I think this is perhaps the oddest day in politics in my lifetime. Whipping out, seemingly at random, a re-introduction of national service!? Labour going full on strange.
What is one to make of it all?!
Personally I haven't got a clue.
I heard an interview with Caroline Lucas on the radio a few days back - she reminded me that it was possible to be a Green and have some grasp on reality. No doubt the LDs could trundle out someone of at least temporary sanity too.
I think the best bet all round is to buy an Island, and before the furniture is installed make sure that you have a runway with Vulcan bombers fully nuclear armed (I don't trust the Americans and their B52). It'd be nice to be able to get a bit of a break then to install the chandeliers etc, but if not then a note of request for clarification should be issued to the rest of humanity.
According to that GB News clip with Portillo someone linked to, CCHQ has lined up a whole series of game-changing policy announcements to be dropped into the campaign at propitious moments, catching Labour completely off guard, but also catching the Conservatives completely off guard.
Now there’s a good topic for a header, Mods. Ten amazing policies which will turn around Conservative fortunes. Or we could have a competition for the most pointless ‘Conservative policy’. How about bringing back dog-licences?*
*Up until around 1987 anyone who owned a dog was required to have a licence for same. Cost 7/6 , or 37.5p.
A like for the header topic, not dog licences
Pity; I thought HYUFD might have been straight on the phone to CCHQ.
No one minds you having an opinion, and a strongly held well-argued one at that. But you just seem to lose it with anyone with whom you disagree, descending rapidly into ad hominem personal abuse.
Have a bit of a break for a few days? This can’t be very good for your health tbh.
Can't you see he is hurting? Just leave him alone, this is really quite pathetic behaviour now and just has descended to kicking a man whilst he's down. It's what I would expect a child to do, not an adult.
It's now descending into bullying and that's something I won't have.
It's not bullying. The individual concerned can't tolerate people with different views, be it a recommendation in a bookshop, a menu in his pub, an advert at Waterloo station, someone referring to the King as Chaz. All have been the subject of unhinged rants in the past. He thinks he's God's gift but if you've read PB as long as I have you know that you only need to trigger the short fuse to get a volley of personal abuse. The school saga is just the latest in a long line of rants.
It'll be funny if a Labour government decides to introduce National Service in about 3 years' time. That's the sort of thing that happens in politics, like Labour introducing tuition fees in 1998 when everyone thought it would be the Tories who were more likely to do so.
And I will oppose it as the stupid idea this is, if and when they do.
If we are at war with Russia, you won't have much choice in the matter, and neither will the Government of the day.
Labour have already closed my son's fucking school
Labour are not in Government
And, yet, they've still managed to close my son's school.
No. They haven't. If it's the school on the Times front page they acknowledge that pupil numbers have been dwindling for some time. A school near here, St Mary's Shaftesbury closed a few years ago for the same reason. Was that one shut by Labour too?
It is that school but, with respect, you know nothing about it other than keen to find an angle that absolves Labour of all blame. It'd otherwise compell you to engage with the complexities of a nasty and unpleasant policy that you'd prefer not to.
The 20% price demand shock has been sufficient to kill it off, whereas otherwise it would have survived, and the disruption its going to cause to my son and his friends, and all the job losses it causes - including several pre-school teachers who are family friends - can be laid entirely at the door of SKS. Everyone knows he's going to win and that's having real world effects now.
I'd walk through blood to stop the man. He has deeply angered me and ripped the heart out of one of the core pillars of our local community.
He is dirt.
I doubt VAT on private schools is going to raise much money for the government as it will move some pupils back to the state sector.
But in the upcoming decades we're going to have to see more taxes raised and lower spending on pretty much all of the country.
And it will be easier for many of the disadvantaged groups to lose out if some of those at the top are visibly doing so as well.
Even if its unfortunate and unpleasant for your family.
The credit crunch killed off about thirty schools in the UK, and that was a one or two year blip. Assume Labour in power for ten years and the policy won't be reversed until at least 2034, and you're potentially looking at a prolonged depression that kills off (ballpark figure here) 300 private schools.
All those kids have to go somewhere. Some of them will be absorbed into other private schools, but even then, imagine if an additional 100-ish state schools need to be built to accommodate kids from private schools that have closed down, on top of an extra 10-20% demand created by parents who would have sent their kids to private schools, but are no longer able to. More schools will have to be built, meaning the cost will probably be greater than the extra £6k per child.
The truth is we don't know exactly how this policy is going to play out, but I did some calculations a few weeks ago and worked out that it's likely to have a creeping, cumulative effect, as parents will pay for kids with three or four years left to go, but be less likely to pay for 5 year olds with 13 years to go, creating a progressive hollowing out of the system that will lead to more and more private schools closing over time.
In short, I reckon Labour's tax wheeze may generate a windfall at first, but will slowly become net negative in terms of tax take over time.
But it won't be the top public schools closing down. It will be the minor schools favoured by the middle classes. So we'll end up with an even more divided system than we have now.
For those reasons, I think it's a bad policy. It will cost the taxpayer more than it brings in revenue, and actually increase division in society by limiting educational choices to an even smaller, more privileged elite.
Except. We are facing a baby bust. The birth rate fell off a cliff around 2013. Primary Schools are already facing closure because of falling rolls. This will feed into Secondary very soon. More kids in the system leads to the much cheaper option of State schools staying open rather than the costs of closing them down.
I'm actually deeply unconvinced of this, based on my very unscientific study of who's at the school gates of the primary schools near me.
We've yet to see how the birthrate changes, taking into account the preferences of recent immigrants. They may well, due to cultural values, place much higher emphasis on having children than we do.
I wouldn't be surprised to see an uptick in the birthrate in the next decade.
Not enough immigrants to change the figures that much. The underlying issue is that people of normal child-raising age can't afford to have children, because their finances are so stretched by mortgage payments.
Which is probably at least as big an issue for parents in the private school market.
It means that the state primary I went to is closing, because the area doesn't have enough children in it any more. Which is a bit sad, but not worth wading through blood for.
It is not just a UK problem though, across the developed world parents are having less children.
The UK fertility rate of 1.6 is actually higher than that in Canada, Germany, Japan, Italy, Spain, South Korea and China and the same as in Australia and only just below the 1.7 fertility rate in the US in 2024. Only France and Ireland at an average of 1.8 children per mother and Argentina at 1.9 are close to replacement rate of 2.1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fertility_rate
252,000 abortions in England Wales last year. Up 17% in a single year and the highest ever. You are way too sanguine.
Well we could certainly look at the time limit even if we don't go full GOP and try and ban it completely
I wouldn't put anything past the leadership of whatever is left of the Conservative Party after the election, but having a mad tilt at the abortion laws seems pretty low down the list of likely priorities. One advantage we have over the Americans is that the bulk of British society has no time for religion, and it's attendant hypocrisies, cruelty and oppression.
You can be an atheist and anti abortion and religious and not want to ban it, the Church of England and Church of Scotland for example don't want to ban it but reduce the numbers of abortions which most people in the UK would agree with.
The most senior anti abortion politician in the UK now is of course evangelical SNP Deputy FM Kate Forbes
I'm loathe to venture into such a issue of personal morality but imagine say a reduction in the current 22 week limit to 18 or 16 weeks. Does that actually reduce the number of abortions or would it tend to increase them by putting more time pressure on the decision to abort or not? The number of abortions didn't go down when the 24 week limit became a 22 week limit.
Though we did arguably preserve more human life given many medics now believe a 22 week foetus is a human
The smoking ban is moronic, incredibly disappointing to see SKS bringing it back
And, the triple lock.
By far the dumbest thing he's suggested is keeping that.
@BatteryCorrectHorse I know you have a thing about us Oldies screwing you youngsters and many of the issues are valid, but the state pension is a bit more nuanced. We have one of the lowest state pensions in the west. The triple lock is a way of gradually increasing it to a sensible level. For those on the basic pension this really isn't much money for them to live on. The way to claw it back from those of us who either have other pensions or like me with assets is through taxation.
I'm sure you don't think £11,500 per annum is an excessive amount to live on and they did contribute to this their whole working lives.
However given I already pay circa 4x my state pension in tax , when is enough enough for greedy whining arseholes like BCH. Personally I say F*** right off and go earn your own money loser, rather than wanting to sponge of pensioners.
Wow, you must have quite the pension if you’re paying £46k in tax. More proof that money doesn’t buy happiness I guess, since you appear to spend your days venting your spleen at all & sundry here on PB instead of being out there enjoying a retirement income that puts you in the top 1% of UK households.
You are a stupid clown Phil, I am still working and as happy as a sandboy. You clearly have no perception or understanding and I spend a miniscule amount of my time on here, luckily it has lots more intelligent than yourself for when I am here. @Phil
In unrelated news I appear to have adopted a German Shepherd. Existing dog, a Cavachon, is on the left, exhibiting the understandable shock of having another dog 10 times your weight appear in your home.
In unrelated news I appear to have adopted a German Shepherd. Existing dog, a Cavachon, is on the left, exhibiting the understandable shock of having another dog 10 times your weight appear in your home.
Surely the Cavachon is used to having a seal in the house which can be quite big buggers.
In unrelated news I appear to have adopted a German Shepherd. Existing dog, a Cavachon, is on the left, exhibiting the understandable shock of having another dog 10 times your weight appear in your home.
Surely the Cavachon is used to having a seal in the house which can quite big buggers.
I think this is perhaps the oddest day in politics in my lifetime. Whipping out, seemingly at random, a re-introduction of national service!? Labour going full on strange.
What is one to make of it all?!
Personally I haven't got a clue.
I heard an interview with Caroline Lucas on the radio a few days back - she reminded me that it was possible to be a Green and have some grasp on reality. No doubt the LDs could trundle out someone of at least temporary sanity too.
I think the best bet all round is to buy an Island, and before the furniture is installed make sure that you have a runway with Vulcan bombers fully nuclear armed (I don't trust the Americans and their B52). It'd be nice to be able to get a bit of a break then to install the chandeliers etc, but if not then a note of request for clarification should be issued to the rest of humanity.
According to that GB News clip with Portillo someone linked to, CCHQ has lined up a whole series of game-changing policy announcements to be dropped into the campaign at propitious moments, catching Labour completely off guard, but also catching the Conservatives completely off guard.
Now there’s a good topic for a header, Mods. Ten amazing policies which will turn around Conservative fortunes. Or we could have a competition for the most pointless ‘Conservative policy’. How about bringing back dog-licences?*
*Up until around 1987 anyone who owned a dog was required to have a licence for same. Cost 7/6 , or 37.5p.
A like for the header topic, not dog licences
Pity; I thought HYUFD might have been straight on the phone to CCHQ.
Given the number of vacancies I think he might be called up for National Tory Service in some constituency somewhere
Comments
In unrelated news I appear to have adopted a German Shepherd. Existing dog, a Cavachon, is on the left, exhibiting the understandable shock of having another dog 10 times your weight appear in your home.
I’m always sceptical about youth votes but could this be the election?