I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Maybe the builders can hire more apprentices, instead of complaining about a lack of skilled workers or asking government for more immigrants.
Just Googled bricklaying apprenticeships and I see some being advertised . . . with a wage of £5.28 per hour.
My sympathies for those who can't find employees at £5.28 per hour.
Presumably they’re looking for 16-year-olds with no bricklaying skills, in which case that’s not too bad. But after a couple of years, they’ll be getting £15-£20 as bricklayers?
You'd think so, but no, this is for 19 year old apprentices with 2 A levels and 5+ GCSEs including Maths and English.
Absolutely no sympathies for anyone struggling to recruit. Increase your pay to a rate that fills your vacancies, its not like you need a 7 year course before you can start laying your first brick.
Obesity is also an issue for Brits. If you’re a fat lazy twat, and many of us are, then you can’t be bothered walking into town waddling under your own weight, you get it all delivered or jump in your car, like the super-obese Americans. Thus you get even fatter and even less inclined to walk and so on and so forth
Isn't obesity becoming more of a thing in France these days?
Yes it is and it is noticeable in the young, however they are still notably thinner than us
67% of UK adults are obese or overweight, it’s 47% in France - but rising fast (as you say)
We really need generic Ozempic to be handed out to everyone, like putting fluoride in the water
Obesity is also an issue for Brits. If you’re a fat lazy twat, and many of us are, then you can’t be bothered walking into town waddling under your own weight, you get it all delivered or jump in your car, like the super-obese Americans. Thus you get even fatter and even less inclined to walk and so on and so forth
Isn't obesity becoming more of a thing in France these days?
Yes it is and it is noticeable in the young, however they are still notably thinner than us
67% of UK adults are obese or overweight, it’s 47% in France - but rising fast (as you say)
We really need generic Ozempic to be handed out to everyone, like putting fluoride in the water
Obesity is also an issue for Brits. If you’re a fat lazy twat, and many of us are, then you can’t be bothered walking into town waddling under your own weight, you get it all delivered or jump in your car, like the super-obese Americans. Thus you get even fatter and even less inclined to walk and so on and so forth
Isn't obesity becoming more of a thing in France these days?
Yes it is and it is noticeable in the young, however they are still notably thinner than us
67% of UK adults are obese or overweight, it’s 47% in France - but rising fast (as you say)
We really need generic Ozempic to be handed out to everyone, like putting fluoride in the water
How much is a Big Mac in Zurich? I do like Macdonalds though.
I meant I do like Macdonalds.
They're ok, but a nice warm tin of Campbells on a winter's night is to die for.
Tomato soup with cheese on toast on a cold night...
I like Campbell's Condensed Mushroom Soup (the only tinned mushroom soup that actually tastes of anything at this point) but it's a bugger to get around here. Whenever I see it in Tesco I buy six cans of it.
Beaten eggs + condensed mushroom soup is a good mushroom omelette recipe.
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Maybe the builders can hire more apprentices, instead of complaining about a lack of skilled workers or asking government for more immigrants.
Just Googled bricklaying apprenticeships and I see some being advertised . . . with a wage of £5.28 per hour.
My sympathies for those who can't find employees at £5.28 per hour.
Presumably they’re looking for 16-year-olds with no bricklaying skills, in which case that’s not too bad. But after a couple of years, they’ll be getting £15-£20 as bricklayers?
You'd think so, but no, this is for 19 year old apprentices with 2 A levels and 5+ GCSEs including Maths and English.
Absolutely no sympathies for anyone struggling to recruit. Increase your pay to a rate that fills your vacancies, its not like you need a 7 year course before you can start laying your first brick.
My Dad did a seven year bricklaying apprenticeship.
The debate about tatty Taunton and hollowed out British market towns occurred as I was walking around Le Conquet in north Finistere. ANOTHER beautiful French town with a thriving centre and not an empty shop to be seen
So this is in some ways a British thing. Or don’t the French use the internet?
It’s happened in rural France too but in a slightly different way more redolent of Counties like Kent and Sussex.
One settlement in an area - usually either the prettiest or most accessible - becomes a hub with the restaurants, decent shops and weekly market. These towns do much better than most of their English counterparts. The other similarly sized settlements in the immediate area get hollowed out and become dormitories with one or two bar-Tabacs and a proximarche.
So around us Cluny and Cormatin - which are both pretty and well connected - get the market, the festivals, the restaurants and boutiques, and the tourists. Others like St Gengoux, St Bonnet de Joux, Salornay-sur-Guye make do with one of two shops (though Salornay does have a decent boulangerie a pizzeria).
That’s interesting - merci
I do wonder if Brittany is doing exceptionally well, even within France. It all seems so kempt and clean and affluent, even the grotty bits would be nice bits - sadly - inmany parts of the UK
I’ve now been all over it for three weeks - driving in, through and around, the most rundown town I’ve seen is Douarnanez which is still rather attractive and about as nice as, say, Truro. Towns like Vannes, Dinan or Pont Aven ooze opulence. Someone downthread says my comparison twixt Taunton and Le Conquet is unfair because size, well then take Quimper, it has almost the exact same population as Taunton - circa 60,000 - and Quimper is thriving and I saw no empty shops
Tourism is pulling in vast amounts of money, I sense, and a lot of wealthy Parisians are moving here full time or buying second homes
Perhaps its rich Parisians you're seeing in Brittany rather than actual Bretons.
Brittany might be the French equivalent of Cornwall.
Nice for tourists but not so nice for locals who want to buy a house.
What are the house prices and wages there ?
You need top stop looking at churches and instead look in employment and estate agency's windows.
I go everywhere and look at everything, and my journeys take me through all kinds of places, cities, towns, villages, some super touristy and some barely visited (generallly in the interior, pretty much all of the coast is popular and prosperous)
I can see with my own eyes that it is doing well. I can also compare it with much poorer parts of France, eg Lozere which I toured last year for ten days (the emptiest department in France). In relatively impoverished Lozere you DO find rundown towns with loads of empty shops, as in Britain, I took photos of them at the time and posted them on here. However even Lozere, overall, feels no worse off than, say, Wiltshire - it doesn’t feel shite like some God forsaken part of the English north or the Scottish rustbelt
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Maybe the builders can hire more apprentices, instead of complaining about a lack of skilled workers or asking government for more immigrants.
Just Googled bricklaying apprenticeships and I see some being advertised . . . with a wage of £5.28 per hour.
My sympathies for those who can't find employees at £5.28 per hour.
Presumably they’re looking for 16-year-olds with no bricklaying skills, in which case that’s not too bad. But after a couple of years, they’ll be getting £15-£20 as bricklayers?
You'd think so, but no, this is for 19 year old apprentices with 2 A levels and 5+ GCSEs including Maths and English.
Absolutely no sympathies for anyone struggling to recruit. Increase your pay to a rate that fills your vacancies, its not like you need a 7 year course before you can start laying your first brick.
My Dad did a seven year bricklaying apprenticeship.
And then he laid his first brick?
Or was it a case of he started laying the bricks much earlier than 7 years in but it took 7 years to truly master the craft, which is a different matter?
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Maybe the builders can hire more apprentices, instead of complaining about a lack of skilled workers or asking government for more immigrants.
Just Googled bricklaying apprenticeships and I see some being advertised . . . with a wage of £5.28 per hour.
My sympathies for those who can't find employees at £5.28 per hour.
Presumably they’re looking for 16-year-olds with no bricklaying skills, in which case that’s not too bad. But after a couple of years, they’ll be getting £15-£20 as bricklayers?
You'd think so, but no, this is for 19 year old apprentices with 2 A levels and 5+ GCSEs including Maths and English.
Absolutely no sympathies for anyone struggling to recruit. Increase your pay to a rate that fills your vacancies, its not like you need a 7 year course before you can start laying your first brick.
My Dad did a seven year bricklaying apprenticeship.
And then he laid his first brick?
Or was it a case of he started laying the bricks much earlier than 7 years in but it took 7 years to truly master the craft, which is a different matter?
No. You're absolutely right, of course. Which. As well as the points you raise is another problem I have with "modern apprenticeships". Two years simply isn't enough for certain trades.
Obesity is also an issue for Brits. If you’re a fat lazy twat, and many of us are, then you can’t be bothered walking into town waddling under your own weight, you get it all delivered or jump in your car, like the super-obese Americans. Thus you get even fatter and even less inclined to walk and so on and so forth
Isn't obesity becoming more of a thing in France these days?
Actually not so much. France’s childhood obesity rate has actually fallen in recent years. Uniquely among developed countries. And overall obesity is stable at rates well below ours.
Obesity is also an issue for Brits. If you’re a fat lazy twat, and many of us are, then you can’t be bothered walking into town waddling under your own weight, you get it all delivered or jump in your car, like the super-obese Americans. Thus you get even fatter and even less inclined to walk and so on and so forth
Isn't obesity becoming more of a thing in France these days?
Yes it is and it is noticeable in the young, however they are still notably thinner than us
67% of UK adults are obese or overweight, it’s 47% in France - but rising fast (as you say)
We really need generic Ozempic to be handed out to everyone, like putting fluoride in the water
And people wonder why NHS spending is increasing so fast. Always treat the symptoms rather than prevent the problem happening in the first place.
It might feel a bit Big Brother but we need to treat eating too much like we do smoking. Otherwise the NHS will collapse under a classic example of Moral Hazard.
Your call - 20% GDP on healthcare or some intrusive policy interventions.
(Incidentally, the reason French high streets are in better condition is that the French spend way more on food than we do, apparently our of personal choice)
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Maybe the builders can hire more apprentices, instead of complaining about a lack of skilled workers or asking government for more immigrants.
Just Googled bricklaying apprenticeships and I see some being advertised . . . with a wage of £5.28 per hour.
My sympathies for those who can't find employees at £5.28 per hour.
Presumably they’re looking for 16-year-olds with no bricklaying skills, in which case that’s not too bad. But after a couple of years, they’ll be getting £15-£20 as bricklayers?
You'd think so, but no, this is for 19 year old apprentices with 2 A levels and 5+ GCSEs including Maths and English.
Absolutely no sympathies for anyone struggling to recruit. Increase your pay to a rate that fills your vacancies, its not like you need a 7 year course before you can start laying your first brick.
Why does an apprentice bricklayer need two A-Levels?
Just put a Green Poster in my window mainly to stop other Parties darkening my door
Although TBF will hardly be in till Polling day
Sat - UK Athletics Championships Sun to Wed DCCC in Queens Park
I once got a call from a Green candidate during local elections here. She’d seen my Lib Dem poster in the window and had come to tell me, quite aggressively, that I was wasting my vote as only the Greens had a chance of getting a non-Labour councillor.
Obesity is also an issue for Brits. If you’re a fat lazy twat, and many of us are, then you can’t be bothered walking into town waddling under your own weight, you get it all delivered or jump in your car, like the super-obese Americans. Thus you get even fatter and even less inclined to walk and so on and so forth
Isn't obesity becoming more of a thing in France these days?
Actually not so much. France’s childhood obesity rate has actually fallen in recent years. Uniquely among developed countries. And overall obesity is stable at rates well below ours.
Is that true? Lots of news stories have a different angle
“About 47% of French people across all age groups are overweight, a number that has increased by nearly 10 percentage points in the last 25 years, a League Against Obesity study has found.
The proportion of people who are overweight but not obese – with a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 30 – has been hovering at around 30% of the general population since 1997, while obesity levels (BMI over 30) have rapidly increased, the ‘Obepi-Roche’ peer-reviewed survey found.”
“Indeed, since 1997, the prevalence of overweight has always fluctuated around 30% while the prevalence of obesity has continued to increase at a rapid pace. It has risen from 8.5% in 1997 to 15% in 2012 and 17% in 2020. The increase is even more marked in the youngest age groups and for morbid obesity, whose prevalence has increased almost sevenfold over the period.”
This is what I am seeing. Older French people look about the same as ever (noticeably thinner than Brits). But there are lot more fat young people
Glastonbury has 210,000 people attending making it (temporarily) the 27th most populous place in the UK (behind Barnsley, ahead of Portsmouth)
Glastonbury Festival and the British Grand Prix (next weekend) usually vie with each other for the largest ticketed crowd in the UK every year. I think the GP only have 180k this year, so Glastonbury wins 2024.
The debate about tatty Taunton and hollowed out British market towns occurred as I was walking around Le Conquet in north Finistere. ANOTHER beautiful French town with a thriving centre and not an empty shop to be seen
So this is in some ways a British thing. Or don’t the French use the internet?
It’s happened in rural France too but in a slightly different way more redolent of Counties like Kent and Sussex.
One settlement in an area - usually either the prettiest or most accessible - becomes a hub with the restaurants, decent shops and weekly market. These towns do much better than most of their English counterparts. The other similarly sized settlements in the immediate area get hollowed out and become dormitories with one or two bar-Tabacs and a proximarche.
So around us Cluny and Cormatin - which are both pretty and well connected - get the market, the festivals, the restaurants and boutiques, and the tourists. Others like St Gengoux, St Bonnet de Joux, Salornay-sur-Guye make do with one of two shops (though Salornay does have a decent boulangerie a pizzeria).
That’s interesting - merci
I do wonder if Brittany is doing exceptionally well, even within France. It all seems so kempt and clean and affluent, even the grotty bits would be nice bits - sadly - inmany parts of the UK
I’ve now been all over it for three weeks - driving in, through and around, the most rundown town I’ve seen is Douarnanez which is still rather attractive and about as nice as, say, Truro. Towns like Vannes, Dinan or Pont Aven ooze opulence. Someone downthread says my comparison twixt Taunton and Le Conquet is unfair because size, well then take Quimper, it has almost the exact same population as Taunton - circa 60,000 - and Quimper is thriving and I saw no empty shops
Tourism is pulling in vast amounts of money, I sense, and a lot of wealthy Parisians are moving here full time or buying second homes
Perhaps its rich Parisians you're seeing in Brittany rather than actual Bretons.
Brittany might be the French equivalent of Cornwall.
Nice for tourists but not so nice for locals who want to buy a house.
What are the house prices and wages there ?
You need top stop looking at churches and instead look in employment and estate agency's windows.
I go everywhere and look at everything, and my journeys take me through all kinds of places, cities, towns, villages, some super touristy and some barely visited (generallly in the interior, pretty much all of the coast is popular and prosperous)
I can see with my own eyes that it is doing well. I can also compare it with much poorer parts of France, eg Lozere which I toured last year for ten days (the emptiest department in France). In relatively impoverished Lozere you DO find rundown towns with loads of empty shops, as in Britain, I took photos of them at the time and posted them on here. However even Lozere, overall, feels no worse off than, say, Wiltshire - it doesn’t feel shite like some God forsaken part of the English north or the Scottish rustbelt
I can drive around Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire mining districts and make the area look affluent and then I can do a different route and make it look deprived.
You can do that to varying extents in most places.
But that's only imagery.
Its the combination of wages and cost of living there which is vital.
Padstow looks lovely in June but its that loveliness which has caused serious socioeconomic problems.
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Maybe the builders can hire more apprentices, instead of complaining about a lack of skilled workers or asking government for more immigrants.
Just Googled bricklaying apprenticeships and I see some being advertised . . . with a wage of £5.28 per hour.
My sympathies for those who can't find employees at £5.28 per hour.
Presumably they’re looking for 16-year-olds with no bricklaying skills, in which case that’s not too bad. But after a couple of years, they’ll be getting £15-£20 as bricklayers?
You'd think so, but no, this is for 19 year old apprentices with 2 A levels and 5+ GCSEs including Maths and English.
Absolutely no sympathies for anyone struggling to recruit. Increase your pay to a rate that fills your vacancies, its not like you need a 7 year course before you can start laying your first brick.
Why does an apprentice bricklayer need two A-Levels?
And 5 GCSEs too - which between 1/3 to 1/4 of the English school leaving population doesn't get each year? No idea.
No disrespect to bricklayers, but I've got no bloody clue why that's the case. To be honest until I looked it up, I'd have thought that would be an ideal profession for someone who left school without any good GCSEs or A-Levels, to learn a valuable skill that doesn't require academics as much but no, apparently not. And your reward for getting an apprenticeship after passing A-Levels and GCSEs is £5.28 per hour.
Obesity is also an issue for Brits. If you’re a fat lazy twat, and many of us are, then you can’t be bothered walking into town waddling under your own weight, you get it all delivered or jump in your car, like the super-obese Americans. Thus you get even fatter and even less inclined to walk and so on and so forth
Isn't obesity becoming more of a thing in France these days?
Yes it is and it is noticeable in the young, however they are still notably thinner than us
67% of UK adults are obese or overweight, it’s 47% in France - but rising fast (as you say)
We really need generic Ozempic to be handed out to everyone, like putting fluoride in the water
And people wonder why NHS spending is increasing so fast. Always treat the symptoms rather than prevent the problem happening in the first place.
It might feel a bit Big Brother but we need to treat eating too much like we do smoking. Otherwise the NHS will collapse under a classic example of Moral Hazard.
Your call - 20% GDP on healthcare or some intrusive policy interventions.
Sadly, treating the tremendous fatty problem may prove to be rather more complex than attempting to regulate or tax it out of existence, though we oughtn't to be surprised if Labour has a stab at that.
One of the major drivers of obesity is poverty, because the empty calories in junk food are comparatively cheap. Another is inactivity, and that starts in childhood - children don't play out anymore, due to a combination of too much time spent in front of screens, parents terrified of motor traffic, and bad tempered neighbours who won't tolerate the noise. And then you need money to access leisure facilities, cheaper local authority facilities are often run down or shut to save money, and the built environment is mostly designed to prioritise the car over active travel and exercise.
Just put a Green Poster in my window mainly to stop other Parties darkening my door
Although TBF will hardly be in till Polling day
Sat - UK Athletics Championships Sun to Wed DCCC in Queens Park
I once got a call from a Green candidate during local elections here. She’d seen my Lib Dem poster in the window and had come to tell me, quite aggressively, that I was wasting my vote as only the Greens had a chance of getting a non-Labour councillor.
Yes. A rival poster is absolutely no impediment, and indeed a bit of a fun challenge for a canvasser.
The best way to deal with canvassers is to thank them for calling but inform them that you're afraid you're a lifelong voter for another party, there is no chance of you changing, and their time would be better spent elsewhere.
The debate about tatty Taunton and hollowed out British market towns occurred as I was walking around Le Conquet in north Finistere. ANOTHER beautiful French town with a thriving centre and not an empty shop to be seen
So this is in some ways a British thing. Or don’t the French use the internet?
It’s happened in rural France too but in a slightly different way more redolent of Counties like Kent and Sussex.
One settlement in an area - usually either the prettiest or most accessible - becomes a hub with the restaurants, decent shops and weekly market. These towns do much better than most of their English counterparts. The other similarly sized settlements in the immediate area get hollowed out and become dormitories with one or two bar-Tabacs and a proximarche.
So around us Cluny and Cormatin - which are both pretty and well connected - get the market, the festivals, the restaurants and boutiques, and the tourists. Others like St Gengoux, St Bonnet de Joux, Salornay-sur-Guye make do with one of two shops (though Salornay does have a decent boulangerie a pizzeria).
For what I see in England its those towns which were big enough to have major chain stores such as M&S, Boots, Debenhams that look tatty as they now have big empty blocks in prominent places.
Plus those people who previously had been attracted by the big shops now stop visiting entirely.
Towns at about 10k often seem to be doing better with redundant retail premises being converted into bars and restaurants.
Deborah Mattinson's book Beyond the Red Wall used interviews and focus groups to examine the Red Wall towns that had turned to the Conservatives in 2019 and a major factor was the loss of destination shops, as you mention. https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/beyond-the-red-wall
Despite talking about Afro-Eurasia, I'd spring for five myself. But I'm not getting into submerged continents or microcontinents. Though what hapened to Oceania? When I was at school they told us to use that instead of Australasia.
Last week it was pro russia appeasement and groveling for Putin, this week it is full on hard nazi style racism and homophobia from main people within reform caught on C4 news hidden camera. I was very disturbed by plans to turn the police into paramilitary, hoping for attacks on Bradford, whating for soldiers to shoot at boats in the channel, references to gassing ethnic minorities... reform is what you get when nazism rebrands itself and puts on a suit. Dear me.
The debate about tatty Taunton and hollowed out British market towns occurred as I was walking around Le Conquet in north Finistere. ANOTHER beautiful French town with a thriving centre and not an empty shop to be seen
So this is in some ways a British thing. Or don’t the French use the internet?
It’s happened in rural France too but in a slightly different way more redolent of Counties like Kent and Sussex.
One settlement in an area - usually either the prettiest or most accessible - becomes a hub with the restaurants, decent shops and weekly market. These towns do much better than most of their English counterparts. The other similarly sized settlements in the immediate area get hollowed out and become dormitories with one or two bar-Tabacs and a proximarche.
So around us Cluny and Cormatin - which are both pretty and well connected - get the market, the festivals, the restaurants and boutiques, and the tourists. Others like St Gengoux, St Bonnet de Joux, Salornay-sur-Guye make do with one of two shops (though Salornay does have a decent boulangerie a pizzeria).
For what I see in England its those towns which were big enough to have major chain stores such as M&S, Boots, Debenhams that look tatty as they now have big empty blocks in prominent places.
Plus those people who previously had been attracted by the big shops now stop visiting entirely.
Towns at about 10k often seem to be doing better with redundant retail premises being converted into bars and restaurants.
Deborah Mattinson's book Beyond the Red Wall used interviews and focus groups to examine the Red Wall towns that had turned to the Conservatives in 2019 and a major factor was the loss of destination shops, as you mention. https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/beyond-the-red-wall
Falling for the fallacy that the Red Wall fell because it was deprived and left behind, again.
The reality is the Tories won the Red Wall because it was prospering. relative to the rest of the country.
Many of those comfortable voters from last time will have quite uncomfortable mortgages this time, so things have changed not necessarily in the Tories favour.
Just put a Green Poster in my window mainly to stop other Parties darkening my door
Although TBF will hardly be in till Polling day
Sat - UK Athletics Championships Sun to Wed DCCC in Queens Park
I once got a call from a Green candidate during local elections here. She’d seen my Lib Dem poster in the window and had come to tell me, quite aggressively, that I was wasting my vote as only the Greens had a chance of getting a non-Labour councillor.
Well I bet that worked.
I always find it amazing some canvassers believe they can influence your vote and waste their own time.
MY PERSONAL BEST IS KEEPING A TORY AT THE DOOR FOR 37 MINS in GE2019
While I enjoy seeing so many shivers running down Tory spines, I can't see how the Maths stacks up. The Tories will save plenty of seats, sometimes with Labour conniving, so thinking Lib Dem on 50 +/- 15 is still a good central case.
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Brickies aren't min wage for a while, there just arent enough here to build 300k houses a year, average wage for a brickie now is 20 an hour
There is a danger for non-Tories that some polling has set expectations so high that the result will inevitably disappoint.
For Labour, a landslide win is a landslide win. For Lib Dems, a good contingent and displacing the SNP is an excellent result.
The expectation that seats that haven't really been worked and where the Tories hold up okay in local elections will tumble en masse is very likely to end in anticlimax.
Obesity is also an issue for Brits. If you’re a fat lazy twat, and many of us are, then you can’t be bothered walking into town waddling under your own weight, you get it all delivered or jump in your car, like the super-obese Americans. Thus you get even fatter and even less inclined to walk and so on and so forth
Isn't obesity becoming more of a thing in France these days?
Actually not so much. France’s childhood obesity rate has actually fallen in recent years. Uniquely among developed countries. And overall obesity is stable at rates well below ours.
Is that true? Lots of news stories have a different angle
“About 47% of French people across all age groups are overweight, a number that has increased by nearly 10 percentage points in the last 25 years, a League Against Obesity study has found.
The proportion of people who are overweight but not obese – with a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 30 – has been hovering at around 30% of the general population since 1997, while obesity levels (BMI over 30) have rapidly increased, the ‘Obepi-Roche’ peer-reviewed survey found.”
“Indeed, since 1997, the prevalence of overweight has always fluctuated around 30% while the prevalence of obesity has continued to increase at a rapid pace. It has risen from 8.5% in 1997 to 15% in 2012 and 17% in 2020. The increase is even more marked in the youngest age groups and for morbid obesity, whose prevalence has increased almost sevenfold over the period.”
This is what I am seeing. Older French people look about the same as ever (noticeably thinner than Brits). But there are lot more fat young people
Looks like one of those where both are correct. Overweight levels are stable or coming down depending on which dataset you look at, childhood obesity is low and falling, but full on obesity rising.
Could be a reflection of a divided country with a small but growing underclass who are living more Anglo Saxon lifestyles (seen also in areas like Pas de Calais with high rates of English or American baby first names.
The debate about tatty Taunton and hollowed out British market towns occurred as I was walking around Le Conquet in north Finistere. ANOTHER beautiful French town with a thriving centre and not an empty shop to be seen
So this is in some ways a British thing. Or don’t the French use the internet?
It’s happened in rural France too but in a slightly different way more redolent of Counties like Kent and Sussex.
One settlement in an area - usually either the prettiest or most accessible - becomes a hub with the restaurants, decent shops and weekly market. These towns do much better than most of their English counterparts. The other similarly sized settlements in the immediate area get hollowed out and become dormitories with one or two bar-Tabacs and a proximarche.
So around us Cluny and Cormatin - which are both pretty and well connected - get the market, the festivals, the restaurants and boutiques, and the tourists. Others like St Gengoux, St Bonnet de Joux, Salornay-sur-Guye make do with one of two shops (though Salornay does have a decent boulangerie a pizzeria).
That’s interesting - merci
I do wonder if Brittany is doing exceptionally well, even within France. It all seems so kempt and clean and affluent, even the grotty bits would be nice bits - sadly - inmany parts of the UK
I’ve now been all over it for three weeks - driving in, through and around, the most rundown town I’ve seen is Douarnanez which is still rather attractive and about as nice as, say, Truro. Towns like Vannes, Dinan or Pont Aven ooze opulence. Someone downthread says my comparison twixt Taunton and Le Conquet is unfair because size, well then take Quimper, it has almost the exact same population as Taunton - circa 60,000 - and Quimper is thriving and I saw no empty shops
Tourism is pulling in vast amounts of money, I sense, and a lot of wealthy Parisians are moving here full time or buying second homes
Perhaps its rich Parisians you're seeing in Brittany rather than actual Bretons.
Brittany might be the French equivalent of Cornwall.
Nice for tourists but not so nice for locals who want to buy a house.
What are the house prices and wages there ?
You need top stop looking at churches and instead look in employment and estate agency's windows.
I go everywhere and look at everything, and my journeys take me through all kinds of places, cities, towns, villages, some super touristy and some barely visited (generallly in the interior, pretty much all of the coast is popular and prosperous)
I can see with my own eyes that it is doing well. I can also compare it with much poorer parts of France, eg Lozere which I toured last year for ten days (the emptiest department in France). In relatively impoverished Lozere you DO find rundown towns with loads of empty shops, as in Britain, I took photos of them at the time and posted them on here. However even Lozere, overall, feels no worse off than, say, Wiltshire - it doesn’t feel shite like some God forsaken part of the English north or the Scottish rustbelt
I can drive around Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire mining districts and make the area look affluent and then I can do a different route and make it look deprived.
You can do that to varying extents in most places.
But that's only imagery.
Its the combination of wages and cost of living there which is vital.
Padstow looks lovely in June but its that loveliness which has caused serious socioeconomic problems.
I’ve just given you the stats, Brittany has the lowest unemployment rate in France (by region). It is also the fourth or fifth highest region by GDP per capita (which is seriously impressive given how much of it is rural/small town, and the relative lack of industry)
So, no, I am not imagining it nor am I “simply looking in churches”
I’ve been doing this shit for three and a half decades and I can now quite skilfully juice the truth of a country in about 6 minutes
Obesity is also an issue for Brits. If you’re a fat lazy twat, and many of us are, then you can’t be bothered walking into town waddling under your own weight, you get it all delivered or jump in your car, like the super-obese Americans. Thus you get even fatter and even less inclined to walk and so on and so forth
Isn't obesity becoming more of a thing in France these days?
Yes it is and it is noticeable in the young, however they are still notably thinner than us
67% of UK adults are obese or overweight, it’s 47% in France - but rising fast (as you say)
We really need generic Ozempic to be handed out to everyone, like putting fluoride in the water
And people wonder why NHS spending is increasing so fast. Always treat the symptoms rather than prevent the problem happening in the first place.
It might feel a bit Big Brother but we need to treat eating too much like we do smoking. Otherwise the NHS will collapse under a classic example of Moral Hazard.
Your call - 20% GDP on healthcare or some intrusive policy interventions.
(Incidentally, the reason French high streets are in better condition is that the French spend way more on food than we do, apparently our of personal choice)
The problems are greed, stupidity and laziness.
Incidentally am I the only one who thinks that adverts are now showing increasing numbers of overweight women ?
The only chance he has of staying out of jail, is throwing the whole PO management under the bus.
We discovered during his evidence to the Inquiry earlier this week that Jenkins was prone to make sweeping assertions about Horizon processes he had no knowledge of and blithe assumptions about the diligence of other colleagues.
A career in politics beckons?
But in all seriousness I don't believe people who would still claim to be serious professionals who claim to not really have known anything but just said things confidently and trusted others without question. It's too convenient, legally speaking.
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Brickies aren't min wage for a while, there just arent enough here to build 300k houses a year, average wage for a brickie now is 20 an hour
We've just been discussing, a quick search for apprentice brickie posts is advertising at £5.28 per hour.
Maybe apprentices should be £12/h and average wages £25?
If you're not able to fill your vacancies, that's because you're either not paying enough, or not offering good enough terms of service.
Obesity is also an issue for Brits. If you’re a fat lazy twat, and many of us are, then you can’t be bothered walking into town waddling under your own weight, you get it all delivered or jump in your car, like the super-obese Americans. Thus you get even fatter and even less inclined to walk and so on and so forth
Isn't obesity becoming more of a thing in France these days?
Actually not so much. France’s childhood obesity rate has actually fallen in recent years. Uniquely among developed countries. And overall obesity is stable at rates well below ours.
Is that true? Lots of news stories have a different angle
“About 47% of French people across all age groups are overweight, a number that has increased by nearly 10 percentage points in the last 25 years, a League Against Obesity study has found.
The proportion of people who are overweight but not obese – with a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 30 – has been hovering at around 30% of the general population since 1997, while obesity levels (BMI over 30) have rapidly increased, the ‘Obepi-Roche’ peer-reviewed survey found.”
“Indeed, since 1997, the prevalence of overweight has always fluctuated around 30% while the prevalence of obesity has continued to increase at a rapid pace. It has risen from 8.5% in 1997 to 15% in 2012 and 17% in 2020. The increase is even more marked in the youngest age groups and for morbid obesity, whose prevalence has increased almost sevenfold over the period.”
This is what I am seeing. Older French people look about the same as ever (noticeably thinner than Brits). But there are lot more fat young people
Looks like one of those where both are correct. Overweight levels are stable or coming down depending on which dataset you look at, childhood obesity is low and falling, but full on obesity rising.
Could be a reflection of a divided country with a small but growing underclass who are living more Anglo Saxon lifestyles (seen also in areas like Pas de Calais with high rates of English or American baby first names.
Obesity is also an issue for Brits. If you’re a fat lazy twat, and many of us are, then you can’t be bothered walking into town waddling under your own weight, you get it all delivered or jump in your car, like the super-obese Americans. Thus you get even fatter and even less inclined to walk and so on and so forth
Isn't obesity becoming more of a thing in France these days?
Yes it is and it is noticeable in the young, however they are still notably thinner than us
67% of UK adults are obese or overweight, it’s 47% in France - but rising fast (as you say)
We really need generic Ozempic to be handed out to everyone, like putting fluoride in the water
And people wonder why NHS spending is increasing so fast. Always treat the symptoms rather than prevent the problem happening in the first place.
It might feel a bit Big Brother but we need to treat eating too much like we do smoking. Otherwise the NHS will collapse under a classic example of Moral Hazard.
Your call - 20% GDP on healthcare or some intrusive policy interventions.
(Incidentally, the reason French high streets are in better condition is that the French spend way more on food than we do, apparently our of personal choice)
The problems are greed, stupidity and laziness.
Incidentally am I the only one who thinks that adverts are now showing increasing numbers of overweight women ?
Not overweight blokes but overweight women.
It seems to have become normalised.
I don't watch adverts so can't comment, but I know that Dove had a famous campaign a while back featuring "real" women that went down so well other brands have done the same thing.
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Maybe the builders can hire more apprentices, instead of complaining about a lack of skilled workers or asking government for more immigrants.
Just Googled bricklaying apprenticeships and I see some being advertised . . . with a wage of £5.28 per hour.
My sympathies for those who can't find employees at £5.28 per hour.
Presumably they’re looking for 16-year-olds with no bricklaying skills, in which case that’s not too bad. But after a couple of years, they’ll be getting £15-£20 as bricklayers?
You'd think so, but no, this is for 19 year old apprentices with 2 A levels and 5+ GCSEs including Maths and English.
Absolutely no sympathies for anyone struggling to recruit. Increase your pay to a rate that fills your vacancies, its not like you need a 7 year course before you can start laying your first brick.
My Dad did a seven year bricklaying apprenticeship.
I think you underestimate the skills that go into most "craft" skills.....laying your first brick is simple, putting up a house wall that will still be standing in 40 years is quite another. For example I have done a lot of diy that involved a little plastering, probably several months experience all told....first time I plastered a whole wall looked good and smooth in the next morning it had all fallen off the wall
There is a danger for non-Tories that some polling has set expectations so high that the result will inevitably disappoint.
For Labour, a landslide win is a landslide win. For Lib Dems, a good contingent and displacing the SNP is an excellent result.
The expectation that seats that haven't really been worked and where the Tories hold up okay in local elections will tumble en masse is very likely to end in anticlimax.
Lab+LD getting 330 seats between them would have been an outstanding result not so many months ago. As long as this lot is out we should be thankful for what we get.
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Maybe the builders can hire more apprentices, instead of complaining about a lack of skilled workers or asking government for more immigrants.
Just Googled bricklaying apprenticeships and I see some being advertised . . . with a wage of £5.28 per hour.
My sympathies for those who can't find employees at £5.28 per hour.
Presumably they’re looking for 16-year-olds with no bricklaying skills, in which case that’s not too bad. But after a couple of years, they’ll be getting £15-£20 as bricklayers?
You'd think so, but no, this is for 19 year old apprentices with 2 A levels and 5+ GCSEs including Maths and English.
Absolutely no sympathies for anyone struggling to recruit. Increase your pay to a rate that fills your vacancies, its not like you need a 7 year course before you can start laying your first brick.
My Dad did a seven year bricklaying apprenticeship.
I think you underestimate the skills that go into most "craft" skills.....laying your first brick is simple, putting up a house wall that will still be standing in 40 years is quite another. For example I have done a lot of diy that involved a little plastering, probably several months experience all told....first time I plastered a whole wall looked good and smooth in the next morning it had all fallen off the wall
Plastering is one of those dark arts.
Electrics, plumbing, no problem. But plastering, hell no.
They are idiots. Their demographic could swing entire elections. They could have prevented Brexit if they really wanted to. They could be the electoral counterweight to the grey vote, effectively neutralising it.
I'm slightly annoyed that Rishi went for a July election, as my daughter won't turn 18 until shortly after after the last possible date for the NEXT general election. This means it could be she is nearly 23 before she gets chance to vote in a GE.
If Labour win however, and make good on their promise to lower the voting age, I'll be marching her down to the polling station myself and telling her to make a choice, any choice. Vote NSGWP [1] if you have to.... just bloody well vote.
The only chance he has of staying out of jail, is throwing the whole PO management under the bus.
I don’t think that will help - it may have done on Tuesday but yesterday and today was Jenkins being destroyed email by email
No, he was bang to rights well before his appearance before the Inquiry. Simply giving false testimony as an expert witness would be enough to get you on a perjury charge. Even the Plod have noticed this and have interviewed him as a suspect. The only reason he hasn't been charged is because they have been waiting for the Inquiry to conclude. In his testimony too he has perjured himself again numerous times, so it's hard to see why the police would not charge him as he walks out of the hearing tomorrow afternoon. It's a very simple nick if they want it.
He could have turned King's evidence of course. He may yet do that when he is charged. (i think it is when, not if.) He may be a bit more forthcoming in front of a judge and jury. He was plainly being used as a Patsy, albeit a willing one. He could get quite a lot off his sentence if he were to identify more clearly who exactly was playing him. However, so far his strategy has been to hide what he thought he could get away with.
it hasn't worked very well, so maybe it's time for him to try a different approach.
“Many relocating high-net-worth individuals (around 20%) are entrepreneurs and company founders, who often start businesses in their new country and therefore create local jobs. This percentage rises to over 60% for centi-millionaires and billionaires.”
Last week it was pro russia appeasement and groveling for Putin, this week it is full on hard nazi style racism and homophobia from main people within reform caught on C4 news hidden camera. I was very disturbed by plans to turn the police into paramilitary, hoping for attacks on Bradford, whating for soldiers to shoot at boats in the channel, references to gassing ethnic minorities... reform is what you get when nazism rebrands itself and puts on a suit. Dear me.
I'd be curious if @state_go_away could watch that and repeat his assertion that me calling Reform a "nasty party of racist bigots" was in his words "hysterical".
There is nothing "hysterical" about calling all that a nasty party of racist bigots, if anything I was far too polite.
Obesity is also an issue for Brits. If you’re a fat lazy twat, and many of us are, then you can’t be bothered walking into town waddling under your own weight, you get it all delivered or jump in your car, like the super-obese Americans. Thus you get even fatter and even less inclined to walk and so on and so forth
Isn't obesity becoming more of a thing in France these days?
Yes it is and it is noticeable in the young, however they are still notably thinner than us
67% of UK adults are obese or overweight, it’s 47% in France - but rising fast (as you say)
We really need generic Ozempic to be handed out to everyone, like putting fluoride in the water
And people wonder why NHS spending is increasing so fast. Always treat the symptoms rather than prevent the problem happening in the first place.
It might feel a bit Big Brother but we need to treat eating too much like we do smoking. Otherwise the NHS will collapse under a classic example of Moral Hazard.
Your call - 20% GDP on healthcare or some intrusive policy interventions.
Sadly, treating the tremendous fatty problem may prove to be rather more complex than attempting to regulate or tax it out of existence, though we oughtn't to be surprised if Labour has a stab at that.
One of the major drivers of obesity is poverty, because the empty calories in junk food are comparatively cheap. Another is inactivity, and that starts in childhood - children don't play out anymore, due to a combination of too much time spent in front of screens, parents terrified of motor traffic, and bad tempered neighbours who won't tolerate the noise. And then you need money to access leisure facilities, cheaper local authority facilities are often run down or shut to save money, and the built environment is mostly designed to prioritise the car over active travel and exercise.
I think any government should at least give it a go. Calories on menus an ok first step.
I'm as big a fan of active travel and exercise would find, but frankly it's 80% diet.
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Maybe the builders can hire more apprentices, instead of complaining about a lack of skilled workers or asking government for more immigrants.
Just Googled bricklaying apprenticeships and I see some being advertised . . . with a wage of £5.28 per hour.
My sympathies for those who can't find employees at £5.28 per hour.
Presumably they’re looking for 16-year-olds with no bricklaying skills, in which case that’s not too bad. But after a couple of years, they’ll be getting £15-£20 as bricklayers?
You'd think so, but no, this is for 19 year old apprentices with 2 A levels and 5+ GCSEs including Maths and English.
Absolutely no sympathies for anyone struggling to recruit. Increase your pay to a rate that fills your vacancies, its not like you need a 7 year course before you can start laying your first brick.
My Dad did a seven year bricklaying apprenticeship.
And then he laid his first brick?
Or was it a case of he started laying the bricks much earlier than 7 years in but it took 7 years to truly master the craft, which is a different matter?
Certainly looking at the quality of the mortaring on the brick wall in my attic I suspect that in the 1970s they were quite happy to let the apprentice have a go on the bit of the house that wasn't on public display :-)
Despite talking about Afro-Eurasia, I'd spring for five myself. But I'm not getting into submerged continents or microcontinents. Though what hapened to Oceania? When I was at school they told us to use that instead of Australasia.
Oh yes. The continent with the highest density of bakeries on the planet.
Never liked the pasties.
It's not the pasties.
It's because everyone from Cornwall is really into bread.
Difficult crowd here
I actually get a lot of satisfaction from slipping a joke past people. 0 likes is better than 10 for this kind of thing.
Not me, I'm a slave to the likes. How else will I have self worth?
Really. Are you serious?
That’s ridiculous. I can sometimes go several hours without checking my like to comment ratio.
If I don't get 3 or 4 likes within 5 minutes of posting a comment, I delete it.
Got to maximize that ratio.
If I’m not spontaneously mentioned every six minutes on PB by people who strenuously claim to ignore me and my comments, then I go into an existential panic
However, this has not happened yet - as I am always mentioned by these people who apparently pay no heed to my remarks
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
The problem with doing that with state pensions is that it discourages saving for your pension: why bother putting money away if it just gets clawed back?
And the UK's savings rate is already low by international standards.
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Brickies aren't min wage for a while, there just arent enough here to build 300k houses a year, average wage for a brickie now is 20 an hour
We've just been discussing, a quick search for apprentice brickie posts is advertising at £5.28 per hour.
Maybe apprentices should be £12/h and average wages £25?
If you're not able to fill your vacancies, that's because you're either not paying enough, or not offering good enough terms of service.
Thats apprentices and yes to low however you aren't going to ask an apprentice to build a house. We have an apprentice at work and he is a good guy, however we arent getting him to build any software that is going to go anywhere near a customer....same I would imagine for an apprentice brickie, you are teaching him how to not letting him near somewhere someone is going to live in and rely on not falling down. Till he is trained enough he is not an asset but a cost
8% for reform is quite high in Scotland. I don't think they will get that much on the day in Scotland.
With the Lib Dems up that high, then seats in the Highlands and in Aberdeenshire are in play.
Inverness might be interesting and Jamie Stone will win Caithness/Sutherland handily. Aberdeenshire? No. Possibly an uptick but unionists will stick mostly with Tories to keep out SNP.
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine is worth a second look. The Nats are not well placed against Bowie, and the Lib Dems have been working the seat quite hard.
Last week it was pro russia appeasement and groveling for Putin, this week it is full on hard nazi style racism and homophobia from main people within reform caught on C4 news hidden camera. I was very disturbed by plans to turn the police into paramilitary, hoping for attacks on Bradford, whating for soldiers to shoot at boats in the channel, references to gassing ethnic minorities... reform is what you get when nazism rebrands itself and puts on a suit. Dear me.
I'd be curious if @state_go_away could watch that and repeat his assertion that me calling Reform a "nasty party of racist bigots" was in his words "hysterical".
There is nothing "hysterical" about calling all that a nasty party of racist bigots, if anything I was far too polite.
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
The problem with doing that with state pensions is that it discourages saving for your pension: why bother putting money away if it just gets clawed back?
And the UK's savings rate is already low by international standards.
Sorry but that's tosh.
A huge proportion of the population is retired and not saving for their pension. Taxing them equitably won't prevent them doing any work, or doing any savings.
Taxing people who are working for a living OTOH does discourage work, and means that workers can't afford to save much if all their wages are going on paying their bills and taxes.
Equalise taxes so that pensioners and workers pay the same rate of tax. If anyone is taxed higher, it shouldn't be those working.
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Maybe the builders can hire more apprentices, instead of complaining about a lack of skilled workers or asking government for more immigrants.
Just Googled bricklaying apprenticeships and I see some being advertised . . . with a wage of £5.28 per hour.
My sympathies for those who can't find employees at £5.28 per hour.
Presumably they’re looking for 16-year-olds with no bricklaying skills, in which case that’s not too bad. But after a couple of years, they’ll be getting £15-£20 as bricklayers?
You'd think so, but no, this is for 19 year old apprentices with 2 A levels and 5+ GCSEs including Maths and English.
Absolutely no sympathies for anyone struggling to recruit. Increase your pay to a rate that fills your vacancies, its not like you need a 7 year course before you can start laying your first brick.
My Dad did a seven year bricklaying apprenticeship.
I think you underestimate the skills that go into most "craft" skills.....laying your first brick is simple, putting up a house wall that will still be standing in 40 years is quite another. For example I have done a lot of diy that involved a little plastering, probably several months experience all told....first time I plastered a whole wall looked good and smooth in the next morning it had all fallen off the wall
I certainly don't. My Dad was a seven year apprentice brickie (with one O level in Art) who eventually passed enough qualifications to become a lecturer in Building Studies at the local tech. Building a wall is relatively easy. Building a house a much more complex task. Then there's restoration. Another level again. Then there's the artistic side. Just making it look nice. Me arl fella could spot a hole and trim a brick by eye to the correct size with one tap of a trowel. Trades are nowhere near as easy as often considered.
The debate about tatty Taunton and hollowed out British market towns occurred as I was walking around Le Conquet in north Finistere. ANOTHER beautiful French town with a thriving centre and not an empty shop to be seen
So this is in some ways a British thing. Or don’t the French use the internet?
It’s happened in rural France too but in a slightly different way more redolent of Counties like Kent and Sussex.
One settlement in an area - usually either the prettiest or most accessible - becomes a hub with the restaurants, decent shops and weekly market. These towns do much better than most of their English counterparts. The other similarly sized settlements in the immediate area get hollowed out and become dormitories with one or two bar-Tabacs and a proximarche.
So around us Cluny and Cormatin - which are both pretty and well connected - get the market, the festivals, the restaurants and boutiques, and the tourists. Others like St Gengoux, St Bonnet de Joux, Salornay-sur-Guye make do with one of two shops (though Salornay does have a decent boulangerie a pizzeria).
That’s interesting - merci
I do wonder if Brittany is doing exceptionally well, even within France. It all seems so kempt and clean and affluent, even the grotty bits would be nice bits - sadly - inmany parts of the UK
I’ve now been all over it for three weeks - driving in, through and around, the most rundown town I’ve seen is Douarnanez which is still rather attractive and about as nice as, say, Truro. Towns like Vannes, Dinan or Pont Aven ooze opulence. Someone downthread says my comparison twixt Taunton and Le Conquet is unfair because size, well then take Quimper, it has almost the exact same population as Taunton - circa 60,000 - and Quimper is thriving and I saw no empty shops
Tourism is pulling in vast amounts of money, I sense, and a lot of wealthy Parisians are moving here full time or buying second homes
Perhaps its rich Parisians you're seeing in Brittany rather than actual Bretons.
Brittany might be the French equivalent of Cornwall.
Nice for tourists but not so nice for locals who want to buy a house.
What are the house prices and wages there ?
You need top stop looking at churches and instead look in employment and estate agency's windows.
I go everywhere and look at everything, and my journeys take me through all kinds of places, cities, towns, villages, some super touristy and some barely visited (generallly in the interior, pretty much all of the coast is popular and prosperous)
I can see with my own eyes that it is doing well. I can also compare it with much poorer parts of France, eg Lozere which I toured last year for ten days (the emptiest department in France). In relatively impoverished Lozere you DO find rundown towns with loads of empty shops, as in Britain, I took photos of them at the time and posted them on here. However even Lozere, overall, feels no worse off than, say, Wiltshire - it doesn’t feel shite like some God forsaken part of the English north or the Scottish rustbelt
I can drive around Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire mining districts and make the area look affluent and then I can do a different route and make it look deprived.
You can do that to varying extents in most places.
But that's only imagery.
Its the combination of wages and cost of living there which is vital.
Padstow looks lovely in June but its that loveliness which has caused serious socioeconomic problems.
I’ve just given you the stats, Brittany has the lowest unemployment rate in France (by region). It is also the fourth or fifth highest region by GDP per capita (which is seriously impressive given how much of it is rural/small town, and the relative lack of industry)
So, no, I am not imagining it nor am I “simply looking in churches”
I’ve been doing this shit for three and a half decades and I can now quite skilfully juice the truth of a country in about 6 minutes
So what you're saying then is one of the richest parts of France looks rich ?
I dare say you'd get a similar experience by driving through the Cotswolds.
But as you're in France you could visit some banlieues and discover if they're a bit dangerous or visit the northern rustbelt and see if old coal towns feel a bit deprived.
The only chance he has of staying out of jail, is throwing the whole PO management under the bus.
I don’t think that will help - it may have done on Tuesday but yesterday and today was Jenkins being destroyed email by email
No, he was bang to rights well before his appearance before the Inquiry. Simply giving false testimony as an expert witness would be enough to get you on a perjury charge. Even the Plod have noticed this and have interviewed him as a suspect. The only reason he hasn't been charged is because they have been waiting for the Inquiry to conclude. In his testimony too he has perjured himself again numerous times, so it's hard to see why the police would not charge him as he walks out of the hearing tomorrow afternoon. It's a very simple nick if they want it.
He could have turned King's evidence of course. He may yet do that when he is charged. (i think it is when, not if.) He may be a bit more forthcoming in front of a judge and jury. He was plainly being used as a Patsy, albeit a willing one. He could get quite a lot off his sentence if he were to identify more clearly who exactly was playing him. However, so far his strategy has been to hide what he thought he could get away with.
it hasn't worked very well, so maybe it's time for him to try a different approach.
This is the Milgram experiment but for real. I am pretty sure many of the perps had private misgivings but thought they had to go along with the instructions of the grown ups.
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
The problem with doing that with state pensions is that it discourages saving for your pension: why bother putting money away if it just gets clawed back?
And the UK's savings rate is already low by international standards.
that is why I set the clawback to only occur after 5k and then at a 1 in 5 ratio
currently you get state pension + 10k, after you get state + 9k is losing 1k enough to deter saving?
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Brickies aren't min wage for a while, there just arent enough here to build 300k houses a year, average wage for a brickie now is 20 an hour
We've just been discussing, a quick search for apprentice brickie posts is advertising at £5.28 per hour.
Maybe apprentices should be £12/h and average wages £25?
If you're not able to fill your vacancies, that's because you're either not paying enough, or not offering good enough terms of service.
Thats apprentices and yes to low however you aren't going to ask an apprentice to build a house. We have an apprentice at work and he is a good guy, however we arent getting him to build any software that is going to go anywhere near a customer....same I would imagine for an apprentice brickie, you are teaching him how to not letting him near somewhere someone is going to live in and rely on not falling down. Till he is trained enough he is not an asset but a cost
Not by themselves they won't, but they will go near it yes and do simple work, that's how people learn is by doing under supervision and learning more and more. Starting with the simplest tasks and moving on.
Either way, the only reason that any firm is struggling to hire is its not paying a market rate on wages that meets sees supply of labour meet demand.
Listened to this. Summary. Two points, All mainstream parties are progressive social democrats. (True BTW). Reform are not so vote for them. Not because they are right or have answers but ask the right questions.
Ignored: Reform's ultra right tendency and stupid manifesto and barmy membership.
Goodwin has a decent point (an over narrow Overton window), but is tragically bound to the mast of the wrong ship.
I am not getting a lot of joy out of this election but the thing I find most irritating is the number of muppets minded to vote for Reform and, indirectly, 10 years of socialist government. There have been suggestions for a while that IQs are falling but this is a jump off a tall bridge.
You begin to wonder if democracy is just too hard for some people.
Question - what is the difference between "socialist government" and the Conservatives?
Punative taxes to record levels? Tick Wasting billions on crap public services? Tick Open door migration letting anyone in? Tick Nanny state nonsense about what we eat and smoke? Tick
People don't fear "socialist government" or any of the idiotic threats Sunak and the press team are making, because we live that every day already.
The Overton window is so narrow there is almost nothing substantive to discuss. Once you have a welfare state, free state education, NHS, industrial policy, consumer protection, regulation about everything, and a few other things a social democrat state with highly regulated capitalism is the only option. State managed expenditure has increased every year and this will continue. It is unavoidable.
The left have one further option - this + socialist state control of all commerce too. No serious right wing option has emerged with a working model in Europe yet. This is one of the most remarkable and underestimated facts of political policy. The Conservative party's two biggest fails since the war are: Lack of European statecraft, leading to the disaster of Brexit; and the failure to practice conservatism in any respects at all.
Not something I advocate by any means just an observation on all governements of the past
Wars used to cull the poor, now we no longer really have mass casualty wars its a new problem for governements of all stripes to have a burgeoning underclass and they have no idea how to deal with it
More broadly we have a terrible problem with dependency, chiefly due to a combination of low paid employment and ridiculous housing costs (meaning that many working people end up reliant on social security) and vast numbers of pensioners. The situation is theoretically recoverable, but some of the measures required - especially millions of houses and attendant infrastructure, and requiring people to work until 70 or possibly slightly beyond that - are so unpopular that they'll probably never get done. I'll certainly be surprised in a good way of Labour manages to meet its building commitments, and astonished if the houses are decent rather than shoddily constructed little identikit rabbit hutches marooned amidst acres of car parking.
Labour won't meet those targets even if it is their deepest desire, simple fact is there aren't enough construction workers nor the supply of building materials. The problem is exacerbated by the fact we are over the 50% mark for people who take more from the state than they give. For those people voting for more is a no brainer.
As many might have noted I tend rightwards . However I do believe there should be a safety net, free education to 18 and a health service which is free at point of use.
I also believe though that the state does too much and we should trim back what we do. I would rather the state did less but funded it properly than it tries to do too much and half arses everything.
For starters I would do a clawback on state pensions, every 5£ over say 5k private pension should mean 1£ off your state pension
NI on pensions
A lifetime health care costs cap with an insurance based top off
As examples
There is no shortage of skilled tradies in this country who could be building homes if they were easily able to do so without planning restrictions.
Sorry but there is, firms are poaching workers off each other because they can't get enough for example brickies and yes because we don't train enough
Firms poaching off each other is the free market in action.
Nobody has a divine right to minimum wage labour.
Brickies aren't min wage for a while, there just arent enough here to build 300k houses a year, average wage for a brickie now is 20 an hour
We've just been discussing, a quick search for apprentice brickie posts is advertising at £5.28 per hour.
Maybe apprentices should be £12/h and average wages £25?
If you're not able to fill your vacancies, that's because you're either not paying enough, or not offering good enough terms of service.
Thats apprentices and yes to low however you aren't going to ask an apprentice to build a house. We have an apprentice at work and he is a good guy, however we arent getting him to build any software that is going to go anywhere near a customer....same I would imagine for an apprentice brickie, you are teaching him how to not letting him near somewhere someone is going to live in and rely on not falling down. Till he is trained enough he is not an asset but a cost
Not by themselves they won't, but they will go near it yes and do simple work, that's how people learn is by doing under supervision and learning more and more. Starting with the simplest tasks and moving on.
Either way, the only reason that any firm is struggling to hire is its not paying a market rate on wages that meets sees supply of labour meet demand.
But you are talking bollocks by going on about apprentices pay rates when pay rates for actual brickies is 20 an hour on average....now by all means argue apprentice brickies should be paid more to encourage more brickies however actual time served brickies are making reasonable money
Comments
Absolutely no sympathies for anyone struggling to recruit. Increase your pay to a rate that fills your vacancies, its not like you need a 7 year course before you can start laying your first brick.
67% of UK adults are obese or overweight, it’s 47% in France - but rising fast (as you say)
We really need generic Ozempic to be handed out to everyone, like putting fluoride in the water
So total in ~15 miles from the county town:
2 lib.
1 green.
1 reform.
Not a great deal of engagement out there given both the seats I went through were Libdem until 2015
India deserve to win.
ICC deserve to go to hell.
"Gareth Jenkins Day 3: Criminally Stupid or Holy Fool?
Nick Wallis"
https://www.postofficescandal.uk/post/gareth-jenkins-day-3-criminal-stupidity-or-helpful-fool/
I'd generally discount by 40%.
I can see with my own eyes that it is doing well. I can also compare it with much poorer parts of France, eg Lozere which I toured last year for ten days (the emptiest department in France). In relatively impoverished Lozere you DO find rundown towns with loads of empty shops, as in Britain, I took photos of them at the time and posted them on here. However even Lozere, overall, feels no worse off than, say, Wiltshire - it doesn’t feel shite like some God forsaken part of the English north or the Scottish rustbelt
Or was it a case of he started laying the bricks much earlier than 7 years in but it took 7 years to truly master the craft, which is a different matter?
Lab 25
REF 14
CON12
LD 11
GRN 6
Oth 5
Leaving 25 (undecided, will not vote or refused to answer
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Sky_VI_240625_W.pdf
The only chance he has of staying out of jail, is throwing the whole PO management under the bus.
Glastonbury has 210,000 people attending making it (temporarily) the 27th most populous place in the UK (behind Barnsley, ahead of Portsmouth)
Which. As well as the points you raise is another problem I have with "modern apprenticeships". Two years simply isn't enough for certain trades.
I take it that the Techne was reported on here?
Techne 26-27 June
Lab 41%
Con 19%
LibDem 12%
Ref 17%
Green 5%
https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/global-obesity-rates/#
Of all the French regions, Brittany has the lowest unemployment rate
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1342095/bretagne-france-quarterly-unemployment-rate/
Although TBF will hardly be in till Polling day
Sat - UK Athletics Championships
Sun to Wed DCCC in Queens Park
It might feel a bit Big Brother but we need to treat eating too much like we do smoking. Otherwise the NHS will collapse under a classic example of Moral Hazard.
Your call - 20% GDP on healthcare or some intrusive policy interventions.
(Incidentally, the reason French high streets are in better condition is that the French spend way more on food than we do, apparently our of personal choice)
“About 47% of French people across all age groups are overweight, a number that has increased by nearly 10 percentage points in the last 25 years, a League Against Obesity study has found.
The proportion of people who are overweight but not obese – with a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 30 – has been hovering at around 30% of the general population since 1997, while obesity levels (BMI over 30) have rapidly increased, the ‘Obepi-Roche’ peer-reviewed survey found.”
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/almost-half-of-french-people-are-overweight/
“Indeed, since 1997, the prevalence of overweight has always fluctuated around 30% while the prevalence of obesity has continued to increase at a rapid pace. It has risen from 8.5% in 1997 to 15% in 2012 and 17% in 2020. The increase is even more marked in the youngest age groups and for morbid obesity, whose prevalence has increased almost sevenfold over the period.”
This is what I am seeing. Older French people look about the same as ever (noticeably thinner than Brits). But there are lot more fat young people
"What we need is to kill the tory party"
https://x.com/freddiesayers/status/1806406998495535311
You can do that to varying extents in most places.
But that's only imagery.
Its the combination of wages and cost of living there which is vital.
Padstow looks lovely in June but its that loveliness which has caused serious socioeconomic problems.
Beyond the Topline
@Beyond_Topline
So that's 5 Con/LD marginals away from Ed Davey as LOTO.
I don't think this forecast includes tactical voting? (Please shout if it does)
So maybe we really are on course for the Davey LOTO outcome after all if polls look like this in a week's time....
https://x.com/Beyond_Topline/status/1806382394989031864
No disrespect to bricklayers, but I've got no bloody clue why that's the case. To be honest until I looked it up, I'd have thought that would be an ideal profession for someone who left school without any good GCSEs or A-Levels, to learn a valuable skill that doesn't require academics as much but no, apparently not. And your reward for getting an apprenticeship after passing A-Levels and GCSEs is £5.28 per hour.
One of the major drivers of obesity is poverty, because the empty calories in junk food are comparatively cheap. Another is inactivity, and that starts in childhood - children don't play out anymore, due to a combination of too much time spent in front of screens, parents terrified of motor traffic, and bad tempered neighbours who won't tolerate the noise. And then you need money to access leisure facilities, cheaper local authority facilities are often run down or shut to save money, and the built environment is mostly designed to prioritise the car over active travel and exercise.
The best way to deal with canvassers is to thank them for calling but inform them that you're afraid you're a lifelong voter for another party, there is no chance of you changing, and their time would be better spent elsewhere.
https://www.bitebackpublishing.com/books/beyond-the-red-wall
Got to maximize that ratio.
Can anyone here shed any light on his odd decision?
Was he not offered enough shares in the company or something?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/27/general-election-live-sunak-starmer-farage/
The reality is the Tories won the Red Wall because it was prospering. relative to the rest of the country.
As The Economist said, the reality is that its comfortable suburbs, not left-behind towns, that were the source of the Tories Red Wall victories: https://www.economist.com/britain/2021/03/31/the-truth-behind-the-tories-northern-strongholds
Many of those comfortable voters from last time will have quite uncomfortable mortgages this time, so things have changed not necessarily in the Tories favour.
I always find it amazing some canvassers believe they can influence your vote and waste their own time.
MY PERSONAL BEST IS KEEPING A TORY AT THE DOOR FOR 37 MINS in GE2019
For Labour, a landslide win is a landslide win. For Lib Dems, a good contingent and displacing the SNP is an excellent result.
The expectation that seats that haven't really been worked and where the Tories hold up okay in local elections will tumble en masse is very likely to end in anticlimax.
Could be a reflection of a divided country with a small but growing underclass who are living more Anglo Saxon lifestyles (seen also in areas like Pas de Calais with high rates of English or American baby first names.
So, no, I am not imagining it nor am I “simply looking in churches”
I’ve been doing this shit for three and a half decades and I can now quite skilfully juice the truth of a country in about 6 minutes
Incidentally am I the only one who thinks that adverts are now showing increasing numbers of overweight women ?
Not overweight blokes but overweight women.
It seems to have become normalised.
A career in politics beckons?
But in all seriousness I don't believe people who would still claim to be serious professionals who claim to not really have known anything but just said things confidently and trusted others without question. It's too convenient, legally speaking.
Maybe apprentices should be £12/h and average wages £25?
If you're not able to fill your vacancies, that's because you're either not paying enough, or not offering good enough terms of service.
Electrics, plumbing, no problem. But plastering, hell no.
If Labour win however, and make good on their promise to lower the voting age, I'll be marching her down to the polling station myself and telling her to make a choice, any choice. Vote NSGWP [1] if you have to.... just bloody well vote.
[1] I don't think they stand in Bootle mind.
He could have turned King's evidence of course. He may yet do that when he is charged. (i think it is when, not if.) He may be a bit more forthcoming in front of a judge and jury. He was plainly being used as a Patsy, albeit a willing one. He could get quite a lot off his sentence if he were to identify more clearly who exactly was playing him. However, so far his strategy has been to hide what he thought he could get away with.
it hasn't worked very well, so maybe it's time for him to try a different approach.
On the other hand, the taxes and regulation are worse here. Against that is the weather and that the Covid response was more measured.
There is nothing "hysterical" about calling all that a nasty party of racist bigots, if anything I was far too polite.
I'm as big a fan of active travel and exercise would find, but frankly it's 80% diet.
However, this has not happened yet - as I am always mentioned by these people who apparently pay no heed to my remarks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TADeOmCVo_s
approx 26'
His binaries/wedge politics, that work so well in Australia, don't translate.
Dunno why the British right insist on outsourcing their campaigns to foreigners who don't have our countries best interests at heart.
https://electionleaflets.org/leaflets/19940/
And the UK's savings rate is already low by international standards.
A huge proportion of the population is retired and not saving for their pension. Taxing them equitably won't prevent them doing any work, or doing any savings.
Taxing people who are working for a living OTOH does discourage work, and means that workers can't afford to save much if all their wages are going on paying their bills and taxes.
Equalise taxes so that pensioners and workers pay the same rate of tax. If anyone is taxed higher, it shouldn't be those working.
My Dad was a seven year apprentice brickie (with one O level in Art) who eventually passed enough qualifications to become a lecturer in Building Studies at the local tech.
Building a wall is relatively easy. Building a house a much more complex task. Then there's restoration. Another level again. Then there's the artistic side. Just making it look nice.
Me arl fella could spot a hole and trim a brick by eye to the correct size with one tap of a trowel.
Trades are nowhere near as easy as often considered.
I dare say you'd get a similar experience by driving through the Cotswolds.
But as you're in France you could visit some banlieues and discover if they're a bit dangerous or visit the northern rustbelt and see if old coal towns feel a bit deprived.
currently you get state pension + 10k, after you get state + 9k is losing 1k enough to deter saving?
Either way, the only reason that any firm is struggling to hire is its not paying a market rate on wages that meets sees supply of labour meet demand.
Ignored: Reform's ultra right tendency and stupid manifesto and barmy membership.
Goodwin has a decent point (an over narrow Overton window), but is tragically bound to the mast of the wrong ship.
https://x.com/bmay/status/1806309687366664387
With all the fundamentals as they are you want LOTO Ed Davey or bust.
If you can’t finish 2nd from here then what exactly is the point of the Lib Dems?
Sunak does not.
Levido needs to make clear ultimately that this was Sunak's failure, not his.