent measure, pace BenPointer, and further it shows me how small the moon is compared to Earth.
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, .
Trust you !!!
His priority has to be sorting out car parks that take cash 😂😂😂
Be fair he never mentions cash its always others
First time I have brought it up for months to be fair, mostly it is other PBers weirdly obsessively bringing it up apropos of nothing.
This time I used it as a mere example in the context of the pisspoor systems maintained by the NHS, which is valid, whatever you and the weirdly obsessed @Taz think of it!!
Is the width of the total eclipse band across the Earth a decent measure of the diameter of the moon?
Not directly, no.
Isn't it? A quick check confirms that the ratio of sun to earth/moon to earth distances is about 400:1 so the projected shadow is not far off at all. Obviously the sun is not a point source, though, so it's sort of fuzzy at the sides, quite apart from the corona.
That's why I said total eclipse band. I think it is a decent measure, pace BenPointer, and further it shows me how small the moon is compared to Earth.
The shadow of the moon during totality has an average width of 115 miles (180 km).
Camila Tominey said the education system is indoctrinating young people to be left wing and she worries that they will not become conservative or have conservative values.
Could it be perhaps that the Tories are just a bit...crap?
If the education was indoctrinating youth to the right I am sure you would complain. The educators should not be pushing kids either way they should be teaching neutrally and teaching kids to make their own minds up
The notion that education can be somehow apolitical and free of ideology is free fantasy. I am telling you that as an educator. The fact that there is even such a thing as an education is a political decision. There is no such thing as apolitical and ideology free knowledge is impossible. Lets skip past obvious subjects like history and literature or sociology. Even mathematics departments are embedded in institutions and funding mechanism that are informed by ideology. And even the most basic findings in mathematics, such as Gödel's incompleteness theorems have profound implications for the critique of politics and ideology. Your "neutral" approach to education is for the birds.
See you are the problem
🤣🤣🤣🤣 Ok, give me an example of ideology free teaching
I was at school in the 70's and 80's politics never came up in lessons whatsoever if you cant teach without bring politics into the classroom then as I said you are the problem and should quit and do something more useful like sleeping in shop doorways because you certainly are not doing those pupils any favours with your brain washing
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
20% not working is too much. Productivity is too low. We need to find ways of the majority doing better; earning more; having a better life, etc etc.
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
Someone is unable to have a child for whatever reason. So someone helps. And a child desperately wanted comes into the world surrounded by love.
Who the hell can have a problem with this?
Raises his hand
Not for religous reasons however. You can't have a child why not adopt one of the millions looking for a loving family?
Adoption is a wonderful thing. When I did adoption reports for the court I always tried to fit in the idea that people say you cannot choose your relatives but you have.
I don’t see these as alternatives. One or the other is fine.
My 3 daughters all chose me and despite they are all now adults they still keep in weekly contact at least. My eldest which might surprise people here is afro caribbean
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, the Only The Exact Prescription of Generic Pills insanity.
The whole front of house needs immediate reform. It’s a pile of utter garbage.
My local hairdresser has a better appointment booking system than the GP. Get them on treatwell. And hospital appointments confirmed by text not letter.
Also, annual “compulsory” (strongly advised) health checkup for all over 50s. Could save a fortune in later costs.
That’s a great example. Treatwell. It takes seconds to book an appointment and is done at the fraction of the cost than the NHS, which involves calling a very stressed out lady at the crack of dawn. Which idiot thought this was a good idea? The embrace of even basic technology should be at the forefront of sweeping changes to the admin of the service.
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
The talk of planning reform makes me hopeful. Unless we fix that, any economic growth we manage will just end up with landlords. And if the country can make it less sensible to invest so much in property, that frees up a slab of capital to do useful things with.
I think Gove recognised that as well, but got stymied by the high NIMBY density in his party. It might be that Starmer and Reeves can't fix it either. But they are probably the best realistic chance.
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
20% not working is too much. Productivity is too low. We need to find ways of the majority doing better; earning more; having a better life, etc etc.
As a start, start getting rid of cliff edges in the benefits system. Which make people *afraid* of work.
To go from inactive to active, you are probably going to start out with a low paid, part time job. At the moment we have benefit withdrawals making working extra hours pointless - and the risk of being fined if something is done slightly wrong.
If someone goes from 16 to 40 hours of work, we should be giving them a boost. Not an 80% tax rate.
Oh - not great weather for most of the eclipse route sadly. Hope it turns out better than this.
Looks like Little Rock is the place to be.
Ian Rankin @Beathhigh · 20m Remember you need to take precautions if preparing to look at today’s eclipse, such as wearing sunglasses or living in Scotland…
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
20% not working is too much. Productivity is too low. We need to find ways of the majority doing better; earning more; having a better life, etc etc.
As a start, start getting rid of cliff edges in the benefits system. Which make people *afraid* of work.
To go from inactive to active, you are probably going to start out with a low paid, part time job. At the moment we have benefit withdrawals making working extra hours pointless - and the risk of being fined if something is done slightly wrong.
If someone goes from 16 to 40 hours of work, we should be giving them a boost. Not an 80% tax rate.
If anything, we should penalise them more. ...Unless you're talking about directorships?
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
20% not working is too much. Productivity is too low. We need to find ways of the majority doing better; earning more; having a better life, etc etc.
As a start, start getting rid of cliff edges in the benefits system. Which make people *afraid* of work.
To go from inactive to active, you are probably going to start out with a low paid, part time job. At the moment we have benefit withdrawals making working extra hours pointless - and the risk of being fined if something is done slightly wrong.
If someone goes from 16 to 40 hours of work, we should be giving them a boost. Not an 80% tax rate.
Crudely, the argument for not means-testing benefits. Or at least, being very gentle in how you do it.
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, the Only The Exact Prescription of Generic Pills insanity.
The whole front of house needs immediate reform. It’s a pile of utter garbage.
My local hairdresser has a better appointment booking system than the GP. Get them on treatwell. And hospital appointments confirmed by text not letter.
Also, annual “compulsory” (strongly advised) health checkup for all over 50s. Could save a fortune in later costs.
That’s a great example. Treatwell. It takes seconds to book an appointment and is done at the fraction of the cost than the NHS, which involves calling a very stressed out lady at the crack of dawn. Which idiot thought this was a good idea? The embrace of even basic technology should be at the forefront of sweeping changes to the admin of the service.
I remember getting an Important Appointment Letter from the NHS a few years ago. Boldly emblazoned with the name of the unit I had to attend.
No address. No contact number. No postcode. No email address (obviously). Just had to google it and hope I picked the right option from the dozens of units with the same name.
Which underscores that Mary Harrington's viewpoint is, in essence, neo-Caesaropapism.
BTW, already note but worth repeating, that "Transhumanism" is a ROTTEN name for whatever it is, seeing as how it strongly suggests that it is a) pro-transsexual; and b) in the established humanist-secularist tradition.
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, .
Trust you !!!
His priority has to be sorting out car parks that take cash 😂😂😂
Be fair he never mentions cash its always others
First time I have brought it up for months to be fair, mostly it is other PBers weirdly obsessively bringing it up apropos of nothing.
This time I used it as a mere example in the context of the pisspoor systems maintained by the NHS, which is valid, whatever you and the weirdly obsessed @Taz think of it!!
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
20% not working is too much. Productivity is too low. We need to find ways of the majority doing better; earning more; having a better life, etc etc.
As a start, start getting rid of cliff edges in the benefits system. Which make people *afraid* of work.
To go from inactive to active, you are probably going to start out with a low paid, part time job. At the moment we have benefit withdrawals making working extra hours pointless - and the risk of being fined if something is done slightly wrong.
If someone goes from 16 to 40 hours of work, we should be giving them a boost. Not an 80% tax rate.
Crudely, the argument for not means-testing benefits. Or at least, being very gentle in how you do it.
Well, that and the admin cost.
I would be in favour of scheme to double benefits for someone who goes from inactive to active. Or moves up from part time to full time.
Yes, problems with people playing the system.
But that’s my idea - a fucking big bonus for success.
On the whole, I think the Earned Income Tax Credit is the right approach -- for the US, anyway: "The United States federal earned income tax credit or earned income credit (EITC or EIC) is a refundable tax credit for low- to moderate-income working individuals and couples, particularly those with children. The amount of EITC benefit depends on a recipient's income and number of children. Low-income adults with no children are eligible.[1] For a person or couple to claim one or more persons as their qualifying child, requirements such as relationship, age, and shared residency must be met.[2][3]
EITC phases in slowly, has a medium-length plateau, and phases out more slowly than it was phased in. Since the credit phases out at 21% (more than one qualifying child) or 16% (one qualifying child), it is always preferable to have one more dollar of actual salary or wages considering the EITC alone. However, investment income is handled far less gracefully, as one more dollar of income can result in a sudden and complete loss of the credit. If the EITC is combined with multiple other means-tested programs such as Medicaid or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, it is possible that the marginal tax rate approaches or exceeds 100% in rare circumstances depending on the state of residence; conversely, under certain circumstances, net income can rise faster than the increase in wages because the EITC phases in." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit
(Though I am nearly certain that the economists who say it should be expanded -- with provisos -- are right.
And I am absolutely certain that it is a better approach than rasing the minimum wage.)
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, .
Trust you !!!
His priority has to be sorting out car parks that take cash 😂😂😂
Be fair he never mentions cash its always others
First time I have brought it up for months to be fair, mostly it is other PBers weirdly obsessively bringing it up apropos of nothing.
This time I used it as a mere example in the context of the pisspoor systems maintained by the NHS, which is valid, whatever you and the weirdly obsessed @Taz think of it!!
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, the Only The Exact Prescription of Generic Pills insanity.
The whole front of house needs immediate reform. It’s a pile of utter garbage.
My local hairdresser has a better appointment booking system than the GP. Get them on treatwell. And hospital appointments confirmed by text not letter.
Also, annual “compulsory” (strongly advised) health checkup for all over 50s. Could save a fortune in later costs.
I would imagine (really - no clue) that a broad blood-test at 40 could also work wonders. A lot of people start thinking 'oh, I'm getting older" at that point so even a bit of 'yeah, cut down on the pizza' could be quite helpful.
I guess as with most things NHS 'prevention' related it's a capacity problem. Possibly one of the area (at fear of summoning Leon) that AI/ML stuff might help with if it passes all the regulatory/professional hurdles. Which I imagine might take a decade or two - probably only a few hundred thousand extra deaths though. So... that's ok.
Quite surprised that the tories haven’t tried the ‘Vote Reform, Get Labour’ pitch. (Maybe because a lot of Reform voters would prefer Labour to Sunak’s shower?)
I know the election is less than a year away, but we are not yet in the real campaign. I think such tactics will absolutely be deployed. We wait to see how many candidates reform have. And if there is a last minute pact with the conservatives as happened in 2019 (albeit not reform on that occasion). As I have said many times, we on PB are not normal. The normal public doesn’t watch Laura Kuensberg on Sunday morning, or the Sky equivalent. They don’t obsess over politics. They like footy, the pub, walking the dog, music, TV. I have no idea if the polls will narrow or not, but if they do I think it will be close to the election, and probably during the actual campaign.
On the whole, I think the Earned Income Tax Credit is the right approach -- for the US, anyway: "The United States federal earned income tax credit or earned income credit (EITC or EIC) is a refundable tax credit for low- to moderate-income working individuals and couples, particularly those with children. The amount of EITC benefit depends on a recipient's income and number of children. Low-income adults with no children are eligible.[1] For a person or couple to claim one or more persons as their qualifying child, requirements such as relationship, age, and shared residency must be met.[2][3]
EITC phases in slowly, has a medium-length plateau, and phases out more slowly than it was phased in. Since the credit phases out at 21% (more than one qualifying child) or 16% (one qualifying child), it is always preferable to have one more dollar of actual salary or wages considering the EITC alone. However, investment income is handled far less gracefully, as one more dollar of income can result in a sudden and complete loss of the credit. If the EITC is combined with multiple other means-tested programs such as Medicaid or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, it is possible that the marginal tax rate approaches or exceeds 100% in rare circumstances depending on the state of residence; conversely, under certain circumstances, net income can rise faster than the increase in wages because the EITC phases in." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit
(Though I am nearly certain that the economists who say it should be expanded -- with provisos -- are right.
And I am absolutely certain that it is a better approach than rasing the minimum wage.)
No - it just subsidises low pay employers. Same as Universal Credit over here.
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
The talk of planning reform makes me hopeful. Unless we fix that, any economic growth we manage will just end up with landlords. And if the country can make it less sensible to invest so much in property, that frees up a slab of capital to do useful things with.
I think Gove recognised that as well, but got stymied by the high NIMBY density in his party. It might be that Starmer and Reeves can't fix it either. But they are probably the best realistic chance.
We are now at a place where the person best able to deliver relatively coherent housing projects is a hereditary aristocrat who has an employee who places toothpaste on his toothbrush.
To the people of the planning and construction industry, given this….
The Operative: You know, in certain older civilized cultures when men failed as entirely as you have, they would throw themselves on their swords.
Dr. Mathias: Well, unfortunately, I forgot to bring a sword—
[The Operative pulls out a sword and slowly turns to him]
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, .
Trust you !!!
His priority has to be sorting out car parks that take cash 😂😂😂
Be fair he never mentions cash its always others
First time I have brought it up for months to be fair, mostly it is other PBers weirdly obsessively bringing it up apropos of nothing.
This time I used it as a mere example in the context of the pisspoor systems maintained by the NHS, which is valid, whatever you and the weirdly obsessed @Taz think of it!!
It seems to be death watch beetle party night tonight here in France. They’ve all woken from their slumber at the same time and I can hear at least 4 separate mating tapping patterns all around the house. In fact another one’s just started so make that 5. It’s like they’re all up for an orgy/rave tonight.
Creepy and unnerving, when you know the damage they’re doing to the beams.
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, the Only The Exact Prescription of Generic Pills insanity.
The whole front of house needs immediate reform. It’s a pile of utter garbage.
GP provision is random across the nation. My parents live in a small village where the surgery is a multi village set up. They can walk in or ring and get a same day appointment with ease. My surgery, 13 miles away, is a nightmare to get so a GP. That said if you know what you need there is usually a way to get seen by someone. I have had issues over the winter with chest infections (young kid at nursery, asthma etc) but on each occasion have been able to get the required attention and prescriptions on the same day I sought help. What is gone and probably for good is the older style of supermarket counter GP, where you turn up and join the queue. And yet oddly, I think many of us would prefer that.
More for BenPointer: "Due to its structure, the EITC is effective at targeting assistance to low-income families in the bottom two quintiles—0–40% of households. By contrast, only 30% of minimum wage workers live in families near or below the federal poverty line, as most are teenagers, young adults, students, or spouses supplementing their studies or family income.[40][41] Opponents of the minimum wage argue that it is a less efficient means to help the poor than adjusting the EITC."
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, the Only The Exact Prescription of Generic Pills insanity.
The whole front of house needs immediate reform. It’s a pile of utter garbage.
My local hairdresser has a better appointment booking system than the GP. Get them on treatwell. And hospital appointments confirmed by text not letter.
Also, annual “compulsory” (strongly advised) health checkup for all over 50s. Could save a fortune in later costs.
I would imagine (really - no clue) that a broad blood-test at 40 could also work wonders. A lot of people start thinking 'oh, I'm getting older" at that point so even a bit of 'yeah, cut down on the pizza' could be quite helpful.
I guess as with most things NHS 'prevention' related it's a capacity problem. Possibly one of the area (at fear of summoning Leon) that AI/ML stuff might help with if it passes all the regulatory/professional hurdles. Which I imagine might take a decade or two - probably only a few hundred thousand extra deaths though. So... that's ok.
In fact given working age sickness is such a huge drag on GDP doing tests on healthy people from 30 might even pay back.
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
20% not working is too much. Productivity is too low. We need to find ways of the majority doing better; earning more; having a better life, etc etc.
As a start, start getting rid of cliff edges in the benefits system. Which make people *afraid* of work.
To go from inactive to active, you are probably going to start out with a low paid, part time job. At the moment we have benefit withdrawals making working extra hours pointless - and the risk of being fined if something is done slightly wrong.
If someone goes from 16 to 40 hours of work, we should be giving them a boost. Not an 80% tax rate.
Crudely, the argument for not means-testing benefits. Or at least, being very gentle in how you do it.
Well, that and the admin cost.
I would be in favour of scheme to double benefits for someone who goes from inactive to active. Or moves up from part time to full time.
Yes, problems with people playing the system.
But that’s my idea - a fucking big bonus for success.
Instead, the UK system is the opposite, with benefit drop off plus taxes often meaning the highest marginal tax rates are on the poorest.
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
The talk of planning reform makes me hopeful. Unless we fix that, any economic growth we manage will just end up with landlords. And if the country can make it less sensible to invest so much in property, that frees up a slab of capital to do useful things with.
I think Gove recognised that as well, but got stymied by the high NIMBY density in his party. It might be that Starmer and Reeves can't fix it either. But they are probably the best realistic chance.
We are now at a place where the person best able to deliver relatively coherent housing projects is a hereditary aristocrat who has an employee who places toothpaste on his toothbrush.
To the people of the planning and construction industry, given this….
The Operative: You know, in certain older civilized cultures when men failed as entirely as you have, they would throw themselves on their swords.
Dr. Mathias: Well, unfortunately, I forgot to bring a sword—
[The Operative pulls out a sword and slowly turns to him]
I suspect it's worse than that.
What we're seeing isn't incompetence so much as the system delivering what a very large number of people want.
Quite surprised that the tories haven’t tried the ‘Vote Reform, Get Labour’ pitch. (Maybe because a lot of Reform voters would prefer Labour to Sunak’s shower?)
I know the election is less than a year away, but we are not yet in the real campaign. I think such tactics will absolutely be deployed. We wait to see how many candidates reform have. And if there is a last minute pact with the conservatives as happened in 2019 (albeit not reform on that occasion). As I have said many times, we on PB are not normal. The normal public doesn’t watch Laura Kuensberg on Sunday morning, or the Sky equivalent. They don’t obsess over politics. They like footy, the pub, walking the dog, music, TV. I have no idea if the polls will narrow or not, but if they do I think it will be close to the election, and probably during the actual campaign.
The polling evidence indicates that if current Reform supporters are forced to choose one of the other parties or NV, the net benefit to the Tories is pretty small.
And don't forget that there are if anything rather more LD and Green votes to be squeezed than Reform votes. Particularly given the fact that the Tories are so much more unpopular than Labour, there is at least as much scope for anti-Tory tactical voting as for anti-Labour tactical voting.
Poor old Rachel Reeves - she not only has to fix the country, but the whole ill reputation of the left for economic incompetence visits her shoulders too.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
She has a job and a half to do , no doubt about it. And Starmer’s government will fall or rise on how she does.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
Patriot - me too. I think most of us. The trick is to get all those people who don't work working and all those people that do work producing. No idea how she (or anyone else) does that.
20% not working is too much. Productivity is too low. We need to find ways of the majority doing better; earning more; having a better life, etc etc.
As a start, start getting rid of cliff edges in the benefits system. Which make people *afraid* of work.
To go from inactive to active, you are probably going to start out with a low paid, part time job. At the moment we have benefit withdrawals making working extra hours pointless - and the risk of being fined if something is done slightly wrong.
If someone goes from 16 to 40 hours of work, we should be giving them a boost. Not an 80% tax rate.
Crudely, the argument for not means-testing benefits. Or at least, being very gentle in how you do it.
Well, that and the admin cost.
I would be in favour of scheme to double benefits for someone who goes from inactive to active. Or moves up from part time to full time.
Yes, problems with people playing the system.
But that’s my idea - a fucking big bonus for success.
Instead, the UK system is the opposite, with benefit drop off plus taxes often meaning the highest marginal tax rates are on the poorest.
It's an inevitable feature of any safety net system where income is taxed. A bonus for going from inactive to active would create perverse incentives.
Quite surprised that the tories haven’t tried the ‘Vote Reform, Get Labour’ pitch. (Maybe because a lot of Reform voters would prefer Labour to Sunak’s shower?)
I know the election is less than a year away, but we are not yet in the real campaign. I think such tactics will absolutely be deployed. We wait to see how many candidates reform have. And if there is a last minute pact with the conservatives as happened in 2019 (albeit not reform on that occasion). As I have said many times, we on PB are not normal. The normal public doesn’t watch Laura Kuensberg on Sunday morning, or the Sky equivalent. They don’t obsess over politics. They like footy, the pub, walking the dog, music, TV. I have no idea if the polls will narrow or not, but if they do I think it will be close to the election, and probably during the actual campaign.
The polling evidence indicates that if current Reform supporters are forced to choose one of the other parties or NV, the net benefit to the Tories is pretty small.
And don't forget that there are if anything rather more LD and Green votes to be squeezed than Reform votes. Particularly given the fact that the Tories are so much more unpopular than Labour, there is at least as much scope for anti-Tory tactical voting as for anti-Labour tactical voting.
We will see at the election. People tell polling companies a lot of things and then, in the secrecy of the booth, they often do what they have always done.
I think the election is going to be truly fascinating.
EXC: @wesstreeting throws down the gauntlet saying time for private sector help to reduce waiting lists - and no more cash for heath service without “major surgery” of reform.
In punchy @thesun piece tomorrow he warns: “Middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal’. The real betrayal is the two-tier system that sees people like them treated faster.”
Private companies do a lot of waiting list work already, and have done for decades. They cherry pick the straightforward cases and leave the complex and expensive work to the rNHS, I really don't see what is new or "Reforming" about this.
There isn't much evidence that it has resolved the fundamental problem of capacity, not least because the personnel in the private sector were nearly all trained in the NHS
Wes Streeting combines bombastic language with a failure to understand the issues to the point that I won't support Labour.
It's not that I an against the private sector, indeed I advocated how to make it work in my first PB header.
Yes, Streeting is worrying me. He doesn't realise that the NHS or social care is going to have to expand for the next 15 years. Talking hard to the NHS may play well in Tufton Street now, or ten years ago, but now is really not the time.
Starmer was extolling the use of the private sector in helping to reduce the waiting lists and in using technology better
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
We need a Labour government to do serious reform of the NHS just as we probably need the Tories to take us back into the EU. But they need to do things sensibly. Streeting has obviously been thinking about the issues but that’s no guarantee of good policy. Gove spent rather a lot of time thinking about the issues in education before 2010, and I’m not sure the country is the better for it.
The first thing Streeting should do is focus on the NHS’s absolutely pisspoor, medieval admin and antiquated systems. The Call Your GP At Exactly 8am bollocks, the provincial Car Parks That Accept Only Pound Coins, the Only The Exact Prescription of Generic Pills insanity.
The whole front of house needs immediate reform. It’s a pile of utter garbage.
My local hairdresser has a better appointment booking system than the GP. Get them on treatwell. And hospital appointments confirmed by text not letter.
Also, annual “compulsory” (strongly advised) health checkup for all over 50s. Could save a fortune in later costs.
That’s a great example. Treatwell. It takes seconds to book an appointment and is done at the fraction of the cost than the NHS, which involves calling a very stressed out lady at the crack of dawn. Which idiot thought this was a good idea? The embrace of even basic technology should be at the forefront of sweeping changes to the admin of the service.
I remember getting an Important Appointment Letter from the NHS a few
years ago. Boldly emblazoned with the name of the unit I had to attend. No address. No contact number. No postcode. No email address (obviously). Just had to google it and hope I picked the right option from the dozens of units with the same name.
Things like this baffle me.
My son broke a bone recently. I was given a mobile number to call after ten days to get the x-Ray analysis. No matter when I tried the number, it was unobtainable. There was simply no way of reaching the x-Ray team.
Days later, exasperated, I texted the number, just to see what would happen. A nurse rang me straight back seconds later, on that same number, to give me the results.
Comments
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/science-environment-68694245
Our planning system means we don't have sufficient homes, of any variety, and as a result we are operating at an over 99% occupation rate which is absurdly high.
In a healthy developed country any damp squalid slums are left unoccupied as tenants or prospective owners alike have better alternatives available (unless they're deliberately looking to transform it as an investment opportunity).
But our planning system means people have no choice but to take whatever scraps become available.
https://twitter.com/Daractenus/status/1777364502683529531
https://ukrainetoday.org/a-bridge-collapsed-near-smolensk-the-main-transport-corridor-with-belarus-is-blocked/
It seems Ukraine were not responsible (at least, the Russians haven't blamed Ukraine yet...). But this, along with the dam collapse and other incidents, seems to point to the Russians having problems with their infrastructure not directly caused by the war.
Means a natural-born wrecker is a given? Just need to work out, what you're currently bent on wrecking!
I wouldn't deny anyone's experience, but two data points aren't, by themselves, a trend.
I saw the 1999 total eclipse in Normandy - one of the most memorable experiences of my life.
The amazing change in politics is that a Labour PM and Health Secretary could actually get away with this when conservative ones would be shouted down as 'privatisation'
Notwithstanding, it is sensible and should do Labour no harm with the centre ground
AP (via Seattle Times) - Spain will scrap ‘golden visas’ that allow wealthy non-EU residents to stay if they buy real estate
MADRID (AP) — Spain’s government said Monday it plans to scrap so-called “golden visas” that allow wealthy people from outside the European Union to obtain residency permits on investing more than half a million euros (dollars) in real estate.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said his minority coalition government would study the reform in the weekly Cabinet meeting Tuesday.
Speaking Monday, Sánchez said the reform was part of the government’s push to make housing “a right, not a speculative business.”
The government says some 10,000 such visas have been issued since the measure was brought into law in 2013 by a previous right-wing Popular Party government as a means to attract foreign investors.
“Golden visas” are strongly criticized for spurring property price hikes and speculation in the housing sector. Soaring house prices have long been a major problem for many Spaniards, particularly in the country’s major cities.
Obviously there's a path that she can follow which will deliver something of this, but the world and his wife will make that path obscure for her.
The BBC (or others) would do well to see if they can embed a lip-locked journalist with her on her journey.
The rest of us should work out how to fix the bloody place without Ms Reeves!
If Pagan is arguing that there considerable variability of all kinds in the education system, and that some schools fail their pupils, I wouldn’t disagree.
But I don’t think the system is currently doing what he thinks it is.
Over 500,000 properties registered on airbnb, and the same again on other sites is a far more sensible place to start.
Now who recently pointed out that surrogacy would be an issue in the 2020s?
Hmmm.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/04/07/transhumanism/
https://x.com/electionmapsuk/status/1777375182904021405?s=46
Reform will slip back in polls and greens will advance simply based on the number of seats contested.
Ultimately, I am a patriot above all. For that reason I hope she surprises and exhilarates me. We have a lot of hard work to do as a nation and we need policies that push us the right way instead of having us to swim against the tide. Surprise me. Please.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
Quite surprised that the tories haven’t tried the ‘Vote Reform, Get Labour’ pitch. (Maybe because a lot of Reform voters would prefer Labour to Sunak’s shower?)
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/list-total-solar.html
Someone is unable to have a child for whatever reason. So someone helps. And a child desperately wanted comes into the world surrounded by love.
Who the hell can have a problem with this?
Not for religous reasons however. You can't have a child why not adopt one of the millions looking for a loving family?
I remember visiting Cambridge and my friend's mother and a friend of hers talking about the riot at a local hotel a few years before. By Cambridge U students.
I have a feeling undergrads were also being blamed unfairly for burning it down, which happened quite separately, but apparently this was a common local thought at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_House_riot
https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/history/remembering-deadly-garden-house-fire-12926017
Ian Rankin
@Beathhigh
·
20m
Remember you need to take precautions if preparing to look at today’s eclipse, such as wearing sunglasses or living in Scotland…
The whole front of house needs immediate reform. It’s a pile of utter garbage.
Youth Demand
@youth_demand
Young people demanding that the Tories and the Labour party commit to a two-way arms embargo on Israel, and to stop all new oil and gas licences
https://twitter.com/youth_demand
https://twitter.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/177736029015106781
Trust you !!!
His priority has to be sorting out car parks that take cash 😂😂😂
In the US, the common problem is
1) womb for hire
2) the mother then decides that she wants to keep the child
3) court case ensues between biological parents and birth mother.
In the U.K. paid surrogacy is banned, IIRC and you can’t make an enforceable “contract” to force the birth mother to give up the child.
This was from the 1984 Warnock Report - an attempt to apply an ethical framework to the emerging technologies in fertility and genetics.
It seems to have stood the test of time rather well, really.
I don’t see these as alternatives. One or the other is fine.
Also, annual “compulsory” (strongly advised) health checkup for all over 50s. Could save a fortune in later costs.
Professor Henry Brubaker of the Institute for Studies said: “The potency of Ketamine is such it can make a barrister’s son from Windsor believe he is someone called ‘DJ Che Headfuck’ and organise dubstep raves in pub skittle alleys that smell of piss.
“Besides an obsession with ‘free parties’ and evil-looking mongrel dogs called things like Bender, there is a general sense of existing outside of the capitalist ‘regime’.
JustPark app 50 yards around the corner, although the antiquated shite meters deprived the NHS of cash.
But a minor issue compared to the moronic Call Exactly At 8am Or Get Fucked GP booking system. The whole admin of the service is a national embarrassment.
This time I used it as a mere example in the context of the pisspoor systems maintained by the NHS, which is valid, whatever you and the weirdly obsessed @Taz think of it!!
Moon's diameter is 2150 miles (3470 km).
I think Gove recognised that as well, but got stymied by the high NIMBY density in his party. It might be that Starmer and Reeves can't fix it either. But they are probably the best realistic chance.
To go from inactive to active, you are probably going to start out with a low paid, part time job. At the moment we have benefit withdrawals making working extra hours pointless - and the risk of being fined if something is done slightly wrong.
If someone goes from 16 to 40 hours of work, we should be giving them a boost. Not an 80% tax rate.
https://komonews.com/news/local/ironman-world-championship-first-wheelchair-athlete-complete-minda-dentler-book-the-girl-who-figured-it-out-university-of-washington-alum-polio-shriners-childrens-spokane-learn-to-walk-athlete-handcycling-hawaii-champion
(I did, enough so that I plan to buy her book, probably as a present for oen of my relatives.)
Well, that and the admin cost.
No address. No contact number. No postcode. No email address (obviously). Just had to google it and hope I picked the right option from the dozens of units with the same name.
Things like this baffle me.
BTW, already note but worth repeating, that "Transhumanism" is a ROTTEN name for whatever it is, seeing as how it strongly suggests that it is a) pro-transsexual; and b) in the established humanist-secularist tradition.
Neither of which is true.
A
S
H
Yes, problems with people playing the system.
But that’s my idea - a fucking big bonus for success.
"The United States federal earned income tax credit or earned income credit (EITC or EIC) is a refundable tax credit for low- to moderate-income working individuals and couples, particularly those with children. The amount of EITC benefit depends on a recipient's income and number of children. Low-income adults with no children are eligible.[1] For a person or couple to claim one or more persons as their qualifying child, requirements such as relationship, age, and shared residency must be met.[2][3]
EITC phases in slowly, has a medium-length plateau, and phases out more slowly than it was phased in. Since the credit phases out at 21% (more than one qualifying child) or 16% (one qualifying child), it is always preferable to have one more dollar of actual salary or wages considering the EITC alone. However, investment income is handled far less gracefully, as one more dollar of income can result in a sudden and complete loss of the credit. If the EITC is combined with multiple other means-tested programs such as Medicaid or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, it is possible that the marginal tax rate approaches or exceeds 100% in rare circumstances depending on the state of residence; conversely, under certain circumstances, net income can rise faster than the increase in wages because the EITC phases in."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit
(Though I am nearly certain that the economists who say it should be expanded -- with provisos -- are right.
And I am absolutely certain that it is a better approach than rasing the minimum wage.)
I guess as with most things NHS 'prevention' related it's a capacity problem. Possibly one of the area (at fear of summoning Leon) that AI/ML stuff might help with if it passes all the regulatory/professional hurdles. Which I imagine might take a decade or two - probably only a few hundred thousand extra deaths though. So... that's ok.
As I have said many times, we on PB are not normal. The normal public doesn’t watch Laura Kuensberg on Sunday morning, or the Sky equivalent. They don’t obsess over politics. They like footy, the pub, walking the dog, music, TV.
I have no idea if the polls will narrow or not, but if they do I think it will be close to the election, and probably during the actual campaign.
To the people of the planning and construction industry, given this….
The Operative: You know, in certain older civilized cultures when men failed as entirely as you have, they would throw themselves on their swords.
Dr. Mathias: Well, unfortunately, I forgot to bring a sword—
[The Operative pulls out a sword and slowly turns to him]
Creepy and unnerving, when you know the damage they’re doing to the beams.
That said if you know what you need there is usually a way to get seen by someone. I have had issues over the winter with chest infections (young kid at nursery, asthma etc) but on each occasion have been able to get the required attention and prescriptions on the same day I sought help.
What is gone and probably for good is the older style of supermarket counter GP, where you turn up and join the queue. And yet oddly, I think many of us would prefer that.
What we're seeing isn't incompetence so much as the system delivering what a very large number of people want.
Imagine if that proportion doubled. The totality band would widen but it would still be narrow.
It's all relative™.
And don't forget that there are if anything rather more LD and Green votes to be squeezed than Reform votes. Particularly given the fact that the Tories are so much more unpopular than Labour, there is at least as much scope for anti-Tory tactical voting as for anti-Labour tactical voting.
Might have been one your son was involved in?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cev9w749xdko
If not, certainly friends of his.
I think the election is going to be truly fascinating.
Days later, exasperated, I texted the number, just to see what would happen. A nurse rang me straight back seconds later, on that same number, to give me the results.