The key economic number is that the UK, alone of the G7 states, has a lower household income than before the pandemic. Employment levels are strong, productivity rather ho-hum, but set to improve, but real incomes have stagnated. Meanwhile the substantial real cuts across the public sector, especially in the NHS and local government, has left even middle income earners facing substantially increased real costs. The resulting squeeze has fallen disproportionately on middle and lower income earners, with the public sector pensions bill at £2,3 trillion now being larger than the total UK economy.
The Tory pensions bribe has sold the future for their own electoral advantage and left the UK living way beyond its means. The Tory version of austerity was burn everything except pensions. That cannot continue.
The country needs tro invest in infrastructure and substantially boost overall productivity, while reducing the national pensions burden. Its tricky political balance, and the clown car politics of the past 9 years have been little short of catastrophic. The Tories absolutely deserve the kicking they are going to get.
Labour will see some positive news, given inflation is stabilising and productivity can really only improve. However, restructuring UK public finances is a mammoth task, even to get to stability, let alone growth, Rachel Reeves has no magic wand, and it will be a tightrope walk to maintain growth while improving the long term productive capacity of the economy versus competition such as the US, or Germany, let alone China and India.
You are moving effortlessly from (questionable) estimates of future liabilities for occupational pensions in the public sector, to our state pension which at £200 a week is lower than our peer nations. This is separate from our need to invest in infrastructure and local government, and to increase economic growth.
Perhaps those on massive public sector pensions should be taxed to pay for a big increase in the state pension. An NHS doctor, when he/she retires will have a a monthly income more than double what the average person in this country earns. This is similar for many civil servants.
Tax the public sector fat cats! Will it happen under Labour? No chance. Fairness and increased taxes will mainly apply to people who generally don't vote for them.
A specific, additional tax for former doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters?
I don't disagree with general higher taxation on pensions income. But picking on public servants in particular is in effect the same as what you're pre-complaining about Labour.
It's also why public sector pensions aren't as valuable as you might think. Vulnerable to the whim of government.
We currently have a specific, additional tax for people on PAYE who are working for a living rather that is not paid by those on golden pensions. So why not the inverse?
Or, a radical idea, how about everyone on the same income pays the same rate of tax, regardless of how they earned that income?
I think we are in agreement on this. I'm suggesting that a tax on public sector pensions in particular is a bit odd.
For a start, an awful lot of the private sector rely on funding from the public sector. Would the fat pensions of Serco/G4S executives also be taxed?
Only thing more boring than Leon banging on about aliens or AI is people telling Leon how well/badly/inconsequential/incurious he is in his activities.
Super boring. And bizarre, tbh. Says more about the people who discuss Leon than Leon.
And the next step of boredom is people complaining about people discussing Leon.
The key economic number is that the UK, alone of the G7 states, has a lower household income than before the pandemic. Employment levels are strong, productivity rather ho-hum, but set to improve, but real incomes have stagnated. Meanwhile the substantial real cuts across the public sector, especially in the NHS and local government, has left even middle income earners facing substantially increased real costs. The resulting squeeze has fallen disproportionately on middle and lower income earners, with the public sector pensions bill at £2,3 trillion now being larger than the total UK economy.
The Tory pensions bribe has sold the future for their own electoral advantage and left the UK living way beyond its means. The Tory version of austerity was burn everything except pensions. That cannot continue.
The country needs tro invest in infrastructure and substantially boost overall productivity, while reducing the national pensions burden. Its tricky political balance, and the clown car politics of the past 9 years have been little short of catastrophic. The Tories absolutely deserve the kicking they are going to get.
Labour will see some positive news, given inflation is stabilising and productivity can really only improve. However, restructuring UK public finances is a mammoth task, even to get to stability, let alone growth, Rachel Reeves has no magic wand, and it will be a tightrope walk to maintain growth while improving the long term productive capacity of the economy versus competition such as the US, or Germany, let alone China and India.
You are moving effortlessly from (questionable) estimates of future liabilities for occupational pensions in the public sector, to our state pension which at £200 a week is lower than our peer nations. This is separate from our need to invest in infrastructure and local government, and to increase economic growth.
Perhaps those on massive public sector pensions should be taxed to pay for a big increase in the state pension. An NHS doctor, when he/she retires will have a a monthly income more than double what the average person in this country earns. This is similar for many civil servants.
Tax the public sector fat cats! Will it happen under Labour? No chance. Fairness and increased taxes will mainly apply to people who generally don't vote for them.
A specific, additional tax for former doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters?
I don't disagree with general higher taxation on pensions income. But picking on public servants in particular is in effect the same as what you're pre-complaining about Labour.
It's also why public sector pensions aren't as valuable as you might think. Vulnerable to the whim of government.
We have got quite lost on pensions stuff. The government should not be subsidising people to build up million pound plus pension pots whether in private or public sector.
Tax benefits of pension savings should only take it to a comfortable level, perhaps retire on median wage at pension age, so something in order of 500k retirement pot to give 20-25k income plus state pension.
Beyond that it should be taxed normally, otherwise we are simply incentivising our most productive workers to retire earlier and earlier, and then wondering why productivity is low.
The key economic number is that the UK, alone of the G7 states, has a lower household income than before the pandemic. Employment levels are strong, productivity rather ho-hum, but set to improve, but real incomes have stagnated. Meanwhile the substantial real cuts across the public sector, especially in the NHS and local government, has left even middle income earners facing substantially increased real costs. The resulting squeeze has fallen disproportionately on middle and lower income earners, with the public sector pensions bill at £2,3 trillion now being larger than the total UK economy.
The Tory pensions bribe has sold the future for their own electoral advantage and left the UK living way beyond its means. The Tory version of austerity was burn everything except pensions. That cannot continue.
The country needs tro invest in infrastructure and substantially boost overall productivity, while reducing the national pensions burden. Its tricky political balance, and the clown car politics of the past 9 years have been little short of catastrophic. The Tories absolutely deserve the kicking they are going to get.
Labour will see some positive news, given inflation is stabilising and productivity can really only improve. However, restructuring UK public finances is a mammoth task, even to get to stability, let alone growth, Rachel Reeves has no magic wand, and it will be a tightrope walk to maintain growth while improving the long term productive capacity of the economy versus competition such as the US, or Germany, let alone China and India.
You are moving effortlessly from (questionable) estimates of future liabilities for occupational pensions in the public sector, to our state pension which at £200 a week is lower than our peer nations. This is separate from our need to invest in infrastructure and local government, and to increase economic growth.
Perhaps those on massive public sector pensions should be taxed to pay for a big increase in the state pension. An NHS doctor, when he/she retires will have a a monthly income more than double what the average person in this country earns. This is similar for many civil servants.
Tax the public sector fat cats! Will it happen under Labour? No chance. Fairness and increased taxes will mainly apply to people who generally don't vote for them.
A specific, additional tax for former doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters?
I don't disagree with general higher taxation on pensions income. But picking on public servants in particular is in effect the same as what you're pre-complaining about Labour.
It's also why public sector pensions aren't as valuable as you might think. Vulnerable to the whim of government.
We currently have a specific, additional tax for people on PAYE who are working for a living rather that is not paid by those on golden pensions. So why not the inverse?
Or, a radical idea, how about everyone on the same income pays the same rate of tax, regardless of how they earned that income?
I think we are in agreement on this. I'm suggesting that a tax on public sector pensions in particular is a bit odd.
No more odd than a tax on workers.
If the government finances are messed up due to public sector pensions, then it seems appropriate to tax public sector pensions to pay for those pensions.
But the least we could do is not tax them less than people who are actually working for a living.
Re the Green score, its abit like the 'others' in Survation - who exactly? 1% PC and 6% between Galloway, Rod Liddle and the indies?? No. Edit- but all of that does indicate a huge dissatisfaction with the business as usual model
Only thing more boring than Leon banging on about aliens or AI is people telling Leon how well/badly/inconsequential/incurious he is in his activities.
Super boring. And bizarre, tbh. Says more about the people who discuss Leon than Leon.
And the next step of boredom is people complaining about people discussing Leon.
and even worse are the people who....oh fuckit
Even I get bored of “discussions about Leon” and I’m
So are we to judge from this poll Farages Russia comments have been well received and led to a surge of support for Reform.
Pb is (rightly) staunchly anti-Putin and his military expansion. A lot of the rest of the country, who pay less attention, will be quite open to Faragist rhetoric pushing for peace. Pb commentary about Farage's comments went a bit bonkers imo.
Good. We do not need wannabe Quislings in our democracy.
This is where I think Leon notably misreads this country. We are not the same as mainland Europe and don’t necessarily follow ‘behind’ their trends, which is an odd thing to have to remind a so-called brexiteer.
A good case can be made for saying that we had our rightward surge in 2016 and again in 2019, especially since migration was a big factor in those votes on top of EU centralised control.
That we are now almost certainly about to elect a Centre-Left Government may buck the continental trend, or it may show that we are, in fact, 10 years ahead of them.
Either way, and you can ignore the last bit, the main point is that we are not a typical mainland European country. We are an island nation with both an inward and outward facing dynamic.
We don’t generally do extremism. Since 1945, which was exceptional, we have never elected an extreme government of Right or Left. And however much froth and bubble they produce, neither Marxists nor Fascists have succeeded in winning a majority here.
Thankfully. Long may that continue.
I'm sad to see people just buying into the narrative of there being a significant rightward surge in Europe in general. As I attempted to show shortly after the results, there were countervailing currents in Europe. But people focus selectively so they highlighted the countries that fitted the narrative and stayed quiet on the ones that flowed the other direction. And before anyone says, it's not just that some countries get inherently more focus. In the past few years, Sweden had a lot of focus when it was going towards the right. In this election the result was a kind of stasis so oops we don't analyse that result.
People invested in politics get sucked in my these narratives because they want to feel something is happening. It's easier to justify the investment of time and emotion when you can kid yourself that a great historical tide is flowing even if in reality it's just the waves on the shore.
And of course, for some it's wishful thinking. You see it a lot on here. The country's about to take a moderate turn to the left. But where does that leave my "EVERYTHING FLOWING TO THE RIGHT!" story? Oh, easy, this incoming government will fail fast and the people will quickly wake up to our Lord and Saviour, Sir Nigel of Faragistan. And so a future that is so obviously unwritten collapses, in their minds, to a single inevitable conclusion. The obvious wrongness of this sense of inevitability ought to lead us to question every step they've made to get there. Including the recent past. What happened in the European elections is not what these people say happened. The picture is considerably more mixed and nuanced. But one of two blaring cakeholes shout a lie and everyone sort of absorbs it as gospel without checking.
Spot on. The Nordic countries are very different to Germany and the Netherlands. Poland is very different to Slovakia and Hungary. Portugal and Spain are very different to Italy. Greece is different again, having what seems to be a pretty competent, genuinely centre-right, socially liberal, quite popular government currently. France is going through what looks to be quite a unique trauma. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Sinn Fein has lost almost all the support that had previously seen it surge in the polls. And so on.
One thing that may unite much of Europe, though, including the UK is that the far right has pushed the centre right further rightwards on issues like immigration, the environment, the rule of law and so on. The French left is also now heading leftwards. I wonder if other countries will follow.
It’s a bollocks analysis, you should talk to someone who constantly travels - often around Europe - rather than some berk in a bed sit in Aberdeen. But it consoles you to believe this, so you will believe it
Do you think your 'here today, gone tomorrow' trips around Europe's tourist attractions give you an in depth understanding ?
Its possible to drive around a district by one route and think it highly affluent and to do it a different way and think it highly deprived.
Now extend that to a whole region, a whole country, a whole continent.
I’ve now travelled so much around the world I’ve gained an insight into travelling itself. It really does broaden the mind, but not in ways most people understand, because they don’t travel
As for my “trips around Europe’s tourist attractions” it’s maybe skipped your attention that I just spent a week in Moldova, literally the least touristy country in Europe (as in: fewest tourists) and that was followed by two days in Transnistria (zero tourists) and two weeks in war torn Ukraine (war tourists and dead tourists)
But you were still a tourist.
A different thing to living or doing business in that country.
I was doing business - I was working. Writing about the war and Ukraine. And writing about Moldova too
Your work is fleeting visits to a myriad of places, followed by writing about the local wine and churches.
It can be an interesting read, it might stimulate others to travel, but its essentially superficial.
For almost everyone else work is doing the same thing in the same place day after day, year after year.
They give different perspectives and different depths of understanding on places.
I’ve read this argument before. Somehow you understand more about a place if you sit in an office in that place for months, as compared to someone who goes to that place and reads all about it and goes out and talks to people all over the country
I’ve got friends who lived abroad for years and learned nothing of their host nation. They were expats, they didn’t care, they got drunk, didn’t learn the language. Whereas someone skilled can go to a country for two weeks and fillet it expertly and learn far more
Also the more you travel the smarter you get and the smarter you get the more you can learn in a short time. Its a virtuous cycle
Sorry, but having read your posts over a period of years, I am not sure the last sentence necessarily applies.
Only thing more boring than Leon banging on about aliens or AI is people telling Leon how well/badly/inconsequential/incurious he is in his activities.
Super boring. And bizarre, tbh. Says more about the people who discuss Leon than Leon.
And the next step of boredom is people complaining about people discussing Leon.
Very true. If people are insecure in their own lives I suppose I should live with it. Just trying to help people be their best selves. But yes good point. I won't mention it again.
Next MRP updates will be interesting, can the Tories cling on to 100 seats?? And are the MRP VI figures dropping or still above the regular polling %s?
One of the curiosities is how far from the betting consensus a lot of the forecasts are. The Economist currently predicts 185 for the Tories for example.
My election prediction had Tories on around 200 seats and 31% if IIRC, and I'm starting to wonder if that was a bit toppy.
Same. But then I see the 7% for Others in Survation, and I can see where shy/reluctant Tories might be hiding.
The reduction in the Tory share in the Survation polls over the course of the campaign is quite something, though. Starting with their 21-22 May poll, the Tory shares are:
27% 24% 23% 23% 20% 18%
If Survation end up being broadly accurate, then this campaign would look like the worst-ever British election campaign. May in 2017 didn't lose that much support, the closing of the gap was mainly because Corbyn was able to rally opposition support behind Labour.
The key economic number is that the UK, alone of the G7 states, has a lower household income than before the pandemic. Employment levels are strong, productivity rather ho-hum, but set to improve, but real incomes have stagnated. Meanwhile the substantial real cuts across the public sector, especially in the NHS and local government, has left even middle income earners facing substantially increased real costs. The resulting squeeze has fallen disproportionately on middle and lower income earners, with the public sector pensions bill at £2,3 trillion now being larger than the total UK economy.
The Tory pensions bribe has sold the future for their own electoral advantage and left the UK living way beyond its means. The Tory version of austerity was burn everything except pensions. That cannot continue.
The country needs tro invest in infrastructure and substantially boost overall productivity, while reducing the national pensions burden. Its tricky political balance, and the clown car politics of the past 9 years have been little short of catastrophic. The Tories absolutely deserve the kicking they are going to get.
Labour will see some positive news, given inflation is stabilising and productivity can really only improve. However, restructuring UK public finances is a mammoth task, even to get to stability, let alone growth, Rachel Reeves has no magic wand, and it will be a tightrope walk to maintain growth while improving the long term productive capacity of the economy versus competition such as the US, or Germany, let alone China and India.
You are moving effortlessly from (questionable) estimates of future liabilities for occupational pensions in the public sector, to our state pension which at £200 a week is lower than our peer nations. This is separate from our need to invest in infrastructure and local government, and to increase economic growth.
Perhaps those on massive public sector pensions should be taxed to pay for a big increase in the state pension. An NHS doctor, when he/she retires will have a a monthly income more than double what the average person in this country earns. This is similar for many civil servants.
Tax the public sector fat cats! Will it happen under Labour? No chance. Fairness and increased taxes will mainly apply to people who generally don't vote for them.
A specific, additional tax for former doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters?
I don't disagree with general higher taxation on pensions income. But picking on public servants in particular is in effect the same as what you're pre-complaining about Labour.
It's also why public sector pensions aren't as valuable as you might think. Vulnerable to the whim of government.
We currently have a specific, additional tax for people on PAYE who are working for a living rather that is not paid by those on golden pensions. So why not the inverse?
Or, a radical idea, how about everyone on the same income pays the same rate of tax, regardless of how they earned that income?
I think we are in agreement on this. I'm suggesting that a tax on public sector pensions in particular is a bit odd.
No more odd than a tax on workers.
If the government finances are messed up due to public sector pensions, then it seems appropriate to tax public sector pensions to pay for those pensions.
But the least we could do is not tax them less than people who are actually working for a living.
I edited my post btw - what would you do about the pensions of G4S executives? GPs? It would massively incentivise contract work in the public sector to get around the tax.
Ah very useful, thanks. I will be up all night (obvs) but it'll be good to have the expected declarations schedule in order to plan my catnaps.
I will be waiting to see if Labour massively miss expectations. I am not holding my breath, but it would be a moment almost as amusing as seeing Johnson had to resign. I can but dream. Either way, as they are a bunch of middle-manager lightweights they will crash at some point and I will be waiting to laugh.
Well if that's the way you want to approach things, Nigel. Seems a bit churlish to me - you could easily be waiting 10 years to have a laugh - but each to his own.
My advice, offered not just to you but to all anti-Labourites, is to meet Keir in the middle and wish him well as he takes on this great burden. A decade of national renewal under a changed Labour Party that is back in the service of working people will feel like an eternity if you spend it sniping and looking for cobwebs the whole time.
The key economic number is that the UK, alone of the G7 states, has a lower household income than before the pandemic. Employment levels are strong, productivity rather ho-hum, but set to improve, but real incomes have stagnated. Meanwhile the substantial real cuts across the public sector, especially in the NHS and local government, has left even middle income earners facing substantially increased real costs. The resulting squeeze has fallen disproportionately on middle and lower income earners, with the public sector pensions bill at £2,3 trillion now being larger than the total UK economy.
The Tory pensions bribe has sold the future for their own electoral advantage and left the UK living way beyond its means. The Tory version of austerity was burn everything except pensions. That cannot continue.
The country needs tro invest in infrastructure and substantially boost overall productivity, while reducing the national pensions burden. Its tricky political balance, and the clown car politics of the past 9 years have been little short of catastrophic. The Tories absolutely deserve the kicking they are going to get.
Labour will see some positive news, given inflation is stabilising and productivity can really only improve. However, restructuring UK public finances is a mammoth task, even to get to stability, let alone growth, Rachel Reeves has no magic wand, and it will be a tightrope walk to maintain growth while improving the long term productive capacity of the economy versus competition such as the US, or Germany, let alone China and India.
You are moving effortlessly from (questionable) estimates of future liabilities for occupational pensions in the public sector, to our state pension which at £200 a week is lower than our peer nations. This is separate from our need to invest in infrastructure and local government, and to increase economic growth.
Perhaps those on massive public sector pensions should be taxed to pay for a big increase in the state pension. An NHS doctor, when he/she retires will have a a monthly income more than double what the average person in this country earns. This is similar for many civil servants.
Tax the public sector fat cats! Will it happen under Labour? No chance. Fairness and increased taxes will mainly apply to people who generally don't vote for them.
A specific, additional tax for former doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters?
I don't disagree with general higher taxation on pensions income. But picking on public servants in particular is in effect the same as what you're pre-complaining about Labour.
It's also why public sector pensions aren't as valuable as you might think. Vulnerable to the whim of government.
We currently have a specific, additional tax for people on PAYE who are working for a living rather that is not paid by those on golden pensions. So why not the inverse?
Or, a radical idea, how about everyone on the same income pays the same rate of tax, regardless of how they earned that income?
I think we are in agreement on this. I'm suggesting that a tax on public sector pensions in particular is a bit odd.
For a start, an awful lot of the private sector rely on funding from the public sector. Would the fat pensions of Serco/G4S executives also be taxed?
Extending NI to all income would be a good start.
Or better still merge it with Income Tax and have all income (earned and unearned) having the same tax liabilities. It would simplify things and people would have afar better idea of exactly how much tax they are paying.
The key economic number is that the UK, alone of the G7 states, has a lower household income than before the pandemic. Employment levels are strong, productivity rather ho-hum, but set to improve, but real incomes have stagnated. Meanwhile the substantial real cuts across the public sector, especially in the NHS and local government, has left even middle income earners facing substantially increased real costs. The resulting squeeze has fallen disproportionately on middle and lower income earners, with the public sector pensions bill at £2,3 trillion now being larger than the total UK economy.
The Tory pensions bribe has sold the future for their own electoral advantage and left the UK living way beyond its means. The Tory version of austerity was burn everything except pensions. That cannot continue.
The country needs tro invest in infrastructure and substantially boost overall productivity, while reducing the national pensions burden. Its tricky political balance, and the clown car politics of the past 9 years have been little short of catastrophic. The Tories absolutely deserve the kicking they are going to get.
Labour will see some positive news, given inflation is stabilising and productivity can really only improve. However, restructuring UK public finances is a mammoth task, even to get to stability, let alone growth, Rachel Reeves has no magic wand, and it will be a tightrope walk to maintain growth while improving the long term productive capacity of the economy versus competition such as the US, or Germany, let alone China and India.
You are moving effortlessly from (questionable) estimates of future liabilities for occupational pensions in the public sector, to our state pension which at £200 a week is lower than our peer nations. This is separate from our need to invest in infrastructure and local government, and to increase economic growth.
Perhaps those on massive public sector pensions should be taxed to pay for a big increase in the state pension. An NHS doctor, when he/she retires will have a a monthly income more than double what the average person in this country earns. This is similar for many civil servants.
Tax the public sector fat cats! Will it happen under Labour? No chance. Fairness and increased taxes will mainly apply to people who generally don't vote for them.
Many civil servants? A small minority I think you'll find!
Not that the pension, even as it is now, isn't fairly generous. My defined benefit pension accumulates at about 2% of my salary per year.
It is a large enough minority that many are still able to retire early or have a security of income that equivalently paid private sector workers can only dream of. The scandal of it is that politicians never mention it because they too benefit from a system that is grossly unfair to the majority of their constituents. If the state can afford such huge contributions it should be putting it into the state pension equally, not giving huge pension bungs to people, many of whom are already very well off.
Another option would be to allow private sector workers to buy into a public sector pension offer.
It would offer a poorer rate of return than the market, but many people would value the certainty. Good for public sector workers also as there would be a broader constituency interested in defending their pensions.
“Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?
Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
We have reached the situation where I am in more in favour of higher taxes on the rich and property owners than the Labour party is.
Feeling rather bleak about it all really.
Seems we are heading to a Lab landslide that then fails to deliver any meaningful change because it has tied itself down to same finance plans as Tories for first term and it wont get a second when it fails to fix the broken public realm.
I can't legally watch it live so I'll be tucked up in bed long before the first declaration. I guess a new dawn will be breaking when I wake up.
Pretty sure Sky News's YouTube stream can be viewed anywhere.
Watching Sky News’s YouTube stream requires a TV licence if you’re in the UK, thanks to a lovely little quirk of law.
Yes, you can access it from anywhere in the world.
Brings to mind - what happens if you fire up a live broadcaster's stream, let's say Sky News on YouTube and then go back say five minutes and continue to watch with a five minute delay? The TV licensing website isn't, to me, very clear on that, only talking about watching live. Of course, even watching 'live' there is a delay compared to the live DVB broadcast, as previously discussed.
(I have a TV licence, so this is all academic to me, but these corner cases are another argument for funding out of general taxation rather than a regressive and hard to enforce licence fee.)
Good. We do not need wannabe Quislings in our democracy.
This is where I think Leon notably misreads this country. We are not the same as mainland Europe and don’t necessarily follow ‘behind’ their trends, which is an odd thing to have to remind a so-called brexiteer.
A good case can be made for saying that we had our rightward surge in 2016 and again in 2019, especially since migration was a big factor in those votes on top of EU centralised control.
That we are now almost certainly about to elect a Centre-Left Government may buck the continental trend, or it may show that we are, in fact, 10 years ahead of them.
Either way, and you can ignore the last bit, the main point is that we are not a typical mainland European country. We are an island nation with both an inward and outward facing dynamic.
We don’t generally do extremism. Since 1945, which was exceptional, we have never elected an extreme government of Right or Left. And however much froth and bubble they produce, neither Marxists nor Fascists have succeeded in winning a majority here.
Thankfully. Long may that continue.
I'm sad to see people just buying into the narrative of there being a significant rightward surge in Europe in general. As I attempted to show shortly after the results, there were countervailing currents in Europe. But people focus selectively so they highlighted the countries that fitted the narrative and stayed quiet on the ones that flowed the other direction. And before anyone says, it's not just that some countries get inherently more focus. In the past few years, Sweden had a lot of focus when it was going towards the right. In this election the result was a kind of stasis so oops we don't analyse that result.
People invested in politics get sucked in my these narratives because they want to feel something is happening. It's easier to justify the investment of time and emotion when you can kid yourself that a great historical tide is flowing even if in reality it's just the waves on the shore.
And of course, for some it's wishful thinking. You see it a lot on here. The country's about to take a moderate turn to the left. But where does that leave my "EVERYTHING FLOWING TO THE RIGHT!" story? Oh, easy, this incoming government will fail fast and the people will quickly wake up to our Lord and Saviour, Sir Nigel of Faragistan. And so a future that is so obviously unwritten collapses, in their minds, to a single inevitable conclusion. The obvious wrongness of this sense of inevitability ought to lead us to question every step they've made to get there. Including the recent past. What happened in the European elections is not what these people say happened. The picture is considerably more mixed and nuanced. But one of two blaring cakeholes shout a lie and everyone sort of absorbs it as gospel without checking.
Spot on. The Nordic countries are very different to Germany and the Netherlands. Poland is very different to Slovakia and Hungary. Portugal and Spain are very different to Italy. Greece is different again, having what seems to be a pretty competent, genuinely centre-right, socially liberal, quite popular government currently. France is going through what looks to be quite a unique trauma. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Sinn Fein has lost almost all the support that had previously seen it surge in the polls. And so on.
One thing that may unite much of Europe, though, including the UK is that the far right has pushed the centre right further rightwards on issues like immigration, the environment, the rule of law and so on. The French left is also now heading leftwards. I wonder if other countries will follow.
It’s a bollocks analysis, you should talk to someone who constantly travels - often around Europe - rather than some berk in a bed sit in Aberdeen. But it consoles you to believe this, so you will believe it
Do you think your 'here today, gone tomorrow' trips around Europe's tourist attractions give you an in depth understanding ?
Its possible to drive around a district by one route and think it highly affluent and to do it a different way and think it highly deprived.
Now extend that to a whole region, a whole country, a whole continent.
I’ve now travelled so much around the world I’ve gained an insight into travelling itself. It really does broaden the mind, but not in ways most people understand, because they don’t travel
As for my “trips around Europe’s tourist attractions” it’s maybe skipped your attention that I just spent a week in Moldova, literally the least touristy country in Europe (as in: fewest tourists) and that was followed by two days in Transnistria (zero tourists) and two weeks in war torn Ukraine (war tourists and dead tourists)
But you were still a tourist.
A different thing to living or doing business in that country.
I was doing business - I was working. Writing about the war and Ukraine. And writing about Moldova too
Your work is fleeting visits to a myriad of places, followed by writing about the local wine and churches.
It can be an interesting read, it might stimulate others to travel, but its essentially superficial.
For almost everyone else work is doing the same thing in the same place day after day, year after year.
They give different perspectives and different depths of understanding on places.
I’ve read this argument before. Somehow you understand more about a place if you sit in an office in that place for months, as compared to someone who goes to that place and reads all about it and goes out and talks to people all over the country
I’ve got friends who lived abroad for years and learned nothing of their host nation. They were expats, they didn’t care, they got drunk, didn’t learn the language. Whereas someone skilled can go to a country for two weeks and fillet it expertly and learn far more
Also the more you travel the smarter you get and the smarter you get the more you can learn in a short time. Its a virtuous cycle
You're likely right about expats often knowing little outside the local expat community.
But I'm not talking about expats I mean people who live in their own country.
Just reading PB shows how varied the life experiences of different people in different careers in different parts of the country can be. And PBers are certainly not the most varied group - too male, too middle class, too middle aged, too nerdy.
This morning's Survation is yet another poll showing the Tories coming 3rd in seats:
Con 41 Lab 495 LD 63 Ref 3 Green 2 SNP 21 PC 4 Other 3 NI 18
Sunak's seat is due to declare at 4am. The polls suggest it's one worth staying up for.
These declaration times are often not very reliable. That's been the experience in the past. But it's better to have them than to have no estimates at all.
There’s obviously boundary changes this time, which complicates things slightly, but probably the closest guide to what will happen on the morning of 5th July.
My plan is to have a sleep from 8pm to 11pm next Thursday, hopefully getting enough sleep to stay up all night
I've got to be out during the evening and should get home or be 'en route' as the exit poll drops
I’ve got a boozy lunch with my agent so I plan to sleep it off in the arvo and wake up early evening and pull all nighter
This is historic. It has to be watched. I’m on the right but I will be bitterly disappointed if all the polls are wrong and Labour come home with a 57 seat majority and the Tories retain 200 MPs
Good. We do not need wannabe Quislings in our democracy.
This is where I think Leon notably misreads this country. We are not the same as mainland Europe and don’t necessarily follow ‘behind’ their trends, which is an odd thing to have to remind a so-called brexiteer.
A good case can be made for saying that we had our rightward surge in 2016 and again in 2019, especially since migration was a big factor in those votes on top of EU centralised control.
That we are now almost certainly about to elect a Centre-Left Government may buck the continental trend, or it may show that we are, in fact, 10 years ahead of them.
Either way, and you can ignore the last bit, the main point is that we are not a typical mainland European country. We are an island nation with both an inward and outward facing dynamic.
We don’t generally do extremism. Since 1945, which was exceptional, we have never elected an extreme government of Right or Left. And however much froth and bubble they produce, neither Marxists nor Fascists have succeeded in winning a majority here.
Thankfully. Long may that continue.
I'm sad to see people just buying into the narrative of there being a significant rightward surge in Europe in general. As I attempted to show shortly after the results, there were countervailing currents in Europe. But people focus selectively so they highlighted the countries that fitted the narrative and stayed quiet on the ones that flowed the other direction. And before anyone says, it's not just that some countries get inherently more focus. In the past few years, Sweden had a lot of focus when it was going towards the right. In this election the result was a kind of stasis so oops we don't analyse that result.
People invested in politics get sucked in my these narratives because they want to feel something is happening. It's easier to justify the investment of time and emotion when you can kid yourself that a great historical tide is flowing even if in reality it's just the waves on the shore.
And of course, for some it's wishful thinking. You see it a lot on here. The country's about to take a moderate turn to the left. But where does that leave my "EVERYTHING FLOWING TO THE RIGHT!" story? Oh, easy, this incoming government will fail fast and the people will quickly wake up to our Lord and Saviour, Sir Nigel of Faragistan. And so a future that is so obviously unwritten collapses, in their minds, to a single inevitable conclusion. The obvious wrongness of this sense of inevitability ought to lead us to question every step they've made to get there. Including the recent past. What happened in the European elections is not what these people say happened. The picture is considerably more mixed and nuanced. But one of two blaring cakeholes shout a lie and everyone sort of absorbs it as gospel without checking.
Spot on. The Nordic countries are very different to Germany and the Netherlands. Poland is very different to Slovakia and Hungary. Portugal and Spain are very different to Italy. Greece is different again, having what seems to be a pretty competent, genuinely centre-right, socially liberal, quite popular government currently. France is going through what looks to be quite a unique trauma. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Sinn Fein has lost almost all the support that had previously seen it surge in the polls. And so on.
One thing that may unite much of Europe, though, including the UK is that the far right has pushed the centre right further rightwards on issues like immigration, the environment, the rule of law and so on. The French left is also now heading leftwards. I wonder if other countries will follow.
It’s a bollocks analysis, you should talk to someone who constantly travels - often around Europe - rather than some berk in a bed sit in Aberdeen. But it consoles you to believe this, so you will believe it
Do you think your 'here today, gone tomorrow' trips around Europe's tourist attractions give you an in depth understanding ?
Its possible to drive around a district by one route and think it highly affluent and to do it a different way and think it highly deprived.
Now extend that to a whole region, a whole country, a whole continent.
I’ve now travelled so much around the world I’ve gained an insight into travelling itself. It really does broaden the mind, but not in ways most people understand, because they don’t travel
As for my “trips around Europe’s tourist attractions” it’s maybe skipped your attention that I just spent a week in Moldova, literally the least touristy country in Europe (as in: fewest tourists) and that was followed by two days in Transnistria (zero tourists) and two weeks in war torn Ukraine (war tourists and dead tourists)
But you were still a tourist.
A different thing to living or doing business in that country.
I was doing business - I was working. Writing about the war and Ukraine. And writing about Moldova too
Why didn't you go to the front line if you were writing about the war? Just asking
Here’s a video I took from my hotel balcony in Odessa of drones slamming into Odessa as the Ukrainians desperately tried to shoot them down
You can just see tracer fire but it’s night so mostly invisible so you need to turn the audio up high
I know people in Odessa, and it is very unpleasant and I wouldn't wish to diminish the misery that the Russian despot is causing them, but equally, because I know people there, I think you visiting for a kind of sightseeing visit to burnish your bravado is the epitome of crass. If you want to "write about the war" go to the frontline.
I will be in Milan for a conference and have therefore postal voted (for the first time ever).... but I can guarantee you that me and the hotelroom minibar will be up all night watching results roll in.
Hislop's comment. If you are a usual Tory, and you're voting for Starmer, be in no doubt: you are voting to embrace aspects of socialism:
"This is an important piece of journalism in that it adds to our understanding of the enigma that is Starmer. It affirms that the man has integrity and is prepared to modify his views when confronted by evidence.
If Labour wins, the electorate has to accept that the government will embrace aspects of socialism. The government will not be Tory lite. The Tory Party destroyed its traditional conservative core. The price of this is something more radical. However, something radical is needed. The Tories have wasted 14 years in government. Radical change is never painless, as we discovered under Thatcher.
Let us hope that Starmer has her mettle."
Embrace aspects of socialism! Great! Sign me up!!!!
My plan is to have a sleep from 8pm to 11pm next Thursday, hopefully getting enough sleep to stay up all night
I would struggle to go to sleep early! But I don’t think I can pull an all nighter. So, stay up for the exit poll, go to sleep, get up at ~2, watch the busiest period of results, go to sleep maybe ~4, sleep in, office summer party in the afternoon.
Good. We do not need wannabe Quislings in our democracy.
This is where I think Leon notably misreads this country. We are not the same as mainland Europe and don’t necessarily follow ‘behind’ their trends, which is an odd thing to have to remind a so-called brexiteer.
A good case can be made for saying that we had our rightward surge in 2016 and again in 2019, especially since migration was a big factor in those votes on top of EU centralised control.
That we are now almost certainly about to elect a Centre-Left Government may buck the continental trend, or it may show that we are, in fact, 10 years ahead of them.
Either way, and you can ignore the last bit, the main point is that we are not a typical mainland European country. We are an island nation with both an inward and outward facing dynamic.
We don’t generally do extremism. Since 1945, which was exceptional, we have never elected an extreme government of Right or Left. And however much froth and bubble they produce, neither Marxists nor Fascists have succeeded in winning a majority here.
Thankfully. Long may that continue.
I'm sad to see people just buying into the narrative of there being a significant rightward surge in Europe in general. As I attempted to show shortly after the results, there were countervailing currents in Europe. But people focus selectively so they highlighted the countries that fitted the narrative and stayed quiet on the ones that flowed the other direction. And before anyone says, it's not just that some countries get inherently more focus. In the past few years, Sweden had a lot of focus when it was going towards the right. In this election the result was a kind of stasis so oops we don't analyse that result.
People invested in politics get sucked in my these narratives because they want to feel something is happening. It's easier to justify the investment of time and emotion when you can kid yourself that a great historical tide is flowing even if in reality it's just the waves on the shore.
And of course, for some it's wishful thinking. You see it a lot on here. The country's about to take a moderate turn to the left. But where does that leave my "EVERYTHING FLOWING TO THE RIGHT!" story? Oh, easy, this incoming government will fail fast and the people will quickly wake up to our Lord and Saviour, Sir Nigel of Faragistan. And so a future that is so obviously unwritten collapses, in their minds, to a single inevitable conclusion. The obvious wrongness of this sense of inevitability ought to lead us to question every step they've made to get there. Including the recent past. What happened in the European elections is not what these people say happened. The picture is considerably more mixed and nuanced. But one of two blaring cakeholes shout a lie and everyone sort of absorbs it as gospel without checking.
Spot on. The Nordic countries are very different to Germany and the Netherlands. Poland is very different to Slovakia and Hungary. Portugal and Spain are very different to Italy. Greece is different again, having what seems to be a pretty competent, genuinely centre-right, socially liberal, quite popular government currently. France is going through what looks to be quite a unique trauma. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Sinn Fein has lost almost all the support that had previously seen it surge in the polls. And so on.
One thing that may unite much of Europe, though, including the UK is that the far right has pushed the centre right further rightwards on issues like immigration, the environment, the rule of law and so on. The French left is also now heading leftwards. I wonder if other countries will follow.
It’s a bollocks analysis, you should talk to someone who constantly travels - often around Europe - rather than some berk in a bed sit in Aberdeen. But it consoles you to believe this, so you will believe it
Do you think your 'here today, gone tomorrow' trips around Europe's tourist attractions give you an in depth understanding ?
Its possible to drive around a district by one route and think it highly affluent and to do it a different way and think it highly deprived.
Now extend that to a whole region, a whole country, a whole continent.
I’ve now travelled so much around the world I’ve gained an insight into travelling itself. It really does broaden the mind, but not in ways most people understand, because they don’t travel
As for my “trips around Europe’s tourist attractions” it’s maybe skipped your attention that I just spent a week in Moldova, literally the least touristy country in Europe (as in: fewest tourists) and that was followed by two days in Transnistria (zero tourists) and two weeks in war torn Ukraine (war tourists and dead tourists)
But you were still a tourist.
A different thing to living or doing business in that country.
I was doing business - I was working. Writing about the war and Ukraine. And writing about Moldova too
Why didn't you go to the front line if you were writing about the war? Just asking
Here’s a video I took from my hotel balcony in Odessa of drones slamming into Odessa as the Ukrainians desperately tried to shoot them down
You can just see tracer fire but it’s night so mostly invisible so you need to turn the audio up high
One thing that fucking amazed me about my Ukraine trip was how easy it was to move around. I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to get to Kharkov but I reckon I drove to within 20km of the FEBA with zero hindrance from UAF or internal security. I saw plenty of checkpoints but with nobody manning them.
Good. We do not need wannabe Quislings in our democracy.
This is where I think Leon notably misreads this country. We are not the same as mainland Europe and don’t necessarily follow ‘behind’ their trends, which is an odd thing to have to remind a so-called brexiteer.
A good case can be made for saying that we had our rightward surge in 2016 and again in 2019, especially since migration was a big factor in those votes on top of EU centralised control.
That we are now almost certainly about to elect a Centre-Left Government may buck the continental trend, or it may show that we are, in fact, 10 years ahead of them.
Either way, and you can ignore the last bit, the main point is that we are not a typical mainland European country. We are an island nation with both an inward and outward facing dynamic.
We don’t generally do extremism. Since 1945, which was exceptional, we have never elected an extreme government of Right or Left. And however much froth and bubble they produce, neither Marxists nor Fascists have succeeded in winning a majority here.
Thankfully. Long may that continue.
I'm sad to see people just buying into the narrative of there being a significant rightward surge in Europe in general. As I attempted to show shortly after the results, there were countervailing currents in Europe. But people focus selectively so they highlighted the countries that fitted the narrative and stayed quiet on the ones that flowed the other direction. And before anyone says, it's not just that some countries get inherently more focus. In the past few years, Sweden had a lot of focus when it was going towards the right. In this election the result was a kind of stasis so oops we don't analyse that result.
People invested in politics get sucked in my these narratives because they want to feel something is happening. It's easier to justify the investment of time and emotion when you can kid yourself that a great historical tide is flowing even if in reality it's just the waves on the shore.
And of course, for some it's wishful thinking. You see it a lot on here. The country's about to take a moderate turn to the left. But where does that leave my "EVERYTHING FLOWING TO THE RIGHT!" story? Oh, easy, this incoming government will fail fast and the people will quickly wake up to our Lord and Saviour, Sir Nigel of Faragistan. And so a future that is so obviously unwritten collapses, in their minds, to a single inevitable conclusion. The obvious wrongness of this sense of inevitability ought to lead us to question every step they've made to get there. Including the recent past. What happened in the European elections is not what these people say happened. The picture is considerably more mixed and nuanced. But one of two blaring cakeholes shout a lie and everyone sort of absorbs it as gospel without checking.
Spot on. The Nordic countries are very different to Germany and the Netherlands. Poland is very different to Slovakia and Hungary. Portugal and Spain are very different to Italy. Greece is different again, having what seems to be a pretty competent, genuinely centre-right, socially liberal, quite popular government currently. France is going through what looks to be quite a unique trauma. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Sinn Fein has lost almost all the support that had previously seen it surge in the polls. And so on.
One thing that may unite much of Europe, though, including the UK is that the far right has pushed the centre right further rightwards on issues like immigration, the environment, the rule of law and so on. The French left is also now heading leftwards. I wonder if other countries will follow.
It’s a bollocks analysis, you should talk to someone who constantly travels - often around Europe - rather than some berk in a bed sit in Aberdeen. But it consoles you to believe this, so you will believe it
Do you think your 'here today, gone tomorrow' trips around Europe's tourist attractions give you an in depth understanding ?
Its possible to drive around a district by one route and think it highly affluent and to do it a different way and think it highly deprived.
Now extend that to a whole region, a whole country, a whole continent.
I’ve now travelled so much around the world I’ve gained an insight into travelling itself. It really does broaden the mind, but not in ways most people understand, because they don’t travel
As for my “trips around Europe’s tourist attractions” it’s maybe skipped your attention that I just spent a week in Moldova, literally the least touristy country in Europe (as in: fewest tourists) and that was followed by two days in Transnistria (zero tourists) and two weeks in war torn Ukraine (war tourists and dead tourists)
But you were still a tourist.
A different thing to living or doing business in that country.
I was doing business - I was working. Writing about the war and Ukraine. And writing about Moldova too
Your work is fleeting visits to a myriad of places, followed by writing about the local wine and churches.
It can be an interesting read, it might stimulate others to travel, but its essentially superficial.
For almost everyone else work is doing the same thing in the same place day after day, year after year.
They give different perspectives and different depths of understanding on places.
I’ve read this argument before. Somehow you understand more about a place if you sit in an office in that place for months, as compared to someone who goes to that place and reads all about it and goes out and talks to people all over the country
I’ve got friends who lived abroad for years and learned nothing of their host nation. They were expats, they didn’t care, they got drunk, didn’t learn the language. Whereas someone skilled can go to a country for two weeks and fillet it expertly and learn far more
Also the more you travel the smarter you get and the smarter you get the more you can learn in a short time. Its a virtuous cycle
You're likely right about expats often knowing little outside the local expat community.
But I'm not talking about expats I mean people who live in their own country.
Just reading PB shows how varied the life experiences of different people in different careers in different parts of the country can be. And PBers are certainly not the most varied group - too male, too middle class, too middle aged, too nerdy.
I am completely different to most PB-ers, as is obvious
In fact I’m completely different to 99.4% of humanity and that has good and bad consequences - for me. I’ve learned to live with it
What I’ve not learned to live with are the downsides of my job. Eg I want to be angry about politics buta it’s really hard to be angry when this is your view. This is what I’m staring at right now. Bastards
“Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?
Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
We have reached the situation where I am in more in favour of higher taxes on the rich and property owners than the Labour party is.
Feeling rather bleak about it all really.
Seems we are heading to a Lab landslide that then fails to deliver any meaningful change because it has tied itself down to same finance plans as Tories for first term and it wont get a second when it fails to fix the broken public realm.
Labour had better hope it gets the 'growth' it babbles about like a blind man talking about colours.
And that the public sector unions are more than helpful or pay rises and productivity.
If not then it might get a second term but it will be too late then to do anything radical.
I do wonder whether something that could motivate the Anti-Tory vote is the chance to be part of history.
There are plenty of less politically engaged people, some of whom might not even necessarily vote regularly - who might find it funny to imagine the below and participate in it.
(found the image on Twitter)
Although 0 seats itself is very very unlikely, 0-100 Tory seats is now very possible - how do we account for a ‘pile on’ effect - the way in which giving a kicking to someone can be a motivating factor in itself?
Maybe this counteracts the idea that ‘Labour victory certainty = lower turnout’ - maybe that’s more true when the ‘inevitable’ winner is the incumbent, like in 2001.
“Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?
Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
We have reached the situation where I am in more in favour of higher taxes on the rich and property owners than the Labour party is.
Feeling rather bleak about it all really.
Seems we are heading to a Lab landslide that then fails to deliver any meaningful change because it has tied itself down to same finance plans as Tories for first term and it wont get a second when it fails to fix the broken public realm.
Nothing is certain in all this, but I think they are very likely to get a second term. The Tories are likely to have a very steep mountain to climb (even more than Labour this time). And, unlike Labour, it seems improbable they will come to their senses quickly in terms of leadership - it's likely to be an extended civil war.
I agree that they could have afforded to give themselves more flexibility on finances. "We won't cut this, and won't raise taxes on that..." very quickly adds up to having sod all room for manoeuvre.
“Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?
Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
Council tax set for a big rise then.
The most simple and stealthy way to get a wealth tax in.
It will be clumsy and deeply unfair, but within the boundaries of what can actually be achieved.
You cover it up by offloading all the blame to councils, like all council funding cuts over the last 14 years, and offer an olive branch of bands/rates reform (that will never actually materialise).
The key economic number is that the UK, alone of the G7 states, has a lower household income than before the pandemic. Employment levels are strong, productivity rather ho-hum, but set to improve, but real incomes have stagnated. Meanwhile the substantial real cuts across the public sector, especially in the NHS and local government, has left even middle income earners facing substantially increased real costs. The resulting squeeze has fallen disproportionately on middle and lower income earners, with the public sector pensions bill at £2,3 trillion now being larger than the total UK economy.
The Tory pensions bribe has sold the future for their own electoral advantage and left the UK living way beyond its means. The Tory version of austerity was burn everything except pensions. That cannot continue.
The country needs tro invest in infrastructure and substantially boost overall productivity, while reducing the national pensions burden. Its tricky political balance, and the clown car politics of the past 9 years have been little short of catastrophic. The Tories absolutely deserve the kicking they are going to get.
Labour will see some positive news, given inflation is stabilising and productivity can really only improve. However, restructuring UK public finances is a mammoth task, even to get to stability, let alone growth, Rachel Reeves has no magic wand, and it will be a tightrope walk to maintain growth while improving the long term productive capacity of the economy versus competition such as the US, or Germany, let alone China and India.
You are moving effortlessly from (questionable) estimates of future liabilities for occupational pensions in the public sector, to our state pension which at £200 a week is lower than our peer nations. This is separate from our need to invest in infrastructure and local government, and to increase economic growth.
Perhaps those on massive public sector pensions should be taxed to pay for a big increase in the state pension. An NHS doctor, when he/she retires will have a a monthly income more than double what the average person in this country earns. This is similar for many civil servants.
Tax the public sector fat cats! Will it happen under Labour? No chance. Fairness and increased taxes will mainly apply to people who generally don't vote for them.
A specific, additional tax for former doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters?
I don't disagree with general higher taxation on pensions income. But picking on public servants in particular is in effect the same as what you're pre-complaining about Labour.
It's also why public sector pensions aren't as valuable as you might think. Vulnerable to the whim of government.
We currently have a specific, additional tax for people on PAYE who are working for a living rather that is not paid by those on golden pensions. So why not the inverse?
Or, a radical idea, how about everyone on the same income pays the same rate of tax, regardless of how they earned that income?
I think we are in agreement on this. I'm suggesting that a tax on public sector pensions in particular is a bit odd.
No more odd than a tax on workers.
If the government finances are messed up due to public sector pensions, then it seems appropriate to tax public sector pensions to pay for those pensions.
But the least we could do is not tax them less than people who are actually working for a living.
Government finances are not messed up due to public sector pensions. Many people took public sector jobs on much lower wages because of other benefits, like good pensions. To undermine that would cause huge mistrust and see extensive industrial action.
Tax all pensions more, by all means, but it would not be sustainable to tax specifically public sector pensions.
Good. We do not need wannabe Quislings in our democracy.
This is where I think Leon notably misreads this country. We are not the same as mainland Europe and don’t necessarily follow ‘behind’ their trends, which is an odd thing to have to remind a so-called brexiteer.
A good case can be made for saying that we had our rightward surge in 2016 and again in 2019, especially since migration was a big factor in those votes on top of EU centralised control.
That we are now almost certainly about to elect a Centre-Left Government may buck the continental trend, or it may show that we are, in fact, 10 years ahead of them.
Either way, and you can ignore the last bit, the main point is that we are not a typical mainland European country. We are an island nation with both an inward and outward facing dynamic.
We don’t generally do extremism. Since 1945, which was exceptional, we have never elected an extreme government of Right or Left. And however much froth and bubble they produce, neither Marxists nor Fascists have succeeded in winning a majority here.
Thankfully. Long may that continue.
I'm sad to see people just buying into the narrative of there being a significant rightward surge in Europe in general. As I attempted to show shortly after the results, there were countervailing currents in Europe. But people focus selectively so they highlighted the countries that fitted the narrative and stayed quiet on the ones that flowed the other direction. And before anyone says, it's not just that some countries get inherently more focus. In the past few years, Sweden had a lot of focus when it was going towards the right. In this election the result was a kind of stasis so oops we don't analyse that result.
People invested in politics get sucked in my these narratives because they want to feel something is happening. It's easier to justify the investment of time and emotion when you can kid yourself that a great historical tide is flowing even if in reality it's just the waves on the shore.
And of course, for some it's wishful thinking. You see it a lot on here. The country's about to take a moderate turn to the left. But where does that leave my "EVERYTHING FLOWING TO THE RIGHT!" story? Oh, easy, this incoming government will fail fast and the people will quickly wake up to our Lord and Saviour, Sir Nigel of Faragistan. And so a future that is so obviously unwritten collapses, in their minds, to a single inevitable conclusion. The obvious wrongness of this sense of inevitability ought to lead us to question every step they've made to get there. Including the recent past. What happened in the European elections is not what these people say happened. The picture is considerably more mixed and nuanced. But one of two blaring cakeholes shout a lie and everyone sort of absorbs it as gospel without checking.
Spot on. The Nordic countries are very different to Germany and the Netherlands. Poland is very different to Slovakia and Hungary. Portugal and Spain are very different to Italy. Greece is different again, having what seems to be a pretty competent, genuinely centre-right, socially liberal, quite popular government currently. France is going through what looks to be quite a unique trauma. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Sinn Fein has lost almost all the support that had previously seen it surge in the polls. And so on.
One thing that may unite much of Europe, though, including the UK is that the far right has pushed the centre right further rightwards on issues like immigration, the environment, the rule of law and so on. The French left is also now heading leftwards. I wonder if other countries will follow.
It’s a bollocks analysis, you should talk to someone who constantly travels - often around Europe - rather than some berk in a bed sit in Aberdeen. But it consoles you to believe this, so you will believe it
Do you think your 'here today, gone tomorrow' trips around Europe's tourist attractions give you an in depth understanding ?
Its possible to drive around a district by one route and think it highly affluent and to do it a different way and think it highly deprived.
Now extend that to a whole region, a whole country, a whole continent.
I’ve now travelled so much around the world I’ve gained an insight into travelling itself. It really does broaden the mind, but not in ways most people understand, because they don’t travel
As for my “trips around Europe’s tourist attractions” it’s maybe skipped your attention that I just spent a week in Moldova, literally the least touristy country in Europe (as in: fewest tourists) and that was followed by two days in Transnistria (zero tourists) and two weeks in war torn Ukraine (war tourists and dead tourists)
But you were still a tourist.
A different thing to living or doing business in that country.
I was doing business - I was working. Writing about the war and Ukraine. And writing about Moldova too
Your work is fleeting visits to a myriad of places, followed by writing about the local wine and churches.
It can be an interesting read, it might stimulate others to travel, but its essentially superficial.
For almost everyone else work is doing the same thing in the same place day after day, year after year.
They give different perspectives and different depths of understanding on places.
One of the golden rules of late stage capitalism the more useless your work the more you get paid.
Whereas in Russia it is that the further you are up Putin's arse you are, the greater your chance of becoming either a billionaire or falling out of a hotel bedroom window.
Local campaigning update: had a little time to wind my way home from a day out and check the lamppost game in a couple more places yesterday. General impressions:
Dewsbury & Batley: the most intensive poster battle there is - hundreds of posters all along the roads not just in the locality centres, probably around 2:1 in favour of Iqbal Mohammed, the Independent. Labour posting only the candidate name, Heather Iqbal, posters, with the minimal 'Vote Labour' in the bottom left and have eschewed primary red for a pink into purple blend effect. Surely voters aren't fooled by that stuff!
Spen Valley: Dominant Labour postering in a few localities, with a bit of the very dark blue Reform boards. More traditional Labour poster mix, plus a few white diamonds with the pink/purple edging and worded 'Vote Local, Vote Kim'.
Ossett & Denby Dale: very little lamppost game, despite it being allowed both on Wakefield and Kirklees parts of the constituency. A few Mark Eastwood (Con) posters and a lone Labour poster in Middlestown, and a further lone Eastwood poster in Clayton West, but nothing at all in 3 other villages.
As per previous, Colne Valley Labour have responded and edged out the early Jason McCartney (Con) posters, with a smattering of Green and Reform posters.
Huddersfield, postering is fairly intense with Green and Labour matching poster for poster in most places, but with the odd dominant spot (e.g. central Newsome all green, central Almondbury mostly red) and a small number of posters for Reform
The key economic number is that the UK, alone of the G7 states, has a lower household income than before the pandemic. Employment levels are strong, productivity rather ho-hum, but set to improve, but real incomes have stagnated. Meanwhile the substantial real cuts across the public sector, especially in the NHS and local government, has left even middle income earners facing substantially increased real costs. The resulting squeeze has fallen disproportionately on middle and lower income earners, with the public sector pensions bill at £2,3 trillion now being larger than the total UK economy.
The Tory pensions bribe has sold the future for their own electoral advantage and left the UK living way beyond its means. The Tory version of austerity was burn everything except pensions. That cannot continue.
The country needs tro invest in infrastructure and substantially boost overall productivity, while reducing the national pensions burden. Its tricky political balance, and the clown car politics of the past 9 years have been little short of catastrophic. The Tories absolutely deserve the kicking they are going to get.
Labour will see some positive news, given inflation is stabilising and productivity can really only improve. However, restructuring UK public finances is a mammoth task, even to get to stability, let alone growth, Rachel Reeves has no magic wand, and it will be a tightrope walk to maintain growth while improving the long term productive capacity of the economy versus competition such as the US, or Germany, let alone China and India.
You are moving effortlessly from (questionable) estimates of future liabilities for occupational pensions in the public sector, to our state pension which at £200 a week is lower than our peer nations. This is separate from our need to invest in infrastructure and local government, and to increase economic growth.
Perhaps those on massive public sector pensions should be taxed to pay for a big increase in the state pension. An NHS doctor, when he/she retires will have a a monthly income more than double what the average person in this country earns. This is similar for many civil servants.
Tax the public sector fat cats! Will it happen under Labour? No chance. Fairness and increased taxes will mainly apply to people who generally don't vote for them.
A specific, additional tax for former doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters?
I don't disagree with general higher taxation on pensions income. But picking on public servants in particular is in effect the same as what you're pre-complaining about Labour.
It's also why public sector pensions aren't as valuable as you might think. Vulnerable to the whim of government.
We currently have a specific, additional tax for people on PAYE who are working for a living rather that is not paid by those on golden pensions. So why not the inverse?
Or, a radical idea, how about everyone on the same income pays the same rate of tax, regardless of how they earned that income?
Which is why I support merging NI into Income Tax.
The simpler the tax system, in general, the fairer it is.
Ah very useful, thanks. I will be up all night (obvs) but it'll be good to have the expected declarations schedule in order to plan my catnaps.
I will be waiting to see if Labour massively miss expectations. I am not holding my breath, but it would be a moment almost as amusing as seeing Johnson had to resign. I can but dream. Either way, as they are a bunch of middle-manager lightweights they will crash at some point and I will be waiting to laugh.
Well if that's the way you want to approach things, Nigel. Seems a bit churlish to me - you could easily be waiting 10 years to have a laugh - but each to his own.
My advice, offered not just to you but to all anti-Labourites, is to meet Keir in the middle and wish him well as he takes on this great burden. A decade of national renewal under a changed Labour Party that is back in the service of working people will feel like an eternity if you spend it sniping and looking for cobwebs the whole time.
@kinabalu , you seem like a nice chap, but I sense that your loyalism to SKS is similar to the crazies who used to worship Johnson (eg HYUFD). The reality is that Labour will do very very little to shift the dial positively for anyone, except perhaps their own egos. None of the front bench have any gravitas or experience to take on the challenges they face. They will get frustrated and take their chippy frustrations out on people who are more successful than they are and cause a drain of wealth creators. It is tragic, but it will happen. Sadly we now have a system where all political parties are filled with lightweights and charlatans. The fact that you think Labour (your "team right or wrong") are going to make things so much better is quaint.
Good. We do not need wannabe Quislings in our democracy.
This is where I think Leon notably misreads this country. We are not the same as mainland Europe and don’t necessarily follow ‘behind’ their trends, which is an odd thing to have to remind a so-called brexiteer.
A good case can be made for saying that we had our rightward surge in 2016 and again in 2019, especially since migration was a big factor in those votes on top of EU centralised control.
That we are now almost certainly about to elect a Centre-Left Government may buck the continental trend, or it may show that we are, in fact, 10 years ahead of them.
Either way, and you can ignore the last bit, the main point is that we are not a typical mainland European country. We are an island nation with both an inward and outward facing dynamic.
We don’t generally do extremism. Since 1945, which was exceptional, we have never elected an extreme government of Right or Left. And however much froth and bubble they produce, neither Marxists nor Fascists have succeeded in winning a majority here.
Thankfully. Long may that continue.
I'm sad to see people just buying into the narrative of there being a significant rightward surge in Europe in general. As I attempted to show shortly after the results, there were countervailing currents in Europe. But people focus selectively so they highlighted the countries that fitted the narrative and stayed quiet on the ones that flowed the other direction. And before anyone says, it's not just that some countries get inherently more focus. In the past few years, Sweden had a lot of focus when it was going towards the right. In this election the result was a kind of stasis so oops we don't analyse that result.
People invested in politics get sucked in my these narratives because they want to feel something is happening. It's easier to justify the investment of time and emotion when you can kid yourself that a great historical tide is flowing even if in reality it's just the waves on the shore.
And of course, for some it's wishful thinking. You see it a lot on here. The country's about to take a moderate turn to the left. But where does that leave my "EVERYTHING FLOWING TO THE RIGHT!" story? Oh, easy, this incoming government will fail fast and the people will quickly wake up to our Lord and Saviour, Sir Nigel of Faragistan. And so a future that is so obviously unwritten collapses, in their minds, to a single inevitable conclusion. The obvious wrongness of this sense of inevitability ought to lead us to question every step they've made to get there. Including the recent past. What happened in the European elections is not what these people say happened. The picture is considerably more mixed and nuanced. But one of two blaring cakeholes shout a lie and everyone sort of absorbs it as gospel without checking.
Spot on. The Nordic countries are very different to Germany and the Netherlands. Poland is very different to Slovakia and Hungary. Portugal and Spain are very different to Italy. Greece is different again, having what seems to be a pretty competent, genuinely centre-right, socially liberal, quite popular government currently. France is going through what looks to be quite a unique trauma. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Sinn Fein has lost almost all the support that had previously seen it surge in the polls. And so on.
One thing that may unite much of Europe, though, including the UK is that the far right has pushed the centre right further rightwards on issues like immigration, the environment, the rule of law and so on. The French left is also now heading leftwards. I wonder if other countries will follow.
It’s a bollocks analysis, you should talk to someone who constantly travels - often around Europe - rather than some berk in a bed sit in Aberdeen. But it consoles you to believe this, so you will believe it
Do you think your 'here today, gone tomorrow' trips around Europe's tourist attractions give you an in depth understanding ?
Its possible to drive around a district by one route and think it highly affluent and to do it a different way and think it highly deprived.
Now extend that to a whole region, a whole country, a whole continent.
I’ve now travelled so much around the world I’ve gained an insight into travelling itself. It really does broaden the mind, but not in ways most people understand, because they don’t travel
As for my “trips around Europe’s tourist attractions” it’s maybe skipped your attention that I just spent a week in Moldova, literally the least touristy country in Europe (as in: fewest tourists) and that was followed by two days in Transnistria (zero tourists) and two weeks in war torn Ukraine (war tourists and dead tourists)
But you were still a tourist.
A different thing to living or doing business in that country.
I was doing business - I was working. Writing about the war and Ukraine. And writing about Moldova too
Why didn't you go to the front line if you were writing about the war? Just asking
Here’s a video I took from my hotel balcony in Odessa of drones slamming into Odessa as the Ukrainians desperately tried to shoot them down
You can just see tracer fire but it’s night so mostly invisible so you need to turn the audio up high
One thing that fucking amazed me about my Ukraine trip was how easy it was to move around. I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to get to Kharkov but I reckon I drove to within 20km of the FEBA with zero hindrance from UAF or internal security. I saw plenty of checkpoints but with nobody manning them.
Yes once you’re over the border you can basically go anywhere and they don’t check
I had a media contact in Odessa - lovely lady called Alina and she offered to take me to “the front line” - flak jacket with PRESS on it, and everything. But then she said “to be honest you will see more in Odessa. Plenty of drones and missiles, and you are already taking a risk, and Odessa is also beautiful and interesting. The front line will be boring in comparison and you will probably see less and hear less. Stay in Odessa”
Only thing more boring than Leon banging on about aliens or AI is people telling Leon how well/badly/inconsequential/incurious he is in his activities.
Super boring. And bizarre, tbh. Says more about the people who discuss Leon than Leon.
And the next step of boredom is people complaining about people discussing Leon.
and even worse are the people who....oh fuckit
Even I get bored of “discussions about Leon” and I’m
1. A massive narcissist
And
2. Leon
you love it really.
otherwise why would you insist on being such a massive arse most of the time?
re: your comments about travel. I'm genuinely impressed you have learnt to speak the languages of all the places you visit. Applaus, Applaus
Only thing more boring than Leon banging on about aliens or AI is people telling Leon how well/badly/inconsequential/incurious he is in his activities.
Super boring. And bizarre, tbh. Says more about the people who discuss Leon than Leon.
It's always the Trans Gay Illegal Immigrant Alien AIs.
So are we to judge from this poll Farages Russia comments have been well received and led to a surge of support for Reform.
Pb is (rightly) staunchly anti-Putin and his military expansion. A lot of the rest of the country, who pay less attention, will be quite open to Faragist rhetoric pushing for peace. Pb commentary about Farage's comments went a bit bonkers imo.
Farage’s comments have much, much wider support in the States, than they do in the UK. It was a sign he’s been spending too much time in America, and missed that the Overton Window is quite different between the two countries.
Good. We do not need wannabe Quislings in our democracy.
This is where I think Leon notably misreads this country. We are not the same as mainland Europe and don’t necessarily follow ‘behind’ their trends, which is an odd thing to have to remind a so-called brexiteer.
A good case can be made for saying that we had our rightward surge in 2016 and again in 2019, especially since migration was a big factor in those votes on top of EU centralised control.
That we are now almost certainly about to elect a Centre-Left Government may buck the continental trend, or it may show that we are, in fact, 10 years ahead of them.
Either way, and you can ignore the last bit, the main point is that we are not a typical mainland European country. We are an island nation with both an inward and outward facing dynamic.
We don’t generally do extremism. Since 1945, which was exceptional, we have never elected an extreme government of Right or Left. And however much froth and bubble they produce, neither Marxists nor Fascists have succeeded in winning a majority here.
Thankfully. Long may that continue.
I'm sad to see people just buying into the narrative of there being a significant rightward surge in Europe in general. As I attempted to show shortly after the results, there were countervailing currents in Europe. But people focus selectively so they highlighted the countries that fitted the narrative and stayed quiet on the ones that flowed the other direction. And before anyone says, it's not just that some countries get inherently more focus. In the past few years, Sweden had a lot of focus when it was going towards the right. In this election the result was a kind of stasis so oops we don't analyse that result.
People invested in politics get sucked in my these narratives because they want to feel something is happening. It's easier to justify the investment of time and emotion when you can kid yourself that a great historical tide is flowing even if in reality it's just the waves on the shore.
And of course, for some it's wishful thinking. You see it a lot on here. The country's about to take a moderate turn to the left. But where does that leave my "EVERYTHING FLOWING TO THE RIGHT!" story? Oh, easy, this incoming government will fail fast and the people will quickly wake up to our Lord and Saviour, Sir Nigel of Faragistan. And so a future that is so obviously unwritten collapses, in their minds, to a single inevitable conclusion. The obvious wrongness of this sense of inevitability ought to lead us to question every step they've made to get there. Including the recent past. What happened in the European elections is not what these people say happened. The picture is considerably more mixed and nuanced. But one of two blaring cakeholes shout a lie and everyone sort of absorbs it as gospel without checking.
Spot on. The Nordic countries are very different to Germany and the Netherlands. Poland is very different to Slovakia and Hungary. Portugal and Spain are very different to Italy. Greece is different again, having what seems to be a pretty competent, genuinely centre-right, socially liberal, quite popular government currently. France is going through what looks to be quite a unique trauma. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Sinn Fein has lost almost all the support that had previously seen it surge in the polls. And so on.
One thing that may unite much of Europe, though, including the UK is that the far right has pushed the centre right further rightwards on issues like immigration, the environment, the rule of law and so on. The French left is also now heading leftwards. I wonder if other countries will follow.
It’s a bollocks analysis, you should talk to someone who constantly travels - often around Europe - rather than some berk in a bed sit in Aberdeen. But it consoles you to believe this, so you will believe it
Do you think your 'here today, gone tomorrow' trips around Europe's tourist attractions give you an in depth understanding ?
Its possible to drive around a district by one route and think it highly affluent and to do it a different way and think it highly deprived.
Now extend that to a whole region, a whole country, a whole continent.
I’ve now travelled so much around the world I’ve gained an insight into travelling itself. It really does broaden the mind, but not in ways most people understand, because they don’t travel
As for my “trips around Europe’s tourist attractions” it’s maybe skipped your attention that I just spent a week in Moldova, literally the least touristy country in Europe (as in: fewest tourists) and that was followed by two days in Transnistria (zero tourists) and two weeks in war torn Ukraine (war tourists and dead tourists)
But you were still a tourist.
A different thing to living or doing business in that country.
I was doing business - I was working. Writing about the war and Ukraine. And writing about Moldova too
Why didn't you go to the front line if you were writing about the war? Just asking
Here’s a video I took from my hotel balcony in Odessa of drones slamming into Odessa as the Ukrainians desperately tried to shoot them down
You can just see tracer fire but it’s night so mostly invisible so you need to turn the audio up high
One thing that fucking amazed me about my Ukraine trip was how easy it was to move around. I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to get to Kharkov but I reckon I drove to within 20km of the FEBA with zero hindrance from UAF or internal security. I saw plenty of checkpoints but with nobody manning them.
Yes once you’re over the border you can basically go anywhere and they don’t check
I had a media contact in Odessa - lovely lady called Alina and she offered to take me to “the front line” - flak jacket with PRESS on it, and everything. But then she said “to be honest you will see more in Odessa. Plenty of drones and missiles, and you are already taking a risk, and Odessa is also beautiful and interesting. The front line will be boring in comparison and you will probably see less and hear less. Stay in Odessa”
So I did. And she was right
lol. I could almost wonder whether you are sending yourself up, but I don't think you are.
Reminds me of The Life of Brian when Reg decided to stay away from the action because "he had a bad leg"
The key economic number is that the UK, alone of the G7 states, has a lower household income than before the pandemic. Employment levels are strong, productivity rather ho-hum, but set to improve, but real incomes have stagnated. Meanwhile the substantial real cuts across the public sector, especially in the NHS and local government, has left even middle income earners facing substantially increased real costs. The resulting squeeze has fallen disproportionately on middle and lower income earners, with the public sector pensions bill at £2,3 trillion now being larger than the total UK economy.
The Tory pensions bribe has sold the future for their own electoral advantage and left the UK living way beyond its means. The Tory version of austerity was burn everything except pensions. That cannot continue.
The country needs tro invest in infrastructure and substantially boost overall productivity, while reducing the national pensions burden. Its tricky political balance, and the clown car politics of the past 9 years have been little short of catastrophic. The Tories absolutely deserve the kicking they are going to get.
Labour will see some positive news, given inflation is stabilising and productivity can really only improve. However, restructuring UK public finances is a mammoth task, even to get to stability, let alone growth, Rachel Reeves has no magic wand, and it will be a tightrope walk to maintain growth while improving the long term productive capacity of the economy versus competition such as the US, or Germany, let alone China and India.
You are moving effortlessly from (questionable) estimates of future liabilities for occupational pensions in the public sector, to our state pension which at £200 a week is lower than our peer nations. This is separate from our need to invest in infrastructure and local government, and to increase economic growth.
Perhaps those on massive public sector pensions should be taxed to pay for a big increase in the state pension. An NHS doctor, when he/she retires will have a a monthly income more than double what the average person in this country earns. This is similar for many civil servants.
Tax the public sector fat cats! Will it happen under Labour? No chance. Fairness and increased taxes will mainly apply to people who generally don't vote for them.
A specific, additional tax for former doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters?
I don't disagree with general higher taxation on pensions income. But picking on public servants in particular is in effect the same as what you're pre-complaining about Labour.
It's also why public sector pensions aren't as valuable as you might think. Vulnerable to the whim of government.
We currently have a specific, additional tax for people on PAYE who are working for a living rather that is not paid by those on golden pensions. So why not the inverse?
Or, a radical idea, how about everyone on the same income pays the same rate of tax, regardless of how they earned that income?
I think we are in agreement on this. I'm suggesting that a tax on public sector pensions in particular is a bit odd.
For a start, an awful lot of the private sector rely on funding from the public sector. Would the fat pensions of Serco/G4S executives also be taxed?
Extending NI to all income would be a good start.
Or better still merge it with Income Tax and have all income (earned and unearned) having the same tax liabilities. It would simplify things and people would have afar better idea of exactly how much tax they are paying.
But that would destroy the universe. And be Evil. And Impossible.
Just like staggering school holidays, or changing the timing comedy of A level results and university entry.
So are we to judge from this poll Farages Russia comments have been well received and led to a surge of support for Reform.
Pb is (rightly) staunchly anti-Putin and his military expansion. A lot of the rest of the country, who pay less attention, will be quite open to Faragist rhetoric pushing for peace. Pb commentary about Farage's comments went a bit bonkers imo.
Farage’s comments have much, much wider support in the States, than they do in the UK. It was a sign he’s been spending too much time in America, and missed that the Overton Window is quite different between the two countries.
“Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?
Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
Council tax set for a big rise then.
The most simple and stealthy way to get a wealth tax in.
It will be clumsy and deeply unfair, but within the boundaries of what can actually be achieved.
You cover it up by offloading all the blame to councils, like all council funding cuts over the last 14 years, and offer an olive branch of bands/rates reform (that will never actually materialise).
It is ludicrous that the council tax you pay (in England) is based on what your property would have been worth in April 1991.
The polls are pointing to Reform not breaking through to supplant the Tories but causing them enough trouble to hobble them in the, roughly, low 20s. Potentially the worst of both worlds for the right in this election, as far as seat distribution is concerned. Reform can probably win 2-3 seats - more would be an exceptional result - but it doesn’t look like we’re going to see the sort of FPTP breakthrough that a surge could have taken them to if they’d managed to break into, say, the mid 20s.
What this will do is completely sever the Tories’ hold as the main challenger in lots of seats. It is easy if we get a REF/CON split like 16/21 to see Reform taking second place in a decent chunk of the country. And what this does, as I’ve mentioned before, is cause the Tories significant issues in rebuilding without either coming to some kind of electoral arrangement with Reform or trying to incorporate those voters into its electoral coalition.
The next 4-5 years will be fascinating not just in terms of watching what happens to the government, but also the opposition as well.
Instead, we've had: 2019 Cons get elected > 2019 Cons govern incompetently > state drifts leftwards > in reaction to which, various Conservatives both within and without government call for increasingly rightward things > but nothing actually happens > neither centrists not right wingers are happy > 2024 Cons get obliterated at polls
2019 fantasists offer the electorate the moon on a stick and get elected > moon not delivered, some element of stick > 2024 fantasists get obliterated
In defence of the 2019 Cons: 1) Almost anything was better than Corbyn, and 2) While Levelling Up was, er, a challenging aim, it was a worthwhile one and one I believed in and still do. But a challenging aim was rendered pretty much impossible by Covid and Ukraine, which have impoverished us in a way utterly unanticipated.
Still, at least the 2019 Cons purported to believe in Levelling Up. That pretty much died with the cancellation of HS2 (actually probably with the election of Rishi Sunak - ironically the first Northern MP we've had since Tony Blair).
It wasn't so much Covid and Ukraine that did for Levelling Up IMO, it was a complete lack of understanding in how to build infrastructure.
Big infra projects take time. Studies into the Northumberland Line - effectively just plonking down some stations on an existing freight-only line and doing the upgrades necessary for passenger trains to run - began in 2013. Ground investigation works began in 2020. Major construction began in 2022. The line will probably open later this year but half the stations will be delayed until 2025.
If the Conservatives were ever serious about Levelling Up they needed (a) to get spades in the ground within months (b) to be ready to railroad the projects through planning as Nationally Significant Infrastructure. They didn't do this. Instead they went through the usual charade of requiring councils to bid against each other for funds, staggering the funding in several rounds, all of that. Surprise, nothing has been done.
Eventually it gets to the point where you say "Well what can we do in time for the next election? Ah, I see, some chessboards in parks."
This is why, again, roads work so well - except the parties have been taken in by an agenda of opposing them.
New motorways don't need to be built all at once, new roads don't need to be built all at once.
HS2 takes decades to build, but won't be open until entire massive stages are done.
Whereas the motorways weren't built all in one go, they could be built piece by piece.
The M6 began its life as just the Preston bypass. It was operational as soon as it was done. Bits and pieces added over time until eventually they connected to make the motorways as we know them.
We can and should be doing the same today. Where there are major problems, or lack of connections, build new roads. Beginning with either bypasses, or especially bridges over rivers, which is what is most needed in most places. Then eventually over time connect them together to entirely new motorways.
Instead we just piss about with any investment if it does happen going into widening existing routes, which is facile. New routes allow people to take routes that don't exist currently, it makes journeys that can't happen currently entirely viable. That's what we need.
HS2 will be open and functioning in stages. Always was going to be, just not so many stages, thank you Mr Sunak.
Same with electrifications in the past and present. Always staged.
Indeed, but the stages are massive and take decades.
Whereas eg constructing a new bridge which means people can now drive over a river where they couldn't before, or there's a bypass where there wasn't before, etc can be done within a Parliament.
Electrification is like upgrades to the existing motorway network, it doesn't make any real new connections. Its new routes, new connections, that are most valuable not upgrades to existing routes.
On the contrary. Elecvtdrification was enormously important in increasing speed *and* capacity. And surely your demand for a new motorway from X to Y is basically the existing A class road upgraded.
I am fairly convinced that electrification - in the sense of overhead lines - will not advance much more.
While battery powered trains are less efficient (carrying the weight of the batteries), the vastly lower capital costs and the maintenance issues will mean that for routes of increasing length, the batteries will win.
Done properly (i.e. as done in Scotland believe it or not) electrification is cheaper than the other options.
Plus how do you charge the trains up or deal with the extra weight if they break down.
Batteries in cars are the future, for trains its electrification, for lorries not a clue...
Once they overthrew the crap from europe involving excessive clearance gaps between ovehead wires and bridges and excessive height of overhead wires in case someone wandered down the platform with a fishing rod, and so avoided having to rebuild every structure on the line.
What blew the English electrification projects out of the water was that British Rail Western Region, who still thought that they were Gods Wonderful Railway and so had to do everything differently, decided to bury their lineside signalling cables instead of putting them in concrete troughs and didn't think it necessary to make a note of where.
The result was that after a few sets of massive signal failures caused by pile driven signal cables, half the new electricication masts had to have hand dug foundations to avoid more, which was about as economic as the NHS covid tracker app.
Then the Midland Main line electrification was cancelled due to the GW scheme using up the budget to get half done (Chippenham, Bath, Bristol, Bristol Parkway, Didcot to Oxford and Cardiff to Swansea all got canned).
Since then the midland main line scheme has been reinstated as a stealth project and is reaching the outskirts of leicester every bit as cheaply as recent Scottish efforts.
This. Although the story I'd heard was that Western Region had actually documented where the signalling cables were… and then Railtrack threw out the documents.
Good. We do not need wannabe Quislings in our democracy.
This is where I think Leon notably misreads this country. We are not the same as mainland Europe and don’t necessarily follow ‘behind’ their trends, which is an odd thing to have to remind a so-called brexiteer.
A good case can be made for saying that we had our rightward surge in 2016 and again in 2019, especially since migration was a big factor in those votes on top of EU centralised control.
That we are now almost certainly about to elect a Centre-Left Government may buck the continental trend, or it may show that we are, in fact, 10 years ahead of them.
Either way, and you can ignore the last bit, the main point is that we are not a typical mainland European country. We are an island nation with both an inward and outward facing dynamic.
We don’t generally do extremism. Since 1945, which was exceptional, we have never elected an extreme government of Right or Left. And however much froth and bubble they produce, neither Marxists nor Fascists have succeeded in winning a majority here.
Thankfully. Long may that continue.
I'm sad to see people just buying into the narrative of there being a significant rightward surge in Europe in general. As I attempted to show shortly after the results, there were countervailing currents in Europe. But people focus selectively so they highlighted the countries that fitted the narrative and stayed quiet on the ones that flowed the other direction. And before anyone says, it's not just that some countries get inherently more focus. In the past few years, Sweden had a lot of focus when it was going towards the right. In this election the result was a kind of stasis so oops we don't analyse that result.
People invested in politics get sucked in my these narratives because they want to feel something is happening. It's easier to justify the investment of time and emotion when you can kid yourself that a great historical tide is flowing even if in reality it's just the waves on the shore.
And of course, for some it's wishful thinking. You see it a lot on here. The country's about to take a moderate turn to the left. But where does that leave my "EVERYTHING FLOWING TO THE RIGHT!" story? Oh, easy, this incoming government will fail fast and the people will quickly wake up to our Lord and Saviour, Sir Nigel of Faragistan. And so a future that is so obviously unwritten collapses, in their minds, to a single inevitable conclusion. The obvious wrongness of this sense of inevitability ought to lead us to question every step they've made to get there. Including the recent past. What happened in the European elections is not what these people say happened. The picture is considerably more mixed and nuanced. But one of two blaring cakeholes shout a lie and everyone sort of absorbs it as gospel without checking.
Spot on. The Nordic countries are very different to Germany and the Netherlands. Poland is very different to Slovakia and Hungary. Portugal and Spain are very different to Italy. Greece is different again, having what seems to be a pretty competent, genuinely centre-right, socially liberal, quite popular government currently. France is going through what looks to be quite a unique trauma. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Sinn Fein has lost almost all the support that had previously seen it surge in the polls. And so on.
One thing that may unite much of Europe, though, including the UK is that the far right has pushed the centre right further rightwards on issues like immigration, the environment, the rule of law and so on. The French left is also now heading leftwards. I wonder if other countries will follow.
It’s a bollocks analysis, you should talk to someone who constantly travels - often around Europe - rather than some berk in a bed sit in Aberdeen. But it consoles you to believe this, so you will believe it
Do you think your 'here today, gone tomorrow' trips around Europe's tourist attractions give you an in depth understanding ?
Its possible to drive around a district by one route and think it highly affluent and to do it a different way and think it highly deprived.
Now extend that to a whole region, a whole country, a whole continent.
I’ve now travelled so much around the world I’ve gained an insight into travelling itself. It really does broaden the mind, but not in ways most people understand, because they don’t travel
As for my “trips around Europe’s tourist attractions” it’s maybe skipped your attention that I just spent a week in Moldova, literally the least touristy country in Europe (as in: fewest tourists) and that was followed by two days in Transnistria (zero tourists) and two weeks in war torn Ukraine (war tourists and dead tourists)
But you were still a tourist.
A different thing to living or doing business in that country.
I was doing business - I was working. Writing about the war and Ukraine. And writing about Moldova too
Your work is fleeting visits to a myriad of places, followed by writing about the local wine and churches.
It can be an interesting read, it might stimulate others to travel, but its essentially superficial.
For almost everyone else work is doing the same thing in the same place day after day, year after year.
They give different perspectives and different depths of understanding on places.
I’ve read this argument before. Somehow you understand more about a place if you sit in an office in that place for months, as compared to someone who goes to that place and reads all about it and goes out and talks to people all over the country
I’ve got friends who lived abroad for years and learned nothing of their host nation. They were expats, they didn’t care, they got drunk, didn’t learn the language. Whereas someone skilled can go to a country for two weeks and fillet it expertly and learn far more
Also the more you travel the smarter you get and the smarter you get the more you can learn in a short time. Its a virtuous cycle
You're likely right about expats often knowing little outside the local expat community.
But I'm not talking about expats I mean people who live in their own country.
Just reading PB shows how varied the life experiences of different people in different careers in different parts of the country can be. And PBers are certainly not the most varied group - too male, too middle class, too middle aged, too nerdy.
I am completely different to most PB-ers, as is obvious
In fact I’m completely different to 99.4% of humanity and that has good and bad consequences - for me. I’ve learned to live with it
What I’ve not learned to live with are the downsides of my job. Eg I want to be angry about politics buta it’s really hard to be angry when this is your view. This is what I’m staring at right now. Bastards
The garden placard fairy has left a vote green placard three doors up, the sole placard on my street. Usually there would be a dozen, mix of green and labour but this time its all a bit 'meh'
Local campaigning update: had a little time to wind my way home from a day out and check the lamppost game in a couple more places yesterday. General impressions:
Dewsbury & Batley: the most intensive poster battle there is - hundreds of posters all along the roads not just in the locality centres, probably around 2:1 in favour of Iqbal Mohammed, the Independent. Labour posting only the candidate name, Heather Iqbal, posters, with the minimal 'Vote Labour' in the bottom left and have eschewed primary red for a pink into purple blend effect. Surely voters aren't fooled by that stuff!
Spen Valley: Dominant Labour postering in a few localities, with a bit of the very dark blue Reform boards. More traditional Labour poster mix, plus a few white diamonds with the pink/purple edging and worded 'Vote Local, Vote Kim'.
Ossett & Denby Dale: very little lamppost game, despite it being allowed both on Wakefield and Kirklees parts of the constituency. A few Mark Eastwood (Con) posters and a lone Labour poster in Middlestown, and a further lone Eastwood poster in Clayton West, but nothing at all in 3 other villages.
As per previous, Colne Valley Labour have responded and edged out the early Jason McCartney (Con) posters, with a smattering of Green and Reform posters.
Huddersfield, postering is fairly intense with Green and Labour matching poster for poster in most places, but with the odd dominant spot (e.g. central Newsome all green, central Almondbury mostly red) and a small number of posters for Reform
My north London street still only has one poster (mine). Walking around, there’s almost no sign of an election. If I go east into Islington, there’s a smattering of Vote Corbyn posters. A friend saw one poster for the Nouveau Front populaire.
Good. We do not need wannabe Quislings in our democracy.
This is where I think Leon notably misreads this country. We are not the same as mainland Europe and don’t necessarily follow ‘behind’ their trends, which is an odd thing to have to remind a so-called brexiteer.
A good case can be made for saying that we had our rightward surge in 2016 and again in 2019, especially since migration was a big factor in those votes on top of EU centralised control.
That we are now almost certainly about to elect a Centre-Left Government may buck the continental trend, or it may show that we are, in fact, 10 years ahead of them.
Either way, and you can ignore the last bit, the main point is that we are not a typical mainland European country. We are an island nation with both an inward and outward facing dynamic.
We don’t generally do extremism. Since 1945, which was exceptional, we have never elected an extreme government of Right or Left. And however much froth and bubble they produce, neither Marxists nor Fascists have succeeded in winning a majority here.
Thankfully. Long may that continue.
I'm sad to see people just buying into the narrative of there being a significant rightward surge in Europe in general. As I attempted to show shortly after the results, there were countervailing currents in Europe. But people focus selectively so they highlighted the countries that fitted the narrative and stayed quiet on the ones that flowed the other direction. And before anyone says, it's not just that some countries get inherently more focus. In the past few years, Sweden had a lot of focus when it was going towards the right. In this election the result was a kind of stasis so oops we don't analyse that result.
People invested in politics get sucked in my these narratives because they want to feel something is happening. It's easier to justify the investment of time and emotion when you can kid yourself that a great historical tide is flowing even if in reality it's just the waves on the shore.
And of course, for some it's wishful thinking. You see it a lot on here. The country's about to take a moderate turn to the left. But where does that leave my "EVERYTHING FLOWING TO THE RIGHT!" story? Oh, easy, this incoming government will fail fast and the people will quickly wake up to our Lord and Saviour, Sir Nigel of Faragistan. And so a future that is so obviously unwritten collapses, in their minds, to a single inevitable conclusion. The obvious wrongness of this sense of inevitability ought to lead us to question every step they've made to get there. Including the recent past. What happened in the European elections is not what these people say happened. The picture is considerably more mixed and nuanced. But one of two blaring cakeholes shout a lie and everyone sort of absorbs it as gospel without checking.
Spot on. The Nordic countries are very different to Germany and the Netherlands. Poland is very different to Slovakia and Hungary. Portugal and Spain are very different to Italy. Greece is different again, having what seems to be a pretty competent, genuinely centre-right, socially liberal, quite popular government currently. France is going through what looks to be quite a unique trauma. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Sinn Fein has lost almost all the support that had previously seen it surge in the polls. And so on.
One thing that may unite much of Europe, though, including the UK is that the far right has pushed the centre right further rightwards on issues like immigration, the environment, the rule of law and so on. The French left is also now heading leftwards. I wonder if other countries will follow.
It’s a bollocks analysis, you should talk to someone who constantly travels - often around Europe - rather than some berk in a bed sit in Aberdeen. But it consoles you to believe this, so you will believe it
Do you think your 'here today, gone tomorrow' trips around Europe's tourist attractions give you an in depth understanding ?
Its possible to drive around a district by one route and think it highly affluent and to do it a different way and think it highly deprived.
Now extend that to a whole region, a whole country, a whole continent.
I’ve now travelled so much around the world I’ve gained an insight into travelling itself. It really does broaden the mind, but not in ways most people understand, because they don’t travel
As for my “trips around Europe’s tourist attractions” it’s maybe skipped your attention that I just spent a week in Moldova, literally the least touristy country in Europe (as in: fewest tourists) and that was followed by two days in Transnistria (zero tourists) and two weeks in war torn Ukraine (war tourists and dead tourists)
But you were still a tourist.
A different thing to living or doing business in that country.
I was doing business - I was working. Writing about the war and Ukraine. And writing about Moldova too
Why didn't you go to the front line if you were writing about the war? Just asking
Here’s a video I took from my hotel balcony in Odessa of drones slamming into Odessa as the Ukrainians desperately tried to shoot them down
You can just see tracer fire but it’s night so mostly invisible so you need to turn the audio up high
One thing that fucking amazed me about my Ukraine trip was how easy it was to move around. I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to get to Kharkov but I reckon I drove to within 20km of the FEBA with zero hindrance from UAF or internal security. I saw plenty of checkpoints but with nobody manning them.
Yes once you’re over the border you can basically go anywhere and they don’t check
I had a media contact in Odessa - lovely lady called Alina and she offered to take me to “the front line” - flak jacket with PRESS on it, and everything. But then she said “to be honest you will see more in Odessa. Plenty of drones and missiles, and you are already taking a risk, and Odessa is also beautiful and interesting. The front line will be boring in comparison and you will probably see less and hear less. Stay in Odessa”
So I did. And she was right
lol. I could almost wonder whether you are sending yourself up, but I don't think you are.
Reminds me of The Life of Brian when Reg decided to stay away from the action because "he had a bad leg"
You did watch the video right? You did hear the drones smashing into the port of Odessa as I filmed them from my balcony? And the desperate anti aircraft fire? Two days after than an Iskander missile took out a whole block about half a mile from that hotel. While I was there a chunk of drone fell on my boulevard cussing an explosion - 200m from my hotel
Have you done any of that, Nigel?
Odessa actually IS the front line. The same way London was the front line during the Blitz. If Putin can crush Odessa as a port and drive everyone away with drones and missiles then he’s got a good chance of winning
So are we to judge from this poll Farages Russia comments have been well received and led to a surge of support for Reform.
Or 16% of people are genuinely thick, or possibly supporters of having a fascist state in the image of Vladimir. Either is a bit depressing. I suspect a large percentage of that 16% don't know how to write an X so hopefully they, and teh modern day Oswald Mosley will not hold sway.
Quote from Ukrainian official:
“Whether or not Farage is part of Putin’s invisible hand in Europe, we do not have evidence for this. But we are confident Russia is trying to take advantage of his extreme far-right views,
“For Putin, the UK will always remain a central place for geopolitics, Russia may deny it is retaining influence, but the UK is very important to Russia.
“Farage claims he is campaigning to make Britain strong and safe, but with this attitude on Ukraine – it implies he would run away from danger – he sounds like a weak guy.
Just a quick observation for those who wonder why the various MRP forecasts produce much lower forecasts for the number of Conservative seats than traditional UNS based techniques. It's not really because of their fancy internal electorate modelling algorithms, the stratification, it's mostly because they use proportional techniques for allocating the change in votes.
It's easy to simulate their overall seat total predictions by adjusting the proportional or UNS parameters of a "traditional" algorithm, many of which also seek to take account of tactical voting, incumbency etc.
Whether the MRPs are right or wrong this time will largely depend on whether the electorate behave in the same way as in most British elections in the past (i.e. the change in seats is best modelled by UNS rather than any proportional method), or in the way they have behaved in just a few in the UK (in which case the MRP, being proportional, will be much more accurate than UNS). At the moment, nobody really knows which pattern will be followed, and of course it may be something between the two.
A final note, the reason some MRPs produced accurate overall seat projections in the past was because their data sample was way out. If the same model had been used for the actual election data percentages then the seat totals would have been as wrong as any UNS projection.
Good. We do not need wannabe Quislings in our democracy.
This is where I think Leon notably misreads this country. We are not the same as mainland Europe and don’t necessarily follow ‘behind’ their trends, which is an odd thing to have to remind a so-called brexiteer.
A good case can be made for saying that we had our rightward surge in 2016 and again in 2019, especially since migration was a big factor in those votes on top of EU centralised control.
That we are now almost certainly about to elect a Centre-Left Government may buck the continental trend, or it may show that we are, in fact, 10 years ahead of them.
Either way, and you can ignore the last bit, the main point is that we are not a typical mainland European country. We are an island nation with both an inward and outward facing dynamic.
We don’t generally do extremism. Since 1945, which was exceptional, we have never elected an extreme government of Right or Left. And however much froth and bubble they produce, neither Marxists nor Fascists have succeeded in winning a majority here.
Thankfully. Long may that continue.
I'm sad to see people just buying into the narrative of there being a significant rightward surge in Europe in general. As I attempted to show shortly after the results, there were countervailing currents in Europe. But people focus selectively so they highlighted the countries that fitted the narrative and stayed quiet on the ones that flowed the other direction. And before anyone says, it's not just that some countries get inherently more focus. In the past few years, Sweden had a lot of focus when it was going towards the right. In this election the result was a kind of stasis so oops we don't analyse that result.
People invested in politics get sucked in my these narratives because they want to feel something is happening. It's easier to justify the investment of time and emotion when you can kid yourself that a great historical tide is flowing even if in reality it's just the waves on the shore.
And of course, for some it's wishful thinking. You see it a lot on here. The country's about to take a moderate turn to the left. But where does that leave my "EVERYTHING FLOWING TO THE RIGHT!" story? Oh, easy, this incoming government will fail fast and the people will quickly wake up to our Lord and Saviour, Sir Nigel of Faragistan. And so a future that is so obviously unwritten collapses, in their minds, to a single inevitable conclusion. The obvious wrongness of this sense of inevitability ought to lead us to question every step they've made to get there. Including the recent past. What happened in the European elections is not what these people say happened. The picture is considerably more mixed and nuanced. But one of two blaring cakeholes shout a lie and everyone sort of absorbs it as gospel without checking.
Spot on. The Nordic countries are very different to Germany and the Netherlands. Poland is very different to Slovakia and Hungary. Portugal and Spain are very different to Italy. Greece is different again, having what seems to be a pretty competent, genuinely centre-right, socially liberal, quite popular government currently. France is going through what looks to be quite a unique trauma. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Sinn Fein has lost almost all the support that had previously seen it surge in the polls. And so on.
One thing that may unite much of Europe, though, including the UK is that the far right has pushed the centre right further rightwards on issues like immigration, the environment, the rule of law and so on. The French left is also now heading leftwards. I wonder if other countries will follow.
It’s a bollocks analysis, you should talk to someone who constantly travels - often around Europe - rather than some berk in a bed sit in Aberdeen. But it consoles you to believe this, so you will believe it
Do you think your 'here today, gone tomorrow' trips around Europe's tourist attractions give you an in depth understanding ?
Its possible to drive around a district by one route and think it highly affluent and to do it a different way and think it highly deprived.
Now extend that to a whole region, a whole country, a whole continent.
I’ve now travelled so much around the world I’ve gained an insight into travelling itself. It really does broaden the mind, but not in ways most people understand, because they don’t travel
As for my “trips around Europe’s tourist attractions” it’s maybe skipped your attention that I just spent a week in Moldova, literally the least touristy country in Europe (as in: fewest tourists) and that was followed by two days in Transnistria (zero tourists) and two weeks in war torn Ukraine (war tourists and dead tourists)
But you were still a tourist.
A different thing to living or doing business in that country.
I was doing business - I was working. Writing about the war and Ukraine. And writing about Moldova too
Why didn't you go to the front line if you were writing about the war? Just asking
Here’s a video I took from my hotel balcony in Odessa of drones slamming into Odessa as the Ukrainians desperately tried to shoot them down
You can just see tracer fire but it’s night so mostly invisible so you need to turn the audio up high
One thing that fucking amazed me about my Ukraine trip was how easy it was to move around. I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to get to Kharkov but I reckon I drove to within 20km of the FEBA with zero hindrance from UAF or internal security. I saw plenty of checkpoints but with nobody manning them.
Yes once you’re over the border you can basically go anywhere and they don’t check
I had a media contact in Odessa - lovely lady called Alina and she offered to take me to “the front line” - flak jacket with PRESS on it, and everything. But then she said “to be honest you will see more in Odessa. Plenty of drones and missiles, and you are already taking a risk, and Odessa is also beautiful and interesting. The front line will be boring in comparison and you will probably see less and hear less. Stay in Odessa”
So I did. And she was right
The GRU must be running charabanc trips from over the Belarus border. It's no way to run a SMO.
So are we to judge from this poll Farages Russia comments have been well received and led to a surge of support for Reform.
Pb is (rightly) staunchly anti-Putin and his military expansion. A lot of the rest of the country, who pay less attention, will be quite open to Faragist rhetoric pushing for peace. Pb commentary about Farage's comments went a bit bonkers imo.
Farage’s comments have much, much wider support in the States, than they do in the UK. It was a sign he’s been spending too much time in America, and missed that the Overton Window is quite different between the two countries.
He is not going for 35% but 15-20% of the vote.
Yes but the Ukraine comments probably aren't going to do much to broaden his appeal, but might put off quite a few who might have felt like Reform were at least worth a protest vote.
On the other hand, if the public mood around Ukraine changes, he's maybe positioned himself well to benefit, eventually. But he needs arguments that resonate better than 'NATO and the EU are partly to blame, so let's abandon Ukraine'
“Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?
Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
Council tax set for a big rise then.
Nope, hopefully council tax due to be replaced with sane be it land value tax or simply last sales price...
So you’d bring in property taxes based on a national or absolute house price, rather than a relative house price in your local area?
That would require extensive central redistribution and bureaucracy, and mean that a five-bed detached house (currently Band H) in Middlesborough pays perhaps same as a studio apartment (Band A) in Kensington.
It would also completely shaft London and the surrounding area, forcing millions of people to move out and forcing key workers to start sharing.
Anecdote klaxon: Just had a fascinating discussion with a customer. He came in to pick up a book he'd ordered, and grabbed a copy of Rory Stewart to go with it, so we got talking politics. He's a little older than me (first voted early 70s, so maybe 70ish?), retired and very well off (he lives in Arundel, so...).
He told me that he's been a lifelong Tory, and was very active politically for a while, so much so he was offered a safe seat at one point (note: he says this, I have no independent verification). Now, he's absolutely vitriolic about the Cons - obsession with economics over social issues, Brexit, Boris, Liz Truss, PPE, fracking, sewage, and on, and on. Wouldn't touch them with a bargepole now - says they are not remotely a Conservative party he recognises. He's not just not voting for them, he's a) voting Green and b) wants to see the Conservatives destroyed next week. His wife is even further along - she was chair of the local Conservative association some while back, but has taken part in, and been arrested on, XR and JSO demonstrations!
I didn't mention my own leanings until we got to this point, so I wasn't influencing him! But is something stirring in the heart of blue England? I am reminded of The Secret People...
Good. We do not need wannabe Quislings in our democracy.
This is where I think Leon notably misreads this country. We are not the same as mainland Europe and don’t necessarily follow ‘behind’ their trends, which is an odd thing to have to remind a so-called brexiteer.
A good case can be made for saying that we had our rightward surge in 2016 and again in 2019, especially since migration was a big factor in those votes on top of EU centralised control.
That we are now almost certainly about to elect a Centre-Left Government may buck the continental trend, or it may show that we are, in fact, 10 years ahead of them.
Either way, and you can ignore the last bit, the main point is that we are not a typical mainland European country. We are an island nation with both an inward and outward facing dynamic.
We don’t generally do extremism. Since 1945, which was exceptional, we have never elected an extreme government of Right or Left. And however much froth and bubble they produce, neither Marxists nor Fascists have succeeded in winning a majority here.
Thankfully. Long may that continue.
I'm sad to see people just buying into the narrative of there being a significant rightward surge in Europe in general. As I attempted to show shortly after the results, there were countervailing currents in Europe. But people focus selectively so they highlighted the countries that fitted the narrative and stayed quiet on the ones that flowed the other direction. And before anyone says, it's not just that some countries get inherently more focus. In the past few years, Sweden had a lot of focus when it was going towards the right. In this election the result was a kind of stasis so oops we don't analyse that result.
People invested in politics get sucked in my these narratives because they want to feel something is happening. It's easier to justify the investment of time and emotion when you can kid yourself that a great historical tide is flowing even if in reality it's just the waves on the shore.
And of course, for some it's wishful thinking. You see it a lot on here. The country's about to take a moderate turn to the left. But where does that leave my "EVERYTHING FLOWING TO THE RIGHT!" story? Oh, easy, this incoming government will fail fast and the people will quickly wake up to our Lord and Saviour, Sir Nigel of Faragistan. And so a future that is so obviously unwritten collapses, in their minds, to a single inevitable conclusion. The obvious wrongness of this sense of inevitability ought to lead us to question every step they've made to get there. Including the recent past. What happened in the European elections is not what these people say happened. The picture is considerably more mixed and nuanced. But one of two blaring cakeholes shout a lie and everyone sort of absorbs it as gospel without checking.
Spot on. The Nordic countries are very different to Germany and the Netherlands. Poland is very different to Slovakia and Hungary. Portugal and Spain are very different to Italy. Greece is different again, having what seems to be a pretty competent, genuinely centre-right, socially liberal, quite popular government currently. France is going through what looks to be quite a unique trauma. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Sinn Fein has lost almost all the support that had previously seen it surge in the polls. And so on.
One thing that may unite much of Europe, though, including the UK is that the far right has pushed the centre right further rightwards on issues like immigration, the environment, the rule of law and so on. The French left is also now heading leftwards. I wonder if other countries will follow.
It’s a bollocks analysis, you should talk to someone who constantly travels - often around Europe - rather than some berk in a bed sit in Aberdeen. But it consoles you to believe this, so you will believe it
Do you think your 'here today, gone tomorrow' trips around Europe's tourist attractions give you an in depth understanding ?
Its possible to drive around a district by one route and think it highly affluent and to do it a different way and think it highly deprived.
Now extend that to a whole region, a whole country, a whole continent.
I’ve now travelled so much around the world I’ve gained an insight into travelling itself. It really does broaden the mind, but not in ways most people understand, because they don’t travel
As for my “trips around Europe’s tourist attractions” it’s maybe skipped your attention that I just spent a week in Moldova, literally the least touristy country in Europe (as in: fewest tourists) and that was followed by two days in Transnistria (zero tourists) and two weeks in war torn Ukraine (war tourists and dead tourists)
But you were still a tourist.
A different thing to living or doing business in that country.
I was doing business - I was working. Writing about the war and Ukraine. And writing about Moldova too
Why didn't you go to the front line if you were writing about the war? Just asking
Here’s a video I took from my hotel balcony in Odessa of drones slamming into Odessa as the Ukrainians desperately tried to shoot them down
You can just see tracer fire but it’s night so mostly invisible so you need to turn the audio up high
One thing that fucking amazed me about my Ukraine trip was how easy it was to move around. I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to get to Kharkov but I reckon I drove to within 20km of the FEBA with zero hindrance from UAF or internal security. I saw plenty of checkpoints but with nobody manning them.
Yes once you’re over the border you can basically go anywhere and they don’t check
I had a media contact in Odessa - lovely lady called Alina and she offered to take me to “the front line” - flak jacket with PRESS on it, and everything. But then she said “to be honest you will see more in Odessa. Plenty of drones and missiles, and you are already taking a risk, and Odessa is also beautiful and interesting. The front line will be boring in comparison and you will probably see less and hear less. Stay in Odessa”
So I did. And she was right
lol. I could almost wonder whether you are sending yourself up, but I don't think you are.
Reminds me of The Life of Brian when Reg decided to stay away from the action because "he had a bad leg"
You did watch the video right? You did hear the drones smashing into the port of Odessa as I filmed them from my balcony? And the desperate anti aircraft fire? Two days after than an Iskander missile took out a whole block about half a mile from that hotel. While I was there a chunk of drone fell on my boulevard cussing an explosion - 200m from my hotel
Have you done any of that, Nigel?
Odessa actually IS the front line. The same way London was the front line during the Blitz. If Putin can crush Odessa as a port and drive everyone away with drones and missiles then he’s got a good chance of winning
“Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?
Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
Council tax set for a big rise then.
The most simple and stealthy way to get a wealth tax in.
It will be clumsy and deeply unfair, but within the boundaries of what can actually be achieved.
You cover it up by offloading all the blame to councils, like all council funding cuts over the last 14 years, and offer an olive branch of bands/rates reform (that will never actually materialise).
It is ludicrous that the council tax you pay (in England) is based on what your property would have been worth in April 1991.
Ditto Scotland. Can I pay income tax based on my 1991 earnings, please?
Good. We do not need wannabe Quislings in our democracy.
This is where I think Leon notably misreads this country. We are not the same as mainland Europe and don’t necessarily follow ‘behind’ their trends, which is an odd thing to have to remind a so-called brexiteer.
A good case can be made for saying that we had our rightward surge in 2016 and again in 2019, especially since migration was a big factor in those votes on top of EU centralised control.
That we are now almost certainly about to elect a Centre-Left Government may buck the continental trend, or it may show that we are, in fact, 10 years ahead of them.
Either way, and you can ignore the last bit, the main point is that we are not a typical mainland European country. We are an island nation with both an inward and outward facing dynamic.
We don’t generally do extremism. Since 1945, which was exceptional, we have never elected an extreme government of Right or Left. And however much froth and bubble they produce, neither Marxists nor Fascists have succeeded in winning a majority here.
Thankfully. Long may that continue.
I'm sad to see people just buying into the narrative of there being a significant rightward surge in Europe in general. As I attempted to show shortly after the results, there were countervailing currents in Europe. But people focus selectively so they highlighted the countries that fitted the narrative and stayed quiet on the ones that flowed the other direction. And before anyone says, it's not just that some countries get inherently more focus. In the past few years, Sweden had a lot of focus when it was going towards the right. In this election the result was a kind of stasis so oops we don't analyse that result.
People invested in politics get sucked in my these narratives because they want to feel something is happening. It's easier to justify the investment of time and emotion when you can kid yourself that a great historical tide is flowing even if in reality it's just the waves on the shore.
And of course, for some it's wishful thinking. You see it a lot on here. The country's about to take a moderate turn to the left. But where does that leave my "EVERYTHING FLOWING TO THE RIGHT!" story? Oh, easy, this incoming government will fail fast and the people will quickly wake up to our Lord and Saviour, Sir Nigel of Faragistan. And so a future that is so obviously unwritten collapses, in their minds, to a single inevitable conclusion. The obvious wrongness of this sense of inevitability ought to lead us to question every step they've made to get there. Including the recent past. What happened in the European elections is not what these people say happened. The picture is considerably more mixed and nuanced. But one of two blaring cakeholes shout a lie and everyone sort of absorbs it as gospel without checking.
Spot on. The Nordic countries are very different to Germany and the Netherlands. Poland is very different to Slovakia and Hungary. Portugal and Spain are very different to Italy. Greece is different again, having what seems to be a pretty competent, genuinely centre-right, socially liberal, quite popular government currently. France is going through what looks to be quite a unique trauma. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Sinn Fein has lost almost all the support that had previously seen it surge in the polls. And so on.
One thing that may unite much of Europe, though, including the UK is that the far right has pushed the centre right further rightwards on issues like immigration, the environment, the rule of law and so on. The French left is also now heading leftwards. I wonder if other countries will follow.
It’s a bollocks analysis, you should talk to someone who constantly travels - often around Europe - rather than some berk in a bed sit in Aberdeen. But it consoles you to believe this, so you will believe it
Do you think your 'here today, gone tomorrow' trips around Europe's tourist attractions give you an in depth understanding ?
Its possible to drive around a district by one route and think it highly affluent and to do it a different way and think it highly deprived.
Now extend that to a whole region, a whole country, a whole continent.
I’ve now travelled so much around the world I’ve gained an insight into travelling itself. It really does broaden the mind, but not in ways most people understand, because they don’t travel
As for my “trips around Europe’s tourist attractions” it’s maybe skipped your attention that I just spent a week in Moldova, literally the least touristy country in Europe (as in: fewest tourists) and that was followed by two days in Transnistria (zero tourists) and two weeks in war torn Ukraine (war tourists and dead tourists)
But you were still a tourist.
A different thing to living or doing business in that country.
I was doing business - I was working. Writing about the war and Ukraine. And writing about Moldova too
Why didn't you go to the front line if you were writing about the war? Just asking
Here’s a video I took from my hotel balcony in Odessa of drones slamming into Odessa as the Ukrainians desperately tried to shoot them down
You can just see tracer fire but it’s night so mostly invisible so you need to turn the audio up high
One thing that fucking amazed me about my Ukraine trip was how easy it was to move around. I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to get to Kharkov but I reckon I drove to within 20km of the FEBA with zero hindrance from UAF or internal security. I saw plenty of checkpoints but with nobody manning them.
Yes once you’re over the border you can basically go anywhere and they don’t check
I had a media contact in Odessa - lovely lady called Alina and she offered to take me to “the front line” - flak jacket with PRESS on it, and everything. But then she said “to be honest you will see more in Odessa. Plenty of drones and missiles, and you are already taking a risk, and Odessa is also beautiful and interesting. The front line will be boring in comparison and you will probably see less and hear less. Stay in Odessa”
So I did. And she was right
lol. I could almost wonder whether you are sending yourself up, but I don't think you are.
Reminds me of The Life of Brian when Reg decided to stay away from the action because "he had a bad leg"
You did watch the video right? You did hear the drones smashing into the port of Odessa as I filmed them from my balcony? And the desperate anti aircraft fire? Two days after than an Iskander missile took out a whole block about half a mile from that hotel. While I was there a chunk of drone fell on my boulevard cussing an explosion - 200m from my hotel
Have you done any of that, Nigel?
Odessa actually IS the front line. The same way London was the front line during the Blitz. If Putin can crush Odessa as a port and drive everyone away with drones and missiles then he’s got a good chance of winning
As I say, I know people in Odessa, and no it is not the frontline, and no it is not (thank fully) The Blitz. And yes, I have been to very dangerous places in my life, though I have never felt the need to try and impress people I don't know on a political blog to make myself look more interesting and adventurous than I already am.
Here is my unsolicited piece of advice Leon, try being a bit more humble. You would probably get a lot more of the admiration you so crave if you did so.
My expectation is that the Green vote will hold up but Reform will disappoint.
My rationale for this is that the Greens have outperformed in the local elections for the past two years, gaining councillors. They have activists on the ground working hard to get out the vote.
Reform have a couple of local councillors in Havant, otherwise none. Their ground war will be limited and their get out the vote is likely to be poor.
Given the national press focus on gambling and football, it will be the local activity which counts in this election.
“Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?
Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
Council tax set for a big rise then.
The most simple and stealthy way to get a wealth tax in.
It will be clumsy and deeply unfair, but within the boundaries of what can actually be achieved.
You cover it up by offloading all the blame to councils, like all council funding cuts over the last 14 years, and offer an olive branch of bands/rates reform (that will never actually materialise).
It is ludicrous that the council tax you pay (in England) is based on what your property would have been worth in April 1991.
Why exactly?
The bigger house next door would have been worth more than yours in 1991, and the block of flats across the road worth less in 1991. It’s simply a measure of relative prices in any given local authority area, they set their budget and then allocate it to the various bands.
“Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?
Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
Council tax set for a big rise then.
Nope, hopefully council tax due to be replaced with sane be it land value tax or simply last sales price...
So you’d bring in property taxes based on a national or absolute house price, rather than a relative house price in your local area?
That would require extensive central redistribution and bureaucracy, and mean that a five-bed detached house (currently Band H) in Middlesborough pays perhaps same as a studio apartment (Band A) in Kensington.
It would also completely shaft London and the surrounding area, forcing millions of people to move out and forcing key workers to start sharing.
Yes, I would.
I would replace Council Tax, and Stamp Duty and all other land-based taxes, with a single LVT at about 0.7% per annum of property prices.
I'd have that levied nationally and distributed nationally, with HMRC taking accountability for the fact that almost all Council services are nationally mandated anyway, such as care, education, health etc anyway.
London has higher prices but higher wages too, if paying a proportion of housing costs cools the housing market in London and sees some people and jobs go elsewhere in the UK instead, then that doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.
Instead, we've had: 2019 Cons get elected > 2019 Cons govern incompetently > state drifts leftwards > in reaction to which, various Conservatives both within and without government call for increasingly rightward things > but nothing actually happens > neither centrists not right wingers are happy > 2024 Cons get obliterated at polls
2019 fantasists offer the electorate the moon on a stick and get elected > moon not delivered, some element of stick > 2024 fantasists get obliterated
In defence of the 2019 Cons: 1) Almost anything was better than Corbyn, and 2) While Levelling Up was, er, a challenging aim, it was a worthwhile one and one I believed in and still do. But a challenging aim was rendered pretty much impossible by Covid and Ukraine, which have impoverished us in a way utterly unanticipated.
Still, at least the 2019 Cons purported to believe in Levelling Up. That pretty much died with the cancellation of HS2 (actually probably with the election of Rishi Sunak - ironically the first Northern MP we've had since Tony Blair).
It wasn't so much Covid and Ukraine that did for Levelling Up IMO, it was a complete lack of understanding in how to build infrastructure.
Big infra projects take time. Studies into the Northumberland Line - effectively just plonking down some stations on an existing freight-only line and doing the upgrades necessary for passenger trains to run - began in 2013. Ground investigation works began in 2020. Major construction began in 2022. The line will probably open later this year but half the stations will be delayed until 2025.
If the Conservatives were ever serious about Levelling Up they needed (a) to get spades in the ground within months (b) to be ready to railroad the projects through planning as Nationally Significant Infrastructure. They didn't do this. Instead they went through the usual charade of requiring councils to bid against each other for funds, staggering the funding in several rounds, all of that. Surprise, nothing has been done.
Eventually it gets to the point where you say "Well what can we do in time for the next election? Ah, I see, some chessboards in parks."
This is why, again, roads work so well - except the parties have been taken in by an agenda of opposing them.
New motorways don't need to be built all at once, new roads don't need to be built all at once.
HS2 takes decades to build, but won't be open until entire massive stages are done.
Whereas the motorways weren't built all in one go, they could be built piece by piece.
The M6 began its life as just the Preston bypass. It was operational as soon as it was done. Bits and pieces added over time until eventually they connected to make the motorways as we know them.
We can and should be doing the same today. Where there are major problems, or lack of connections, build new roads. Beginning with either bypasses, or especially bridges over rivers, which is what is most needed in most places. Then eventually over time connect them together to entirely new motorways.
Instead we just piss about with any investment if it does happen going into widening existing routes, which is facile. New routes allow people to take routes that don't exist currently, it makes journeys that can't happen currently entirely viable. That's what we need.
HS2 will be open and functioning in stages. Always was going to be, just not so many stages, thank you Mr Sunak.
Same with electrifications in the past and present. Always staged.
Indeed, but the stages are massive and take decades.
Whereas eg constructing a new bridge which means people can now drive over a river where they couldn't before, or there's a bypass where there wasn't before, etc can be done within a Parliament.
Electrification is like upgrades to the existing motorway network, it doesn't make any real new connections. Its new routes, new connections, that are most valuable not upgrades to existing routes.
On the contrary. Elecvtdrification was enormously important in increasing speed *and* capacity. And surely your demand for a new motorway from X to Y is basically the existing A class road upgraded.
I am fairly convinced that electrification - in the sense of overhead lines - will not advance much more.
siffucuent up ile battery powered trains are less efficient (carrying the weight of the batteries), the vastly lower capital costs and the maintenance issues will mean that for routes of increasing length, the batteries will win.
I agree, but only if.when we get *far* better battery chemistries.
That is the achillies heel at the root of all issues with renewables. But for it they would be in use by free market choice without any interference from politicians.
The combination of energy density of hydrocarbons and speed of conversion of that density into useful output is so much higher than any other alternative (other than a nuclear reactor which has all sorts of long term pollution issues).
Net zero isnt what they should be focussing on, they should be focusing on stable electricity storage as energy dense as hydrocarbons.
Sort that and Net Zero will be inevitable as it would be cheaper than fossil fuels.
Which just demonstrates that you don't understand how markets work. Battery storage is already highly competitive for some applications, and the technologies with advance more quickly as a result of mass production.
The reason China dominates in solar, in batteries, and increasingly in EVs is that they understand how markets work - and how the state can, with sufficient upfront investment, kickstart an entire industry.
Government has also a role in financing bluesky technology development (see the US ARPA-E in this context), but waiting for an ideal technology means abandoning the market.
The polls are pointing to Reform not breaking through to supplant the Tories but causing them enough trouble to hobble them in the, roughly, low 20s. Potentially the worst of both worlds for the right in this election, as far as seat distribution is concerned. Reform can probably win 2-3 seats - more would be an exceptional result - but it doesn’t look like we’re going to see the sort of FPTP breakthrough that a surge could have taken them to if they’d managed to break into, say, the mid 20s.
What this will do is completely sever the Tories’ hold as the main challenger in lots of seats. It is easy if we get a REF/CON split like 16/21 to see Reform taking second place in a decent chunk of the country. And what this does, as I’ve mentioned before, is cause the Tories significant issues in rebuilding without either coming to some kind of electoral arrangement with Reform or trying to incorporate those voters into its electoral coalition.
The next 4-5 years will be fascinating not just in terms of watching what happens to the government, but also the opposition as well.
Pretty sure the Torys would embrace Farage and his bunch of cranks with open arms, aided and abetted by GB news and the right wing press, all very depressing, and I would dearly love to be proved wrong
“Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?
Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
Council tax set for a big rise then.
Nope, hopefully council tax due to be replaced with sane be it land value tax or simply last sales price...
So you’d bring in property taxes based on a national or absolute house price, rather than a relative house price in your local area?
That would require extensive central redistribution and bureaucracy, and mean that a five-bed detached house (currently Band H) in Middlesborough pays perhaps same as a studio apartment (Band A) in Kensington.
It would also completely shaft London and the surrounding area, forcing millions of people to move out and forcing key workers to start sharing.
That, I'm afraid, is what levelling up looks like.
If you're not going to build the infrastructure or provide the economic stimulus in areas like Middlesbrough, you're left with making the relative tax incentives large enough to drive some demand away from London/Edinburgh/Bath.
It won't work of course. I can buy a five bed in Middlesbrough for the cost of my one bed in Edinburgh. But I am not about to move, despite being able to work entirely remotely.
Anecdote klaxon: Just had a fascinating discussion with a customer. He came in to pick up a book he'd ordered, and grabbed a copy of Rory Stewart to go with it, so we got talking politics. He's a little older than me (first voted early 70s, so maybe 70ish?), retired and very well off (he lives in Arundel, so...).
He told me that he's been a lifelong Tory, and was very active politically for a while, so much so he was offered a safe seat at one point (note: he says this, I have no independent verification). Now, he's absolutely vitriolic about the Cons - obsession with economics over social issues, Brexit, Boris, Liz Truss, PPE, fracking, sewage, and on, and on. Wouldn't touch them with a bargepole now - says they are not remotely a Conservative party he recognises. He's not just not voting for them, he's a) voting Green and b) wants to see the Conservatives destroyed next week. His wife is even further along - she was chair of the local Conservative association some while back, but has taken part in, and been arrested on, XR and JSO demonstrations!
I didn't mention my own leanings until we got to this point, so I wasn't influencing him! But is something stirring in the heart of blue England? I am reminded of The Secret People...
Con -> Green is an interesting switch.
I don’t see any evidence of a tremendous groundswell that way.
What I do see is a splintering of the Tory electoral coalition. The professional middle classes have now become much more left wing in sensibilities and outlook (at least for now - more on that later) and a lot are now avowed social democrats. Environmentalism is part of that, though I’m not sure I think generally to the extremes that the Greens espouse.
Meanwhile some of the traditional Labour coalition - the WWC - is moving to the right - as manifested in the 2019 vote. Some of that will come home to Labour this time, but there is a large opening for Reform/AN other right wing movement in the coming years.
The other interesting thing is how those middle class voters perceive a Labour government once they get one. It’s all lovely to support nice progressive things in principle, if Labour do have to hike taxes though, does that take the shine off somewhat?
In short: the electoral coalitions in the UK are in a state of flux we’ve not seen for decades, and I think it’s likely to throw up all sorts of crazy swings in the coming years.
“Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?
Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
Council tax set for a big rise then.
Nope, hopefully council tax due to be replaced with sane be it land value tax or simply last sales price...
So you’d bring in property taxes based on a national or absolute house price, rather than a relative house price in your local area?
That would require extensive central redistribution and bureaucracy, and mean that a five-bed detached house (currently Band H) in Middlesborough pays perhaps same as a studio apartment (Band A) in Kensington.
It would also completely shaft London and the surrounding area, forcing millions of people to move out and forcing key workers to start sharing.
Your choice is that with tax down south being so much more or regional bands and politically that could be worse as it would reveal the true Have / Have Not world that we live in.
Also the Government needs money and the only thing that hasn't been taxed is wealth and while wealth can be removed from the country it's rather hard to move the land / house.
Hence as we've reached the conclusion many times before the only thing that can be easily used as a proxy for wealth is property so you tax the property...
The garden placard fairy has left a vote green placard three doors up, the sole placard on my street. Usually there would be a dozen, mix of green and labour but this time its all a bit 'meh'
I've made this point before - but political flags strike me as ever so slightly rude. It would be like me coming up to you in the street, unannounced, and declaring 'Vote Conservative!' or whatever. At the very least it's a way of making 75% of people think slightly less of you. We're generally quite good IRL at tiptoeing around contentious issues like this and I find it slightly surprising we used to do it to the scale we did.
Anecdote klaxon: Just had a fascinating discussion with a customer. He came in to pick up a book he'd ordered, and grabbed a copy of Rory Stewart to go with it, so we got talking politics. He's a little older than me (first voted early 70s, so maybe 70ish?), retired and very well off (he lives in Arundel, so...).
He told me that he's been a lifelong Tory, and was very active politically for a while, so much so he was offered a safe seat at one point (note: he says this, I have no independent verification). Now, he's absolutely vitriolic about the Cons - obsession with economics over social issues, Brexit, Boris, Liz Truss, PPE, fracking, sewage, and on, and on. Wouldn't touch them with a bargepole now - says they are not remotely a Conservative party he recognises. He's not just not voting for them, he's a) voting Green and b) wants to see the Conservatives destroyed next week. His wife is even further along - she was chair of the local Conservative association some while back, but has taken part in, and been arrested on, XR and JSO demonstrations!
I didn't mention my own leanings until we got to this point, so I wasn't influencing him! But is something stirring in the heart of blue England? I am reminded of The Secret People...
Con -> Green is an interesting switch.
I don’t see any evidence of a tremendous groundswell that way.
What I do see is a splintering of the Tory electoral coalition. The professional middle classes have now become much more left wing in sensibilities and outlook (at least for now - more on that later) and a lot are now avowed social democrats. Environmentalism is part of that, though I’m not sure I think generally to the extremes that the Greens espouse.
Meanwhile some of the traditional Labour coalition - the WWC - is moving to the right - as manifested in the 2019 vote. Some of that will come home to Labour this time, but there is a large opening for Reform/AN other right wing movement in the coming years.
In short: the electoral coalitions in the UK are in a state of flux we’ve not seen for decades, and I think it’s likely to throw up all sorts of crazy swings in the coming years.
Tories could lose Waveney Valley, North Herefordshire (and possibly an Isle of Wight seat) to the Greens, which would involve quite a lot of Conservative voters switching to that party.
“Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?
Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
Council tax set for a big rise then.
Nope, hopefully council tax due to be replaced with sane be it land value tax or simply last sales price...
So you’d bring in property taxes based on a national or absolute house price, rather than a relative house price in your local area?
That would require extensive central redistribution and bureaucracy, and mean that a five-bed detached house (currently Band H) in Middlesborough pays perhaps same as a studio apartment (Band A) in Kensington.
It would also completely shaft London and the surrounding area, forcing millions of people to move out and forcing key workers to start sharing.
Yes, I would.
I would replace Council Tax, and Stamp Duty and all other land-based taxes, with a single LVT at about 0.7% per annum of property prices.
I'd have that levied nationally and distributed nationally, with HMRC taking accountability for the fact that almost all Council services are nationally mandated anyway, such as care, education, health etc anyway.
London has higher prices but higher wages too, if paying a proportion of housing costs cools the housing market in London and sees some people and jobs go elsewhere in the UK instead, then that doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.
Hmm...
Calculates.
That would have the nice Irish couple (retired) next door to me out of their house.
One correction to a Land Value Tax is I would not levy the tax based on house prices, but based on undeveloped land in that region.
If the land is developed or undeveloped it should be taxed the same either way. If someone wants to pay to keep their land as an undeveloped garden or field, that should be their choice. If someone wants to pay to develop their land as housing or flats, that should be their choice.
It should be the land, which is of finite supply, not housing which is taxed.
One correction to a Land Value Tax is I would not levy the tax based on house prices, but based on undeveloped land in that region.
If the land is developed or undeveloped it should be taxed the same either way. If someone wants to pay to keep their land as an undeveloped garden or field, that should be their choice. If someone wants to pay to develop their land as housing or flats, that should be their choice.
It should be the land, which is of finite supply, not housing which is taxed.
The positive side effect of that kind of policy would be flat owners would pay very little. My tenement has the same footprint as a 3 bed detached house, but has 12 households living in it.
That would incentivise medium-high density housing and help with competition for land (and undercut land banking developers).
One correction to a Land Value Tax is I would not levy the tax based on house prices, but based on undeveloped land in that region.
If the land is developed or undeveloped it should be taxed the same either way. If someone wants to pay to keep their land as an undeveloped garden or field, that should be their choice. If someone wants to pay to develop their land as housing or flats, that should be their choice.
It should be the land, which is of finite supply, not housing which is taxed.
The positive side effect of that kind of policy would be flat owners would pay very little. My tenement has the same footprint as a 3 bed detached house, but has 12 households living in it.
That would incentivise medium-high density housing and help with competition for land (and undercut land banking developers).
Anecdote klaxon: Just had a fascinating discussion with a customer. He came in to pick up a book he'd ordered, and grabbed a copy of Rory Stewart to go with it, so we got talking politics. He's a little older than me (first voted early 70s, so maybe 70ish?), retired and very well off (he lives in Arundel, so...).
He told me that he's been a lifelong Tory, and was very active politically for a while, so much so he was offered a safe seat at one point (note: he says this, I have no independent verification). Now, he's absolutely vitriolic about the Cons - obsession with economics over social issues, Brexit, Boris, Liz Truss, PPE, fracking, sewage, and on, and on. Wouldn't touch them with a bargepole now - says they are not remotely a Conservative party he recognises. He's not just not voting for them, he's a) voting Green and b) wants to see the Conservatives destroyed next week. His wife is even further along - she was chair of the local Conservative association some while back, but has taken part in, and been arrested on, XR and JSO demonstrations!
I didn't mention my own leanings until we got to this point, so I wasn't influencing him! But is something stirring in the heart of blue England? I am reminded of The Secret People...
Is this perhaps why those Green numbers are holding up? It's not inner city radicals cross about Gaza, it's shire Tories protesting about the local environment. A safe place to park your vote without having to go the whole hog and vote Labour or Lib Dem.
This may also explain things like North Herefordshire and Waveney Valley.
The geographical spread of Green votes is going to be fascinating. I wish we had the same village-level voting data that France does. In theory it should be possible, we could do it based on polling station. But in practice it's not done that way.
Anecdote klaxon: Just had a fascinating discussion with a customer. He came in to pick up a book he'd ordered, and grabbed a copy of Rory Stewart to go with it, so we got talking politics. He's a little older than me (first voted early 70s, so maybe 70ish?), retired and very well off (he lives in Arundel, so...).
He told me that he's been a lifelong Tory, and was very active politically for a while, so much so he was offered a safe seat at one point (note: he says this, I have no independent verification). Now, he's absolutely vitriolic about the Cons - obsession with economics over social issues, Brexit, Boris, Liz Truss, PPE, fracking, sewage, and on, and on. Wouldn't touch them with a bargepole now - says they are not remotely a Conservative party he recognises. He's not just not voting for them, he's a) voting Green and b) wants to see the Conservatives destroyed next week. His wife is even further along - she was chair of the local Conservative association some while back, but has taken part in, and been arrested on, XR and JSO demonstrations!
I didn't mention my own leanings until we got to this point, so I wasn't influencing him! But is something stirring in the heart of blue England? I am reminded of The Secret People...
Ironically the one thing that the Conservative Party has definitely failed to conserve is the Conservative Party. Can it be restored from a pile of rusty bolts and the scorched upholstery? No doubt there are experts out there capable of this major resto job, it’s just one doubts that any of them will be in the smouldering post 04/07 remains.
Ah very useful, thanks. I will be up all night (obvs) but it'll be good to have the expected declarations schedule in order to plan my catnaps.
I will be waiting to see if Labour massively miss expectations. I am not holding my breath, but it would be a moment almost as amusing as seeing Johnson had to resign. I can but dream. Either way, as they are a bunch of middle-manager lightweights they will crash at some point and I will be waiting to laugh.
Well if that's the way you want to approach things, Nigel. Seems a bit churlish to me - you could easily be waiting 10 years to have a laugh - but each to his own.
My advice, offered not just to you but to all anti-Labourites, is to meet Keir in the middle and wish him well as he takes on this great burden. A decade of national renewal under a changed Labour Party that is back in the service of working people will feel like an eternity if you spend it sniping and looking for cobwebs the whole time.
@kinabalu , you seem like a nice chap, but I sense that your loyalism to SKS is similar to the crazies who used to worship Johnson (eg HYUFD). The reality is that Labour will do very very little to shift the dial positively for anyone, except perhaps their own egos. None of the front bench have any gravitas or experience to take on the challenges they face. They will get frustrated and take their chippy frustrations out on people who are more successful than they are and cause a drain of wealth creators. It is tragic, but it will happen. Sadly we now have a system where all political parties are filled with lightweights and charlatans. The fact that you think Labour (your "team right or wrong") are going to make things so much better is quaint.
Like I keep saying, SKS benefits from the almost unheard of combination of big majority and low expectations (as indicated in your post) - both of those things, the big majority and low expectations being gifted by something on which you and I agree, the Brexit/Johnson induced destruction of the Conservative Party.
It's a golden legacy, no question. But will he waste it? Yes he might, and I do get where people who say this are coming from. The rhetoric and the policies, to the extent known, are super cautious. Everything has been about winning the election. It's worked a dream but if he carries this over into office disappointment will abound across the land.
"We campaigned as Dull Labour. We will govern as Dull Labour."
No. I don't think so. I predict something very different. SKS has radical instincts - soft left not hard left but left nevertheless - and I think once he's got his feet under the desk and settled in there'll be a raft of policies in that vein. If I'm wrong I'll hold my hand up and say so but I truly don't expect to be.
The acid test (to be applied mid term) will be how millions of natural Tories such as yourself are then feeling. Will it be, "What a waste of space. Told you he wouldn't change anything." Or will it be, "What a lying scoundrel. He has no mandate for this."
If I'm right it'll be the second. Mental note made to run this check two years from today.
“Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?
Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
Council tax set for a big rise then.
Nope, hopefully council tax due to be replaced with sane be it land value tax or simply last sales price...
So you’d bring in property taxes based on a national or absolute house price, rather than a relative house price in your local area?
That would require extensive central redistribution and bureaucracy, and mean that a five-bed detached house (currently Band H) in Middlesborough pays perhaps same as a studio apartment (Band A) in Kensington.
It would also completely shaft London and the surrounding area, forcing millions of people to move out and forcing key workers to start sharing.
Yes, I would.
I would replace Council Tax, and Stamp Duty and all other land-based taxes, with a single LVT at about 0.7% per annum of property prices.
I'd have that levied nationally and distributed nationally, with HMRC taking accountability for the fact that almost all Council services are nationally mandated anyway, such as care, education, health etc anyway.
London has higher prices but higher wages too, if paying a proportion of housing costs cools the housing market in London and sees some people and jobs go elsewhere in the UK instead, then that doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.
Can I put in a plea in your system for those of us who live in a large house not because we are rich but because we have been busy staving off the demographic time bomb?
Anecdote klaxon: Just had a fascinating discussion with a customer. He came in to pick up a book he'd ordered, and grabbed a copy of Rory Stewart to go with it, so we got talking politics. He's a little older than me (first voted early 70s, so maybe 70ish?), retired and very well off (he lives in Arundel, so...).
He told me that he's been a lifelong Tory, and was very active politically for a while, so much so he was offered a safe seat at one point (note: he says this, I have no independent verification). Now, he's absolutely vitriolic about the Cons - obsession with economics over social issues, Brexit, Boris, Liz Truss, PPE, fracking, sewage, and on, and on. Wouldn't touch them with a bargepole now - says they are not remotely a Conservative party he recognises. He's not just not voting for them, he's a) voting Green and b) wants to see the Conservatives destroyed next week. His wife is even further along - she was chair of the local Conservative association some while back, but has taken part in, and been arrested on, XR and JSO demonstrations!
I didn't mention my own leanings until we got to this point, so I wasn't influencing him! But is something stirring in the heart of blue England? I am reminded of The Secret People...
Con -> Green is an interesting switch.
I don’t see any evidence of a tremendous groundswell that way.
What I do see is a splintering of the Tory electoral coalition. The professional middle classes have now become much more left wing in sensibilities and outlook (at least for now - more on that later) and a lot are now avowed social democrats. Environmentalism is part of that, though I’m not sure I think generally to the extremes that the Greens espouse.
Meanwhile some of the traditional Labour coalition - the WWC - is moving to the right - as manifested in the 2019 vote. Some of that will come home to Labour this time, but there is a large opening for Reform/AN other right wing movement in the coming years.
In short: the electoral coalitions in the UK are in a state of flux we’ve not seen for decades, and I think it’s likely to throw up all sorts of crazy swings in the coming years.
Tories could lose Waveney Valley, North Herefordshire (and possibly an Isle of Wight seat) to the Greens, which would involve quite a lot of Conservative voters switching to that party.
Waveney Valley probably comes down to how much of the Lab LD vote goes tactically Green, I'd put the Tories ahead on 'normal voting intention' by a few %, it really is the Toriest bit of the old Waveney seat with additional Tory bits. Even in a meltdown year I back them to get towards or over 40% here
Vote %s and seat counts for the Tories with each MRP.
EC 24.77% 75 YG 22.27% 108 NS 23.32% 96 IPSOS 24.90% 110 Savanta 22.86% 53 Focaldata 23.50% 113 More in Common 27.98% 155 Survation 23.88% 72
Vote % is calculated by looking at the % projected for the Tories in each seat and comparing against Electoral Calculus expected turnout % and seat size in each seat. To get to a 1997 result the current polling would need to be a considerable miss.
“Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?
Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
Council tax set for a big rise then.
The most simple and stealthy way to get a wealth tax in.
It will be clumsy and deeply unfair, but within the boundaries of what can actually be achieved.
You cover it up by offloading all the blame to councils, like all council funding cuts over the last 14 years, and offer an olive branch of bands/rates reform (that will never actually materialise).
It is ludicrous that the council tax you pay (in England) is based on what your property would have been worth in April 1991.
Why exactly?
The bigger house next door would have been worth more than yours in 1991, and the block of flats across the road worth less in 1991. It’s simply a measure of relative prices in any given local authority area, they set their budget and then allocate it to the various bands.
A bigger house in 1991 will be a bigger house in 2024, sure, but (1) it’s difficult to calculate, and (2) the value of different sorts of housing and, more so, different areas under the same local authority have varied a lot over the last 33 years. There are places near me that have hugely gentrified over those 3 decades, but benefit from 1991 valuations.
Vote %s and seat counts for the Tories with each MRP.
EC 24.77% 75 YG 22.27% 108 NS 23.32% 96 IPSOS 24.90% 110 Savanta 22.86% 53 Focaldata 23.50% 113 More in Common 27.98% 155 Survation 23.88% 72
Vote % is calculated by looking at the % projected for the Tories in each seat and comparing against Electoral Calculus expected turnout % and seat size in each seat. To get to a 1997 result the current polling would need to be a considerable miss.
Comments
For a start, an awful lot of the private sector rely on funding from the public sector. Would the fat pensions of Serco/G4S executives also be taxed?
Tax benefits of pension savings should only take it to a comfortable level, perhaps retire on median wage at pension age, so something in order of 500k retirement pot to give 20-25k income plus state pension.
Beyond that it should be taxed normally, otherwise we are simply incentivising our most productive workers to retire earlier and earlier, and then wondering why productivity is low.
If the government finances are messed up due to public sector pensions, then it seems appropriate to tax public sector pensions to pay for those pensions.
But the least we could do is not tax them less than people who are actually working for a living.
Edit- but all of that does indicate a huge dissatisfaction with the business as usual model
1. A massive narcissist
And
2. Leon
The reduction in the Tory share in the Survation polls over the course of the campaign is quite something, though. Starting with their 21-22 May poll, the Tory shares are:
27%
24%
23%
23%
20%
18%
If Survation end up being broadly accurate, then this campaign would look like the worst-ever British election campaign. May in 2017 didn't lose that much support, the closing of the gap was mainly because Corbyn was able to rally opposition support behind Labour.
My advice, offered not just to you but to all anti-Labourites, is to meet Keir in the middle and wish him well as he takes on this great burden. A decade of national renewal under a changed Labour Party that is back in the service of working people will feel like an eternity if you spend it sniping and looking for cobwebs the whole time.
Or better still merge it with Income Tax and have all income (earned and unearned) having the same tax liabilities. It would simplify things and people would have afar better idea of exactly how much tax they are paying.
It would offer a poorer rate of return than the market, but many people would value the certainty. Good for public sector workers also as there would be a broader constituency interested in defending their pensions.
Seems we are heading to a Lab landslide that then fails to deliver any meaningful change because it has tied itself down to same finance plans as Tories for first term and it wont get a second when it fails to fix the broken public realm.
(I have a TV licence, so this is all academic to me, but these corner cases are another argument for funding out of general taxation rather than a regressive and hard to enforce licence fee.)
But I'm not talking about expats I mean people who live in their own country.
Just reading PB shows how varied the life experiences of different people in different careers in different parts of the country can be. And PBers are certainly not the most varied group - too male, too middle class, too middle aged, too nerdy.
This is historic. It has to be watched. I’m on the right but I will be bitterly disappointed if all the polls are wrong and Labour come home with a 57 seat majority and the Tories retain 200 MPs
I want the drama. The annihilation
I will be very surprised if the Greens are not heavily squeezed in the polling booth this time as well.
In fact I’m completely different to 99.4% of humanity and that has good and bad consequences - for me. I’ve learned to live with it
What I’ve not learned to live with are the downsides of my job. Eg I want to be angry about politics buta it’s really hard to be angry when this is your view. This is what I’m staring at right now. Bastards
And that the public sector unions are more than helpful or pay rises and productivity.
If not then it might get a second term but it will be too late then to do anything radical.
There are plenty of less politically engaged people, some of whom might not even necessarily vote regularly - who might find it funny to imagine the below and participate in it.
(found the image on Twitter)
Although 0 seats itself is very very unlikely, 0-100 Tory seats is now very possible - how do we account for a ‘pile on’ effect - the way in which giving a kicking to someone can be a motivating factor in itself?
Maybe this counteracts the idea that ‘Labour victory certainty = lower turnout’ - maybe that’s more true when the ‘inevitable’ winner is the incumbent, like in 2001.
I agree that they could have afforded to give themselves more flexibility on finances. "We won't cut this, and won't raise taxes on that..." very quickly adds up to having sod all room for manoeuvre.
It will be clumsy and deeply unfair, but within the boundaries of what can actually be achieved.
You cover it up by offloading all the blame to councils, like all council funding cuts over the last 14 years, and offer an olive branch of bands/rates reform (that will never actually materialise).
Tax all pensions more, by all means, but it would not be sustainable to tax specifically public sector pensions.
Dewsbury & Batley: the most intensive poster battle there is - hundreds of posters all along the roads not just in the locality centres, probably around 2:1 in favour of Iqbal Mohammed, the Independent. Labour posting only the candidate name, Heather Iqbal, posters, with the minimal 'Vote Labour' in the bottom left and have eschewed primary red for a pink into purple blend effect. Surely voters aren't fooled by that stuff!
Spen Valley: Dominant Labour postering in a few localities, with a bit of the very dark blue Reform boards. More traditional Labour poster mix, plus a few white diamonds with
the pink/purple edging and worded 'Vote Local, Vote Kim'.
Ossett & Denby Dale: very little lamppost game, despite it being allowed both on Wakefield and Kirklees parts of the constituency. A few Mark Eastwood (Con) posters and a lone Labour poster in Middlestown, and a further lone Eastwood poster in Clayton West, but nothing at all in 3 other villages.
As per previous, Colne Valley Labour have responded and edged out the early Jason McCartney (Con) posters, with a smattering of Green and Reform posters.
Huddersfield, postering is fairly intense with Green and Labour matching poster for poster in most places, but with the odd dominant spot (e.g. central Newsome all green, central Almondbury mostly red) and a small number of posters for Reform
The simpler the tax system, in general, the fairer it is.
I had a media contact in Odessa - lovely lady called Alina and she offered to take me to “the front line” - flak jacket with PRESS on it, and everything. But then she said “to be honest you will see more in Odessa. Plenty of drones and missiles, and you are already taking a risk, and Odessa is also beautiful and interesting. The front line will be boring in comparison and you will probably see less and hear less. Stay in Odessa”
So I did. And she was right
otherwise why would you insist on being such a massive arse most of the time?
re: your comments about travel. I'm genuinely impressed you have learnt to speak the languages of all the places you visit. Applaus, Applaus
Always.
Reminds me of The Life of Brian when Reg decided to stay away from the action because "he had a bad leg"
Just like staggering school holidays, or changing the timing comedy of A level results and university entry.
What this will do is completely sever the Tories’ hold as the main challenger in lots of seats. It is easy if we get a REF/CON split like 16/21 to see Reform taking second place in a decent chunk of the country. And what this does, as I’ve mentioned before, is cause the Tories significant issues in rebuilding without either coming to some kind of electoral arrangement with Reform or trying to incorporate those voters into its electoral coalition.
The next 4-5 years will be fascinating not just in terms of watching what happens to the government, but also the opposition as well.
Have you done any of that, Nigel?
Odessa actually IS the front line. The same way London was the front line during the Blitz. If Putin can crush Odessa as a port and drive everyone away with drones and missiles then he’s got a good chance of winning
https://www.mattgoodwin.org/p/is-support-for-reform-sliding
Quote from Ukrainian official:
“Whether or not Farage is part of Putin’s invisible hand in Europe, we do not have evidence for this. But we are confident Russia is trying to take advantage of his extreme far-right views,
“For Putin, the UK will always remain a central place for geopolitics, Russia may deny it is retaining influence, but the UK is very important to Russia.
“Farage claims he is campaigning to make Britain strong and safe, but with this attitude on Ukraine – it implies he would run away from danger – he sounds like a weak guy.
It's easy to simulate their overall seat total predictions by adjusting the proportional or UNS parameters of a "traditional" algorithm, many of which also seek to take account of tactical voting, incumbency etc.
Whether the MRPs are right or wrong this time will largely depend on whether the electorate behave in the same way as in most British elections in the past (i.e. the change in seats is best modelled by UNS rather than any proportional method), or in the way they have behaved in just a few in the UK (in which case the MRP, being proportional, will be much more accurate than UNS). At the moment, nobody really knows which pattern will be followed, and of course it may be something between the two.
A final note, the reason some MRPs produced accurate overall seat projections in the past was because their data sample was way out. If the same model had been used for the actual election data percentages then the seat totals would have been as wrong as any UNS projection.
On the other hand, if the public mood around Ukraine changes, he's maybe positioned himself well to benefit, eventually. But he needs arguments that resonate better than 'NATO and the EU are partly to blame, so let's abandon Ukraine'
That would require extensive central redistribution and bureaucracy, and mean that a five-bed detached house (currently Band H) in Middlesborough pays perhaps same as a studio apartment (Band A) in Kensington.
It would also completely shaft London and the surrounding area, forcing millions of people to move out and forcing key workers to start sharing.
Just had a fascinating discussion with a customer. He came in to pick up a book he'd ordered, and grabbed a copy of Rory Stewart to go with it, so we got talking politics. He's a little older than me (first voted early 70s, so maybe 70ish?), retired and very well off (he lives in Arundel, so...).
He told me that he's been a lifelong Tory, and was very active politically for a while, so much so he was offered a safe seat at one point (note: he says this, I have no independent verification). Now, he's absolutely vitriolic about the Cons - obsession with economics over social issues, Brexit, Boris, Liz Truss, PPE, fracking, sewage, and on, and on. Wouldn't touch them with a bargepole now - says they are not remotely a Conservative party he recognises. He's not just not voting for them, he's a) voting Green and b) wants to see the Conservatives destroyed next week. His wife is even further along - she was chair of the local Conservative association some while back, but has taken part in, and been arrested on, XR and JSO demonstrations!
I didn't mention my own leanings until we got to this point, so I wasn't influencing him! But is something stirring in the heart of blue England? I am reminded of The Secret People...
Here is my unsolicited piece of advice Leon, try being a bit more humble. You would probably get a lot more of the admiration you so crave if you did so.
My rationale for this is that the Greens have outperformed in the local elections for the past two years, gaining councillors. They have activists on the ground working hard to get out the vote.
Reform have a couple of local councillors in Havant, otherwise none. Their ground war will be limited and their get out the vote is likely to be poor.
Given the national press focus on gambling and football, it will be the local activity which counts in this election.
The bigger house next door would have been worth more than yours in 1991, and the block of flats across the road worth less in 1991. It’s simply a measure of relative prices in any given local authority area, they set their budget and then allocate it to the various bands.
I would replace Council Tax, and Stamp Duty and all other land-based taxes, with a single LVT at about 0.7% per annum of property prices.
I'd have that levied nationally and distributed nationally, with HMRC taking accountability for the fact that almost all Council services are nationally mandated anyway, such as care, education, health etc anyway.
London has higher prices but higher wages too, if paying a proportion of housing costs cools the housing market in London and sees some people and jobs go elsewhere in the UK instead, then that doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.
Battery storage is already highly competitive for some applications, and the technologies with advance more quickly as a result of mass production.
The reason China dominates in solar, in batteries, and increasingly in EVs is that they understand how markets work - and how the state can, with sufficient upfront investment, kickstart an entire industry.
Government has also a role in financing bluesky technology development (see the US ARPA-E in this context), but waiting for an ideal technology means abandoning the market.
Clayton Christensen wrote a classic book on how new technologies get adopted over quarter of a century ago, which essentially makes that point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator's_Dilemma
If you're not going to build the infrastructure or provide the economic stimulus in areas like Middlesbrough, you're left with making the relative tax incentives large enough to drive some demand away from London/Edinburgh/Bath.
It won't work of course. I can buy a five bed in Middlesbrough for the cost of my one bed in Edinburgh. But I am not about to move, despite being able to work entirely remotely.
I don’t see any evidence of a tremendous groundswell that way.
What I do see is a splintering of the Tory electoral coalition. The professional middle classes have now become much more left wing in sensibilities and outlook (at least for now - more on that later) and a lot are now avowed social democrats. Environmentalism is part of that, though I’m not sure I think generally to the extremes that the Greens espouse.
Meanwhile some of the traditional Labour coalition - the WWC - is moving to the right - as manifested in the 2019 vote. Some of that will come home to Labour this time, but there is a large opening for Reform/AN other right wing movement in the coming years.
The other interesting thing is how those middle class voters perceive a Labour government once they get one. It’s all lovely to support nice progressive things in principle, if Labour do have to hike taxes though, does that take the shine off somewhat?
In short: the electoral coalitions in the UK are in a state of flux we’ve not seen for decades, and I think it’s likely to throw up all sorts of crazy swings in the coming years.
Also the Government needs money and the only thing that hasn't been taxed is wealth and while wealth can be removed from the country it's rather hard to move the land / house.
Hence as we've reached the conclusion many times before the only thing that can be easily used as a proxy for wealth is property so you tax the property...
Calculates.
That would have the nice Irish couple (retired) next door to me out of their house.
Which would mean I could buy it and let it out.
Nice.
If the land is developed or undeveloped it should be taxed the same either way. If someone wants to pay to keep their land as an undeveloped garden or field, that should be their choice. If someone wants to pay to develop their land as housing or flats, that should be their choice.
It should be the land, which is of finite supply, not housing which is taxed.
That would incentivise medium-high density housing and help with competition for land (and undercut land banking developers).
BY MARY HARRINGTON"
https://unherd.com/newsroom/nigel-farage-declares-war-on-conservative-press-over-ukraine/
This may also explain things like North Herefordshire and Waveney Valley.
The geographical spread of Green votes is going to be fascinating. I wish we had the same village-level voting data that France does. In theory it should be possible, we could do it based on polling station. But in practice it's not done that way.
It's a golden legacy, no question. But will he waste it? Yes he might, and I do get where people who say this are coming from. The rhetoric and the policies, to the extent known, are super cautious. Everything has been about winning the election. It's worked a dream but if he carries this over into office disappointment will abound across the land.
"We campaigned as Dull Labour. We will govern as Dull Labour."
No. I don't think so. I predict something very different. SKS has radical instincts - soft left not hard left but left nevertheless - and I think once he's got his feet under the desk and settled in there'll be a raft of policies in that vein. If I'm wrong I'll hold my hand up and say so but I truly don't expect to be.
The acid test (to be applied mid term) will be how millions of natural Tories such as yourself are then feeling. Will it be, "What a waste of space. Told you he wouldn't change anything." Or will it be, "What a lying scoundrel. He has no mandate for this."
If I'm right it'll be the second. Mental note made to run this check two years from today.
Vote %s and seat counts for the Tories with each MRP.
EC 24.77%
75
YG 22.27%
108
NS 23.32%
96
IPSOS 24.90%
110
Savanta 22.86%
53
Focaldata 23.50%
113
More in Common 27.98%
155
Survation 23.88%
72
Vote % is calculated by looking at the % projected for the Tories in each seat and comparing against Electoral Calculus expected turnout % and seat size in each seat.
To get to a 1997 result the current polling would need to be a considerable miss.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c7225z3n9e9t?post=asset:2e304d5f-e6b2-4e56-b22c-bc1a6d03ee82#post