"The other way around, many will now see him for what he really is," he added. "It was my first time watching him speak live. He sounds like a low IQ conman to me, I wouldn’t believe anything he tells me."..
"The insulting representation of Jesus Christ in Paris yesterday was completely offensive and crossed all red lines.
France, a country with a major history of Christianity, must be ashamed of itself, and I implore our Christian people all over the world to speak out against this act. We resolutely condemn this."
If the Mullahs are upset France must have done something right.
Je Suis Paris.
I think rather (since many folk will at least mildly disapprove of the parody), it’s that we should avoid any move in the direction of reacting as Iran does.
The reaction of some on the right is a step in that direction.
I saw that section live, and saw zero connection with the Last Supper. Can someone explain the link?
When I first saw it (without the comparator) I definitely thought of the last supper motif
It’s not hugely offensive in my view, but it is tired and has been done so many times. But the issue is more equality of treatment - the perception is that it is fine to mock Christians but not others
And given the location, that criticism is fairer than normal. Arguably, there was a case for showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons - I wouldn’t, but it would have been understandable - but having a pop at Christianity seemed completely unnecessary.
You're assuming it was intended as a mockery of Christianity, or 'having a pop'. It was an appropriation of Leonardo's image - which as noted, has been done a thousand times before - without anyone assuming mockery.
Were Warhol's prints a mockery ?
Islam is, in the views of many of us, currently (though not always the case historically) over sensitive to the depiction of its prophet.
Christianity doesn't have the Islamic prescription on iconography - unless you're of the Cromwell tendency. And western society professes itself happy to accommodate satire on religion. Is that something you want to change ?
If France should be apologising for anything, it's for putting on a not very good opening ceremony. But that's hardly something to be outraged over.
Quite right. Since when did religious groups take ownership of works of art and what can be done with them? Who decides what works of art are now off limits to parody, mockery or criticism? If Leonardo himself had decided to 'desecrate' 'The Last Supper' in some way would he be guilty of something? All obvious balderdash. Moreover, when criticized for their own over-sensitivity, Muslims can now turn round and say, 'Well, you "enlightened" westerners threw a hissy fit when a painting was imitated at the Olympics. You're just as sensitive as us.' Completely counter-productive.
Good post. Some people don't seem to realise that The Last Supper is simply the imagining of an artist of an event that in all likelihood never took place. Whether it has religeous significance is purely in the eye of the beholder. It has been parodied more than almost any other so called religious painting so this was nothing special.
As for the Iranians objecting; All depictions of Mohammed are forbidden as are depictions of all religeous figures. Indeed in the more religeous parts all works of art except script from the Koran are forbidden so taking lectures from them on artistic integrity is suely intended as a joke
The vast majority of 'religious' art in England and Wales (not sure about Scotland), which of course meant most art at the time, was destroyed during the Reformation, and much of what was left during the Commonwealth. Which doesn't suggest that Christians, especially Protestants, are particularly sensitive about preserving art.
It suggests Edward VI's ministers and Oliver Cromwell, both of whom were fundies that would make Bin Laden blink, were twats. Not necessarily that Christians as a whole don't care about art. Quite the contrary, the fact they commissioned it at all suggests the opposite.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
"The other way around, many will now see him for what he really is," he added. "It was my first time watching him speak live. He sounds like a low IQ conman to me, I wouldn’t believe anything he tells me."..
Well, takes one to know one!
Edit - actually, not true. Most of use can see Trump is a low IQ conman.
"The insulting representation of Jesus Christ in Paris yesterday was completely offensive and crossed all red lines.
France, a country with a major history of Christianity, must be ashamed of itself, and I implore our Christian people all over the world to speak out against this act. We resolutely condemn this."
If the Mullahs are upset France must have done something right.
Je Suis Paris.
I think rather (since many folk will at least mildly disapprove of the parody), it’s that we should avoid any move in the direction of reacting as Iran does.
The reaction of some on the right is a step in that direction.
I saw that section live, and saw zero connection with the Last Supper. Can someone explain the link?
When I first saw it (without the comparator) I definitely thought of the last supper motif
It’s not hugely offensive in my view, but it is tired and has been done so many times. But the issue is more equality of treatment - the perception is that it is fine to mock Christians but not others
And given the location, that criticism is fairer than normal. Arguably, there was a case for showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons - I wouldn’t, but it would have been understandable - but having a pop at Christianity seemed completely unnecessary.
You're assuming it was intended as a mockery of Christianity, or 'having a pop'. It was an appropriation of Leonardo's image - which as noted, has been done a thousand times before - without anyone assuming mockery.
Were Warhol's prints a mockery ?
Islam is, in the views of many of us, currently (though not always the case historically) over sensitive to the depiction of its prophet.
Christianity doesn't have the Islamic prescription on iconography - unless you're of the Cromwell tendency. And western society professes itself happy to accommodate satire on religion. Is that something you want to change ?
If France should be apologising for anything, it's for putting on a not very good opening ceremony. But that's hardly something to be outraged over.
Quite right. Since when did religious groups take ownership of works of art and what can be done with them? Who decides what works of art are now off limits to parody, mockery or criticism? If Leonardo himself had decided to 'desecrate' 'The Last Supper' in some way would he be guilty of something? All obvious balderdash. Moreover, when criticized for their own over-sensitivity, Muslims can now turn round and say, 'Well, you "enlightened" westerners threw a hissy fit when a painting was imitated at the Olympics. You're just as sensitive as us.' Completely counter-productive.
Good post. Some people don't seem to realise that The Last Supper is simply the imagining of an artist of an event that in all likelihood never took place. Whether it has religeous significance is purely in the eye of the beholder. It has been parodied more than almost any other so called religious painting so this was nothing special.
As for the Iranians objecting; All depictions of Mohammed are forbidden as are depictions of all religeous figures. Indeed in the more religeous parts all works of art except script from the Koran are forbidden so taking lectures from them on artistic integrity is suely intended as a joke
The vast majority of 'religious' art in England and Wales (not sure about Scotland), which of course meant most art at the time, was destroyed during the Reformation, and much of what was left during the Commonwealth. Which doesn't suggest that Christians, especially Protestants, are particularly sensitive about preserving art.
High Church Anglicans and Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians certainly are.
Just under Oliver Cromwell he not only executed King Charles I and declared England and Wales a republic, he also scrapped the House of Lords and scrapped the Book of Common Prayer and removed most icons and paintings and stained glass from C of E churches and smashed high altars. Even under Henry VIII it was mainly monasteries wealth and art taken rather than that in churches and cathedrals.
Cromwell effectively turned the C of E from an Anglican church to a low church Presbyterian or Baptist church with no Bishops until the Restoration of Charles II restored the monarchy, the BCP, the House of Lords and Bishops and art and iconography in C of E churches
I've been telling you for fourteen years that austerity wasn't a choice, you owe David Cameron and George Osborne et al an apology.
Rachel Reeves will promise to sell off empty public buildings and slash government spending on consultants to balance the books, as she accuses the Conservatives of “running away” from difficult economic decisions and wrecking the nation’s finances.
In her first major speech as chancellor, Reeves will identify a £20 billion black hole in government spending on Monday as she seeks to pin the blame for future tax rises on Tory profligacy.
Echoing the arguments made by George Osborne for austerity after the Conservatives won power in 2010, Reeves will warn government departments and quangos of a cost-cutting drive across Whitehall after the Conservatives over-spent this year’s budgets by billions of pounds. The chancellor will launch the Office of Value for Money, a government agency to combat waste, as she warns of tighter spending.
As part of an immediate squeeze, she will accelerate the sell-off of empty public buildings and reduce the use of external consultants, a move expected to save £500 million.
The sale of surplus public property — a money-raising policy championed by Osborne — has generated £3 billion for the exchequer since 2010. Government reliance on consultants dramatically increased after Brexit and during the pandemic. Since the last election, Deloitte has won contracts worth £1.9 billion while its rivals, KPMG, EY and PwC, have earned £1.3 billion, £1.03 billion and £1 billion respectively.
The selling off of public buildings and land was part of the 2010 package. There were all sorts of measures around community transfers for empty local authority buildings (not many happened) and we've had the One Public Estate initiative whereby central and local Government work together to amalgamate Services within a single building or group of buildings and free up others for disposal. The problem there was if a local authority building was deemed surplus, that authority wanted to trouser the whole receipt but the other partners also wanted a cut.
How much any of that has brought in I'm not sure - the Government Property Unit will tell you all about releasing prime office space in and around Whitehall which has been re-purposed as hotels (the Corinthia in Northumberland Avenue?) or used by other companies.
Councils themselves have been cutting back on their property portfolios for decades and the administrative holdings have been reduced since the pandemic with more staff working at locations other than the main office so we have for example flexible working spaces in libraries and even fire stations.
The big land holding for authorities is or are schools and with rolls falling there's going to be a big temptation to amalgamate schools and sell off the surplus land and building for residential redevelopment. Obviously, that only works where the school owns the lot - in Voluntary Aided schools, the Council owns the playing field but the Diocese owns the school buildings.
As for Academies, the usual terms of an Academy lease is IF the school closes or moves, the land and buildings revert to the Council so failing Academies could be another source of capital receipt.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
I've been telling you for fourteen years that austerity wasn't a choice, you owe David Cameron and George Osborne et al an apology.
Rachel Reeves will promise to sell off empty public buildings and slash government spending on consultants to balance the books, as she accuses the Conservatives of “running away” from difficult economic decisions and wrecking the nation’s finances.
In her first major speech as chancellor, Reeves will identify a £20 billion black hole in government spending on Monday as she seeks to pin the blame for future tax rises on Tory profligacy.
Echoing the arguments made by George Osborne for austerity after the Conservatives won power in 2010, Reeves will warn government departments and quangos of a cost-cutting drive across Whitehall after the Conservatives over-spent this year’s budgets by billions of pounds. The chancellor will launch the Office of Value for Money, a government agency to combat waste, as she warns of tighter spending.
As part of an immediate squeeze, she will accelerate the sell-off of empty public buildings and reduce the use of external consultants, a move expected to save £500 million.
The sale of surplus public property — a money-raising policy championed by Osborne — has generated £3 billion for the exchequer since 2010. Government reliance on consultants dramatically increased after Brexit and during the pandemic. Since the last election, Deloitte has won contracts worth £1.9 billion while its rivals, KPMG, EY and PwC, have earned £1.3 billion, £1.03 billion and £1 billion respectively.
"The insulting representation of Jesus Christ in Paris yesterday was completely offensive and crossed all red lines.
France, a country with a major history of Christianity, must be ashamed of itself, and I implore our Christian people all over the world to speak out against this act. We resolutely condemn this."
If the Mullahs are upset France must have done something right.
Je Suis Paris.
I think rather (since many folk will at least mildly disapprove of the parody), it’s that we should avoid any move in the direction of reacting as Iran does.
The reaction of some on the right is a step in that direction.
I saw that section live, and saw zero connection with the Last Supper. Can someone explain the link?
When I first saw it (without the comparator) I definitely thought of the last supper motif
It’s not hugely offensive in my view, but it is tired and has been done so many times. But the issue is more equality of treatment - the perception is that it is fine to mock Christians but not others
And given the location, that criticism is fairer than normal. Arguably, there was a case for showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons - I wouldn’t, but it would have been understandable - but having a pop at Christianity seemed completely unnecessary.
You're assuming it was intended as a mockery of Christianity, or 'having a pop'. It was an appropriation of Leonardo's image - which as noted, has been done a thousand times before - without anyone assuming mockery.
Were Warhol's prints a mockery ?
Islam is, in the views of many of us, currently (though not always the case historically) over sensitive to the depiction of its prophet.
Christianity doesn't have the Islamic prescription on iconography - unless you're of the Cromwell tendency. And western society professes itself happy to accommodate satire on religion. Is that something you want to change ?
If France should be apologising for anything, it's for putting on a not very good opening ceremony. But that's hardly something to be outraged over.
Quite right. Since when did religious groups take ownership of works of art and what can be done with them? Who decides what works of art are now off limits to parody, mockery or criticism? If Leonardo himself had decided to 'desecrate' 'The Last Supper' in some way would he be guilty of something? All obvious balderdash. Moreover, when criticized for their own over-sensitivity, Muslims can now turn round and say, 'Well, you "enlightened" westerners threw a hissy fit when a painting was imitated at the Olympics. You're just as sensitive as us.' Completely counter-productive.
Good post. Some people don't seem to realise that The Last Supper is simply the imagining of an artist of an event that in all likelihood never took place. Whether it has religeous significance is purely in the eye of the beholder. It has been parodied more than almost any other so called religious painting so this was nothing special.
As for the Iranians objecting; All depictions of Mohammed are forbidden as are depictions of all religeous figures. Indeed in the more religeous parts all works of art except script from the Koran are forbidden so taking lectures from them on artistic integrity is suely intended as a joke
The vast majority of 'religious' art in England and Wales (not sure about Scotland), which of course meant most art at the time, was destroyed during the Reformation, and much of what was left during the Commonwealth. Which doesn't suggest that Christians, especially Protestants, are particularly sensitive about preserving art.
It suggests Edward VI's ministers and Oliver Cromwell, both of whom were fundies that would make Bin Laden blink, were twats. Not necessarily that Christians as a whole don't care about art. Quite the contrary, the fact they commissioned it at all suggests the opposite.
I think that's a fair description of Edward VI's ministers, and in this context anyway, Cromwell. That bit of my ancestry which is SE Midlands, though, has always given me a soft spot for Cromwell. Noteworthy that my English grandfather, a churchwarden, had to be persuaded, about 100 years ago, to allow candles to be put on the church altar.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
"The insulting representation of Jesus Christ in Paris yesterday was completely offensive and crossed all red lines.
France, a country with a major history of Christianity, must be ashamed of itself, and I implore our Christian people all over the world to speak out against this act. We resolutely condemn this."
If the Mullahs are upset France must have done something right.
Je Suis Paris.
I think rather (since many folk will at least mildly disapprove of the parody), it’s that we should avoid any move in the direction of reacting as Iran does.
The reaction of some on the right is a step in that direction.
I saw that section live, and saw zero connection with the Last Supper. Can someone explain the link?
When I first saw it (without the comparator) I definitely thought of the last supper motif
It’s not hugely offensive in my view, but it is tired and has been done so many times. But the issue is more equality of treatment - the perception is that it is fine to mock Christians but not others
And given the location, that criticism is fairer than normal. Arguably, there was a case for showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons - I wouldn’t, but it would have been understandable - but having a pop at Christianity seemed completely unnecessary.
You're assuming it was intended as a mockery of Christianity, or 'having a pop'. It was an appropriation of Leonardo's image - which as noted, has been done a thousand times before - without anyone assuming mockery.
Were Warhol's prints a mockery ?
Islam is, in the views of many of us, currently (though not always the case historically) over sensitive to the depiction of its prophet.
Christianity doesn't have the Islamic prescription on iconography - unless you're of the Cromwell tendency. And western society professes itself happy to accommodate satire on religion. Is that something you want to change ?
If France should be apologising for anything, it's for putting on a not very good opening ceremony. But that's hardly something to be outraged over.
Quite right. Since when did religious groups take ownership of works of art and what can be done with them? Who decides what works of art are now off limits to parody, mockery or criticism? If Leonardo himself had decided to 'desecrate' 'The Last Supper' in some way would he be guilty of something? All obvious balderdash. Moreover, when criticized for their own over-sensitivity, Muslims can now turn round and say, 'Well, you "enlightened" westerners threw a hissy fit when a painting was imitated at the Olympics. You're just as sensitive as us.' Completely counter-productive.
Good post. Some people don't seem to realise that The Last Supper is simply the imagining of an artist of an event that in all likelihood never took place. Whether it has religeous significance is purely in the eye of the beholder. It has been parodied more than almost any other so called religious painting so this was nothing special.
As for the Iranians objecting; All depictions of Mohammed are forbidden as are depictions of all religeous figures. Indeed in the more religeous parts all works of art except script from the Koran are forbidden so taking lectures from them on artistic integrity is suely intended as a joke
The vast majority of 'religious' art in England and Wales (not sure about Scotland), which of course meant most art at the time, was destroyed during the Reformation, and much of what was left during the Commonwealth. Which doesn't suggest that Christians, especially Protestants, are particularly sensitive about preserving art.
It suggests Edward VI's ministers and Oliver Cromwell, both of whom were fundies that would make Bin Laden blink, were twats. Not necessarily that Christians as a whole don't care about art. Quite the contrary, the fact they commissioned it at all suggests the opposite.
I think that's a fair description of Edward VI's ministers, and in this context anyway, Cromwell. That bit of my ancestry which is SE Midlands, though, has always given me a soft spot for Cromwell. Noteworthy that my English grandfather, a churchwarden, had to be persuaded, about 100 years ago, to allow candles to be put on the church altar.
Bit surprised to see a middle of the roader Presbyterian such as Cromwell regarded as a fundie. He positively suppressed the extremists, one should remember. The Erastians who wanted to make their King the head of the church on the one hand, and the Anabaptists and Ranters on the other ...
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
The analysis in the thread header is spot on and time for the conservatives to send Braverman and others to Reform
On the economy not sure how Labour can complain about a 20 billion deficit when they are about to commit to an inflationary settlement in the public sector costing 10 billion or more plus plans to raise the national living wage by £2 per hour
I expect the prospect of interest rate reduction are on a knife because of these announcements alone
Don't forget 50% of that comes straight back to the government in tax..
Also public sector workers have had below inflation increases for 10+ years and these pay increases are because the Government has decided to listen to the independent panels rather than ignoring them - if the Tory party had listened to them last year the pay increase (which has to compensate for historic below inflation pay increases) would not be so high..
The fundamental issue isn't the size of public sector pay increases but rather the relationship of public sector pay increases and public sector productivity increases.
Not having any strikes would be helpful in improving public sector productivity.
Are there a lot of strikes in the public sector?
I suspect spending on agency workers is a bigger issue than strikes.
That's a very different issue but worth discussing.
Recruitment and retention in the public sector has always been difficult especially in specialist areas and especially in the south and south east. I reckon most councils in the south east are carrying 15-20% vacancies currently - that means 80-85% of staff doing 100% of the work (no overtime) and that's why the productivity levels are so poor.
The establishments are set up on a minimum resource requirement to perform the range of Services to a minimum standard but with so many vacancies it becomes increasingly difficult to meet that.
Recruiting Agency staff is often quick and easy (ditto for Consultants, Interims or whatever you want to call them) and it fills a gap or gets the job done albeit at a cost.
The problem is the business of local councils is so broad and diverse it naturally encompasses areas where there is very little comparable private sector presence as well as the same professional specialisms every other business has - finance, property, legal, HR, procurement. Those Services can and often are externalised to a provider such as Capita but that doesn't reduce the spend - apart from the management fee, there's the Client function required to ensure the Contractor is doing what they promised in the Contract.
There's a lot in that. When John Prescott was Deputy PM, his office required all Council services to be online (to various extents).
At the time I was overseeing a Council website. The list of Council Delivered Services had approximately 800 services in it, which is a measure of the diversity, and all had to be accounted for.
Do you want such services, or have them externalised / privatised and the Council supervising - which does not really lessen the amount of institutional knowledge required because as soon as that is lessened they lose the skillset to regulate, and the service is difficult to hold to account.
Where do you draw the line? Do we want a service to deal with rats and swarms of bees? Dog wardens? Meals on wheels? A nice local park? A town museum? Rights of Way officers? An accessibility officer? People to clean the beach? An ability to deal with ASB or noise? The white lines on our roads repainted? Panic buttons for supported housing?
At present in many or most places, some of the above are so under resourced so as to be ineffective, or have simply vanished with resource starvation.
It all needs thinking about.
Indeed and unfortunately a lot of the people shouting about this issue have only the barest comprehension of what a local council or authority actually does and the statutory duties it has to carry out.
I've no issue whatsoever with the private sector being involved in the provision of some of these services and indeed all councils have call-off contracts for some of the lesser used or more obscure functions.
The bigger issue is how and in what way the private sector operates within the public sector. There's a balance between the value of the Service and the profit margin for the private operator. The public authority doesn't operate to profit margins (or very small ones) but the private sector operator wants (quite rightly) not only to be rewarded for its efforts but to turn a profit.
One of the "carrots" the private operator can offer is career advancement for staff within the profession or discipline and that's positive (though can lead to cherry picking as the "best" staff are often moved to other work leaving the public work to shall we say lower quality employees) but at the same time the private operator often comes in with promises of driving out efficiencies which aren't realised as the private company's own bureaucracy and processes are comparable in complexity and cost to those of the council.
"The insulting representation of Jesus Christ in Paris yesterday was completely offensive and crossed all red lines.
France, a country with a major history of Christianity, must be ashamed of itself, and I implore our Christian people all over the world to speak out against this act. We resolutely condemn this."
If the Mullahs are upset France must have done something right.
Je Suis Paris.
I think rather (since many folk will at least mildly disapprove of the parody), it’s that we should avoid any move in the direction of reacting as Iran does.
The reaction of some on the right is a step in that direction.
I saw that section live, and saw zero connection with the Last Supper. Can someone explain the link?
When I first saw it (without the comparator) I definitely thought of the last supper motif
It’s not hugely offensive in my view, but it is tired and has been done so many times. But the issue is more equality of treatment - the perception is that it is fine to mock Christians but not others
And given the location, that criticism is fairer than normal. Arguably, there was a case for showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons - I wouldn’t, but it would have been understandable - but having a pop at Christianity seemed completely unnecessary.
You're assuming it was intended as a mockery of Christianity, or 'having a pop'. It was an appropriation of Leonardo's image - which as noted, has been done a thousand times before - without anyone assuming mockery.
Were Warhol's prints a mockery ?
Islam is, in the views of many of us, currently (though not always the case historically) over sensitive to the depiction of its prophet.
Christianity doesn't have the Islamic prescription on iconography - unless you're of the Cromwell tendency. And western society professes itself happy to accommodate satire on religion. Is that something you want to change ?
If France should be apologising for anything, it's for putting on a not very good opening ceremony. But that's hardly something to be outraged over.
Quite right. Since when did religious groups take ownership of works of art and what can be done with them? Who decides what works of art are now off limits to parody, mockery or criticism? If Leonardo himself had decided to 'desecrate' 'The Last Supper' in some way would he be guilty of something? All obvious balderdash. Moreover, when criticized for their own over-sensitivity, Muslims can now turn round and say, 'Well, you "enlightened" westerners threw a hissy fit when a painting was imitated at the Olympics. You're just as sensitive as us.' Completely counter-productive.
Good post. Some people don't seem to realise that The Last Supper is simply the imagining of an artist of an event that in all likelihood never took place. Whether it has religeous significance is purely in the eye of the beholder. It has been parodied more than almost any other so called religious painting so this was nothing special.
As for the Iranians objecting; All depictions of Mohammed are forbidden as are depictions of all religeous figures. Indeed in the more religeous parts all works of art except script from the Koran are forbidden so taking lectures from them on artistic integrity is suely intended as a joke
The vast majority of 'religious' art in England and Wales (not sure about Scotland), which of course meant most art at the time, was destroyed during the Reformation, and much of what was left during the Commonwealth. Which doesn't suggest that Christians, especially Protestants, are particularly sensitive about preserving art.
High Church Anglicans and Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians certainly are.
Just under Oliver Cromwell he not only executed King Charles I and declared England and Wales a republic, he also scrapped the House of Lords and scrapped the Book of Common Prayer and removed most icons and paintings and stained glass from C of E churches and smashed high altars. Even under Henry VIII it was mainly monasteries wealth and art taken rather than that in churches and cathedrals.
Cromwell effectively turned the C of E from an Anglican church to a low church Presbyterian or Baptist church with no Bishops until the Restoration of Charles II restored the monarchy, the BCP, the House of Lords and Bishops and art and iconography in C of E churches
Poor Mr Cromwell. He must have had RSI of the shoulder with all that executing and hammering and corporate removals.
All "expected to" and "maybe" and "we have made it up and tellyou so it's true" like about five million attacks on Labour in the DT since SKS became leader.
The analysis in the thread header is spot on and time for the conservatives to send Braverman and others to Reform
On the economy not sure how Labour can complain about a 20 billion deficit when they are about to commit to an inflationary settlement in the public sector costing 10 billion or more plus plans to raise the national living wage by £2 per hour
I expect the prospect of interest rate reduction are on a knife because of these announcements alone
Don't forget 50% of that comes straight back to the government in tax..
Also public sector workers have had below inflation increases for 10+ years and these pay increases are because the Government has decided to listen to the independent panels rather than ignoring them - if the Tory party had listened to them last year the pay increase (which has to compensate for historic below inflation pay increases) would not be so high..
The fundamental issue isn't the size of public sector pay increases but rather the relationship of public sector pay increases and public sector productivity increases.
Not having any strikes would be helpful in improving public sector productivity.
Are there a lot of strikes in the public sector?
I suspect spending on agency workers is a bigger issue than strikes.
That's a very different issue but worth discussing.
Recruitment and retention in the public sector has always been difficult especially in specialist areas and especially in the south and south east. I reckon most councils in the south east are carrying 15-20% vacancies currently - that means 80-85% of staff doing 100% of the work (no overtime) and that's why the productivity levels are so poor.
The establishments are set up on a minimum resource requirement to perform the range of Services to a minimum standard but with so many vacancies it becomes increasingly difficult to meet that.
Recruiting Agency staff is often quick and easy (ditto for Consultants, Interims or whatever you want to call them) and it fills a gap or gets the job done albeit at a cost.
The problem is the business of local councils is so broad and diverse it naturally encompasses areas where there is very little comparable private sector presence as well as the same professional specialisms every other business has - finance, property, legal, HR, procurement. Those Services can and often are externalised to a provider such as Capita but that doesn't reduce the spend - apart from the management fee, there's the Client function required to ensure the Contractor is doing what they promised in the Contract.
There's a lot in that. When John Prescott was Deputy PM, his office required all Council services to be online (to various extents).
At the time I was overseeing a Council website. The list of Council Delivered Services had approximately 800 services in it, which is a measure of the diversity, and all had to be accounted for.
Do you want such services, or have them externalised / privatised and the Council supervising - which does not really lessen the amount of institutional knowledge required because as soon as that is lessened they lose the skillset to regulate, and the service is difficult to hold to account.
Where do you draw the line? Do we want a service to deal with rats and swarms of bees? Dog wardens? Meals on wheels? A nice local park? A town museum? Rights of Way officers? An accessibility officer? People to clean the beach? An ability to deal with ASB or noise? The white lines on our roads repainted? Panic buttons for supported housing?
At present in many or most places, some of the above are so under resourced so as to be ineffective, or have simply vanished with resource starvation.
It all needs thinking about.
Funnily enough, I've also worked on (two) council's systems for managing services/requests.
They are indeed very diverse and because some of the services are statutory requirements and/or sensitive and are therefore prioritised, a lot of the day to day business that the council should be doing gets little funding or attention.
There are also a lot of interactions where people expect the council to deal with things when there's relatively little that they can do. Often because they are really police matters which the police are refusing to deal with because they don't have the time either.
I've been telling you for fourteen years that austerity wasn't a choice, you owe David Cameron and George Osborne et al an apology.
Rachel Reeves will promise to sell off empty public buildings and slash government spending on consultants to balance the books, as she accuses the Conservatives of “running away” from difficult economic decisions and wrecking the nation’s finances.
In her first major speech as chancellor, Reeves will identify a £20 billion black hole in government spending on Monday as she seeks to pin the blame for future tax rises on Tory profligacy.
Echoing the arguments made by George Osborne for austerity after the Conservatives won power in 2010, Reeves will warn government departments and quangos of a cost-cutting drive across Whitehall after the Conservatives over-spent this year’s budgets by billions of pounds. The chancellor will launch the Office of Value for Money, a government agency to combat waste, as she warns of tighter spending.
As part of an immediate squeeze, she will accelerate the sell-off of empty public buildings and reduce the use of external consultants, a move expected to save £500 million.
The sale of surplus public property — a money-raising policy championed by Osborne — has generated £3 billion for the exchequer since 2010. Government reliance on consultants dramatically increased after Brexit and during the pandemic. Since the last election, Deloitte has won contracts worth £1.9 billion while its rivals, KPMG, EY and PwC, have earned £1.3 billion, £1.03 billion and £1 billion respectively.
What happened after five years of Osborne's austerity? The Tories owned it and won a majority, the LibDems disowned it and were eviscerated.
Oh well that proves it then, austerity is a nailed-on vote winner.
Let's hope the Tories go large on it in the next GE campaign: close a shedload of hospitals, slash disability benefits, let a few state schools fall down, allow roads to return to nature, social care only for those who can afford it... Sounds like a winner to me.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
It's ancient history now but was an example of Clegg's poor leadership. In order to win key marginal seats in University towns, LD candidates signed up to pledges (set up by the NUS) to no student fees. This helped win votes and seats in 2010 but was politically disastrous.
The party hadn't to my knowledge ever properly debated the issue and rather like Clegg's latter support for AV, it was one without general party agreement. The free student fees policy delivered a number of seats and probably made the Coalition a reality but Clegg would again cave when the Browne report came out and the "we're all in this together" schtick didn't work any better for him than it would for Cameron.
As a Party member at the time, the whole 2011-12 period was a nightmare. Having seemingly "prepared" for the possibility of going into Government with another party, it was almost as though no one had even considered it might be the Tories on the other side of the table.
All "expected to" and "maybe" and "we have made it up and tellyou so it's true" like about five million attacks on Labour in the DT since SKS became leader.
This I think is likely to be the 'rapid interventions 2 days to 2 months after the Election when Parliament is in session' that I was taking about at Election Time.
All "expected to" and "maybe" and "we have made it up and tellyou so it's true" like about five million attacks on Labour in the DT since SKS became leader.
This I think is likely to be the 'rapid interventions 2 days to 2 months after the Election when Parliament is in session' that I was taking about at Election Time.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
It's ancient history now but was an example of Clegg's poor leadership. In order to win key marginal seats in University towns, LD candidates signed up to pledges (set up by the NUS) to no student fees. This helped win votes and seats in 2010 but was politically disastrous.
The party hadn't to my knowledge ever properly debated the issue and rather like Clegg's latter support for AV, it was one without general party agreement. The free student fees policy delivered a number of seats and probably made the Coalition a reality but Clegg would again cave when the Browne report came out and the "we're all in this together" schtick didn't work any better for him than it would for Cameron.
As a Party member at the time, the whole 2011-12 period was a nightmare. Having seemingly "prepared" for the possibility of going into Government with another party, it was almost as though no one had even considered it might be the Tories on the other side of the table.
What really annoys me though as somebody who was working in academia at the time is the Browne report was a bad report. It did not understand the financial situation, and proposed a remedy that wouldn't in fact address it - merely kick it down the road a few years.
And not only was it a bad report that entirely misunderstood the situation, but it was written by a man who had admitted lying in court during a libel suit against a newspaper that had exposed his cottaging habits, and got off because he was in front of the notorious David Eady, who considered it a very serious matter to tell the truth in the press but a very trivial matter to lie on oath. He should have been in prison, not writing government reports.
There were a dozen reasons to vote against it. None at all to vote for it. And yet the Lib Dems still did.
"The insulting representation of Jesus Christ in Paris yesterday was completely offensive and crossed all red lines.
France, a country with a major history of Christianity, must be ashamed of itself, and I implore our Christian people all over the world to speak out against this act. We resolutely condemn this."
If the Mullahs are upset France must have done something right.
Je Suis Paris.
I think rather (since many folk will at least mildly disapprove of the parody), it’s that we should avoid any move in the direction of reacting as Iran does.
The reaction of some on the right is a step in that direction.
I saw that section live, and saw zero connection with the Last Supper. Can someone explain the link?
When I first saw it (without the comparator) I definitely thought of the last supper motif
It’s not hugely offensive in my view, but it is tired and has been done so many times. But the issue is more equality of treatment - the perception is that it is fine to mock Christians but not others
And given the location, that criticism is fairer than normal. Arguably, there was a case for showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons - I wouldn’t, but it would have been understandable - but having a pop at Christianity seemed completely unnecessary.
You're assuming it was intended as a mockery of Christianity, or 'having a pop'. It was an appropriation of Leonardo's image - which as noted, has been done a thousand times before - without anyone assuming mockery.
Were Warhol's prints a mockery ?
Islam is, in the views of many of us, currently (though not always the case historically) over sensitive to the depiction of its prophet.
Christianity doesn't have the Islamic prescription on iconography - unless you're of the Cromwell tendency. And western society professes itself happy to accommodate satire on religion. Is that something you want to change ?
If France should be apologising for anything, it's for putting on a not very good opening ceremony. But that's hardly something to be outraged over.
Quite right. Since when did religious groups take ownership of works of art and what can be done with them? Who decides what works of art are now off limits to parody, mockery or criticism? If Leonardo himself had decided to 'desecrate' 'The Last Supper' in some way would he be guilty of something? All obvious balderdash. Moreover, when criticized for their own over-sensitivity, Muslims can now turn round and say, 'Well, you "enlightened" westerners threw a hissy fit when a painting was imitated at the Olympics. You're just as sensitive as us.' Completely counter-productive.
Good post. Some people don't seem to realise that The Last Supper is simply the imagining of an artist of an event that in all likelihood never took place. Whether it has religeous significance is purely in the eye of the beholder. It has been parodied more than almost any other so called religious painting so this was nothing special.
As for the Iranians objecting; All depictions of Mohammed are forbidden as are depictions of all religeous figures. Indeed in the more religeous parts all works of art except script from the Koran are forbidden so taking lectures from them on artistic integrity is suely intended as a joke
The vast majority of 'religious' art in England and Wales (not sure about Scotland), which of course meant most art at the time, was destroyed during the Reformation, and much of what was left during the Commonwealth. Which doesn't suggest that Christians, especially Protestants, are particularly sensitive about preserving art.
It suggests Edward VI's ministers and Oliver Cromwell, both of whom were fundies that would make Bin Laden blink, were twats. Not necessarily that Christians as a whole don't care about art. Quite the contrary, the fact they commissioned it at all suggests the opposite.
I think that's a fair description of Edward VI's ministers, and in this context anyway, Cromwell. That bit of my ancestry which is SE Midlands, though, has always given me a soft spot for Cromwell. Noteworthy that my English grandfather, a churchwarden, had to be persuaded, about 100 years ago, to allow candles to be put on the church altar.
Bit surprised to see a middle of the roader Presbyterian such as Cromwell regarded as a fundie. He positively suppressed the extremists, one should remember. The Erastians who wanted to make their King the head of the church on the one hand, and the Anabaptists and Ranters on the other ...
Certainly an iconoclast, though.
But it's not as though the interplay between the sacred and profane wasn't a continuing thing in Catholic Europe. Art in the Protestant world was for a time impoverished by iconoclasm.
Bags of time to harvest gains at the current rate between now and a budget. Ongoing problem for hedge fund managers taking money out as loans, but cry me a river.
Sounds a hell of a lot more plausible than the official results.
Just as the Belarusian exit poll giving Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya two thirds of the vote was a hell of a lot more plausible than the one giving that fat old loser Lukashenko an eight to one win.
Venezuelans are turning up in *Peru* in serious numbers as refugees.
The Peruvian reaction is all over the place - but united on “WTAF - we are the poor, screwed up place in South America?!?”
"The insulting representation of Jesus Christ in Paris yesterday was completely offensive and crossed all red lines.
France, a country with a major history of Christianity, must be ashamed of itself, and I implore our Christian people all over the world to speak out against this act. We resolutely condemn this."
If the Mullahs are upset France must have done something right.
Je Suis Paris.
I think rather (since many folk will at least mildly disapprove of the parody), it’s that we should avoid any move in the direction of reacting as Iran does.
The reaction of some on the right is a step in that direction.
I saw that section live, and saw zero connection with the Last Supper. Can someone explain the link?
When I first saw it (without the comparator) I definitely thought of the last supper motif
It’s not hugely offensive in my view, but it is tired and has been done so many times. But the issue is more equality of treatment - the perception is that it is fine to mock Christians but not others
And given the location, that criticism is fairer than normal. Arguably, there was a case for showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons - I wouldn’t, but it would have been understandable - but having a pop at Christianity seemed completely unnecessary.
You're assuming it was intended as a mockery of Christianity, or 'having a pop'. It was an appropriation of Leonardo's image - which as noted, has been done a thousand times before - without anyone assuming mockery.
Were Warhol's prints a mockery ?
Islam is, in the views of many of us, currently (though not always the case historically) over sensitive to the depiction of its prophet.
Christianity doesn't have the Islamic prescription on iconography - unless you're of the Cromwell tendency. And western society professes itself happy to accommodate satire on religion. Is that something you want to change ?
If France should be apologising for anything, it's for putting on a not very good opening ceremony. But that's hardly something to be outraged over.
Quite right. Since when did religious groups take ownership of works of art and what can be done with them? Who decides what works of art are now off limits to parody, mockery or criticism? If Leonardo himself had decided to 'desecrate' 'The Last Supper' in some way would he be guilty of something? All obvious balderdash. Moreover, when criticized for their own over-sensitivity, Muslims can now turn round and say, 'Well, you "enlightened" westerners threw a hissy fit when a painting was imitated at the Olympics. You're just as sensitive as us.' Completely counter-productive.
Good post. Some people don't seem to realise that The Last Supper is simply the imagining of an artist of an event that in all likelihood never took place. Whether it has religeous significance is purely in the eye of the beholder. It has been parodied more than almost any other so called religious painting so this was nothing special.
As for the Iranians objecting; All depictions of Mohammed are forbidden as are depictions of all religeous figures. Indeed in the more religeous parts all works of art except script from the Koran are forbidden so taking lectures from them on artistic integrity is suely intended as a joke
The vast majority of 'religious' art in England and Wales (not sure about Scotland), which of course meant most art at the time, was destroyed during the Reformation, and much of what was left during the Commonwealth. Which doesn't suggest that Christians, especially Protestants, are particularly sensitive about preserving art.
It suggests Edward VI's ministers and Oliver Cromwell, both of whom were fundies that would make Bin Laden blink, were twats. Not necessarily that Christians as a whole don't care about art. Quite the contrary, the fact they commissioned it at all suggests the opposite.
I think that's a fair description of Edward VI's ministers, and in this context anyway, Cromwell. That bit of my ancestry which is SE Midlands, though, has always given me a soft spot for Cromwell. Noteworthy that my English grandfather, a churchwarden, had to be persuaded, about 100 years ago, to allow candles to be put on the church altar.
Bit surprised to see a middle of the roader Presbyterian such as Cromwell regarded as a fundie. He positively suppressed the extremists, one should remember. The Erastians who wanted to make their King the head of the church on the one hand, and the Anabaptists and Ranters on the other ...
I construed fundie as trust fund beneficiary (which he was).
The lying by Labour is starting already. We will be taxed until the pips squeak. Leopards don't change their spots.
The government's tax take hit record highs under the Conservatives.
Haven't you just criticised 'austerity' ?
That record tax take was and is being spent.
Ditto with all the borrowed money.
Liz Truss was right. We need growth. We can't cut our way to growth.
Everyone agrees we need growth (except maybe some Greens). It's not a Truss-specific position. It's not some clever, revolutionary observation.
More important is your third sentence: we can't cut our way to growth. That has been Government policy since 2010. That's what needs to change.
There's a big difference between the short term and the long term when it comes to economic growth. In fact, the two directly contradict each other, which is why it's so difficult to get politicians who run the economy well.
We can boost growth for a year or two by boosting state spending in the short term. Politicians' focus is all on the short term, i.e. at most five years and usually much less.
But over the medium to long term, by severing the link between effort and reward, channelling money to unproductive sectors of the economy and encouraging idleness and fecklnessness, increasing the size of state is totally counter-productive, otherwise all governments would print and hand out free money all the time.
To grow robustly over the long term we need low taxes, low government spending and light regulation. It's not rocket science but our political system is set up to deliver the exact opposite.
We have failed on all three for years now on all three and the current government is about to make it a whole lot worse.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
I am sure these middle class, white, protesters were not kicked and battered repeatedly in spite of not being compliant with Plod's demands.
However they are now starting to get jailed for significant terms
Yes, but the sentencing guidelines make it clear why in spite of what the army of luvvies and hacks condemning the sentences claim - jailed for attending a Zoom call/peacefully protesting/raising awareness etc etc.
Serial offenders, previous convictions, some on bail, disrupting the court process and not engaging. Of course they will get a long sentence and rightly so.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
It's ancient history now but was an example of Clegg's poor leadership. In order to win key marginal seats in University towns, LD candidates signed up to pledges (set up by the NUS) to no student fees. This helped win votes and seats in 2010 but was politically disastrous.
The party hadn't to my knowledge ever properly debated the issue and rather like Clegg's latter support for AV, it was one without general party agreement. The free student fees policy delivered a number of seats and probably made the Coalition a reality but Clegg would again cave when the Browne report came out and the "we're all in this together" schtick didn't work any better for him than it would for Cameron.
As a Party member at the time, the whole 2011-12 period was a nightmare. Having seemingly "prepared" for the possibility of going into Government with another party, it was almost as though no one had even considered it might be the Tories on the other side of the table.
Difficult coalition agreements takes weeks or even a couple of months to thrash out, but the LD team had agreed to the 2010 Conservative/LD coalition agreement in under 6 days. For a party who have only ever aimed at being part of a coalition they were incredibly unprepared.
"The insulting representation of Jesus Christ in Paris yesterday was completely offensive and crossed all red lines.
France, a country with a major history of Christianity, must be ashamed of itself, and I implore our Christian people all over the world to speak out against this act. We resolutely condemn this."
If the Mullahs are upset France must have done something right.
Je Suis Paris.
I think rather (since many folk will at least mildly disapprove of the parody), it’s that we should avoid any move in the direction of reacting as Iran does.
The reaction of some on the right is a step in that direction.
I saw that section live, and saw zero connection with the Last Supper. Can someone explain the link?
When I first saw it (without the comparator) I definitely thought of the last supper motif
It’s not hugely offensive in my view, but it is tired and has been done so many times. But the issue is more equality of treatment - the perception is that it is fine to mock Christians but not others
And given the location, that criticism is fairer than normal. Arguably, there was a case for showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons - I wouldn’t, but it would have been understandable - but having a pop at Christianity seemed completely unnecessary.
You're assuming it was intended as a mockery of Christianity, or 'having a pop'. It was an appropriation of Leonardo's image - which as noted, has been done a thousand times before - without anyone assuming mockery.
Were Warhol's prints a mockery ?
Islam is, in the views of many of us, currently (though not always the case historically) over sensitive to the depiction of its prophet.
Christianity doesn't have the Islamic prescription on iconography - unless you're of the Cromwell tendency. And western society professes itself happy to accommodate satire on religion. Is that something you want to change ?
If France should be apologising for anything, it's for putting on a not very good opening ceremony. But that's hardly something to be outraged over.
Quite right. Since when did religious groups take ownership of works of art and what can be done with them? Who decides what works of art are now off limits to parody, mockery or criticism? If Leonardo himself had decided to 'desecrate' 'The Last Supper' in some way would he be guilty of something? All obvious balderdash. Moreover, when criticized for their own over-sensitivity, Muslims can now turn round and say, 'Well, you "enlightened" westerners threw a hissy fit when a painting was imitated at the Olympics. You're just as sensitive as us.' Completely counter-productive.
Good post. Some people don't seem to realise that The Last Supper is simply the imagining of an artist of an event that in all likelihood never took place. Whether it has religeous significance is purely in the eye of the beholder. It has been parodied more than almost any other so called religious painting so this was nothing special.
As for the Iranians objecting; All depictions of Mohammed are forbidden as are depictions of all religeous figures. Indeed in the more religeous parts all works of art except script from the Koran are forbidden so taking lectures from them on artistic integrity is suely intended as a joke
The vast majority of 'religious' art in England and Wales (not sure about Scotland), which of course meant most art at the time, was destroyed during the Reformation, and much of what was left during the Commonwealth. Which doesn't suggest that Christians, especially Protestants, are particularly sensitive about preserving art.
Cromwell and his fellow travellers were Isis 1.0. They would have heartily approved of what the Taliban did to that ancient giant buddha in Afghanistan.
They would have considered "top of tallest building" to be liberal pinko namby pambyness because death is far to quick without prolonged purifying agony.
Even had people flogged for cooking a goose at Christmas or celebrating it in any jovial way.
As well as the Irish Holocaust with half of Northern Ireland deported to the west Indies as slaves and their land given to sound protestant types.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
In 30 years time we'll be bemoaning the unbreakable Labour - LibDem two-party system (the LDs having quietly dropped their PR policy for... reasons).
Given just 12% voted LD on 4th July and 24% voted Tory and 14% even voted Reform highly unlikely. Combined the Tories and Reform on 38% were even higher than Labour on 33%
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Good news: Russian artillery losses reaching a new high. 74 reported for the day, 1,477 for the month of July so far.
Bad news: A British government reaching for cuts to infrastructure spending, again, as a temporary expedient to balance the books, and because they're incapable of making the case to the public of the necessity to invest for the future, at the cost of tax rises or cuts to current spending, in the present. Cowards.
Meanwhile in Ireland, the word is that the government will give voters another cash bung in the form of a credit on their electricity bills. How everyone will wish this money was more wisely spent when the corporation tax bonanza dries up.
Invest for the future under Labour means tax them till their pips squeak....
CGT to 40%? Why would anyone want to invest in anything or start a company under such a punitive regime, rather than simply working for a salary?
Presumably failed investments will be able to be written of against CGT liabilities?
45% of disposals are of gains of 5m or more (source: https://www.rsmuk.com/insights/weekly-tax-brief/why-labour-are-not-raising-capital-gains-tax-rates). The difference between taxing a £5m gain at 20% (1m) and 40% (2m) makes it a no-brainer to relocate before making a disposal. Even if you sit on your ass for five years spending 100k a year you're half a million up on the deal. A million and a half, if you relocate to somewhere with 0% CGT.
Assuming this policy is announced in October, I'm looking at doing something similar by selling my primary residence in the uk (incurring 0% tax) and using the money to re-base myself somewhere else for the forthcoming tax year before making any disposals.
Much like the shock expressed over the VAT on private school fees figure not being expected to raise half as much revenue as promised because, shock horror, increased taxes causes people to change their behaviour, so too will taxing investment as income lead to less money being raised than predicted, plus the effects of a brain drain and reduced investment in the UK economy.
40% CGT would be one of the highest rates in the western world, and a firm signal that the UK is closed for business.
The source of this Labour leak that has made its way to the Telegraph first is apparently a certain Mr Hunt. And even he is talking about higher rate pension relief not pension tax relief.
Its a mix of fake news and spin. CGT will increase but not to 40%. Private pension tax relief will be cut in some format, either the amount per year and/or the rate, but wont be scrapped.
I am sure these middle class, white, protesters were not kicked and battered repeatedly in spite of not being compliant with Plod's demands.
However they are now starting to get jailed for significant terms
Yes, but the sentencing guidelines make it clear why in spite of what the army of luvvies and hacks condemning the sentences claim - jailed for attending a Zoom call/peacefully protesting/raising awareness etc etc.
Serial offenders, previous convictions, some on bail, disrupting the court process and not engaging. Of course they will get a long sentence and rightly so.
IIRC it was under the coalition that multiple offences, stacked up while on bail/early release for previous started getting you locked up for noticeable time. And being remanded awaiting trial.
Recall one guy - on early release from a sentence for car theft. He ended up in court, having been caught stealing a car. It turned out he was on bail for 2 other, separate, offences of stealing cars.
So he’d got early release, bail and bail again. His lawyer got quite upset when they sent him up the river to await trial.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
It's ancient history now but was an example of Clegg's poor leadership. In order to win key marginal seats in University towns, LD candidates signed up to pledges (set up by the NUS) to no student fees. This helped win votes and seats in 2010 but was politically disastrous.
The party hadn't to my knowledge ever properly debated the issue and rather like Clegg's latter support for AV, it was one without general party agreement. The free student fees policy delivered a number of seats and probably made the Coalition a reality but Clegg would again cave when the Browne report came out and the "we're all in this together" schtick didn't work any better for him than it would for Cameron.
As a Party member at the time, the whole 2011-12 period was a nightmare. Having seemingly "prepared" for the possibility of going into Government with another party, it was almost as though no one had even considered it might be the Tories on the other side of the table.
Difficult coalition agreements takes weeks or even a couple of months to thrash out, but the LD team had agreed to the 2010 Conservative/LD coalition agreement in under 6 days. For a party who have only ever aimed at being part of a coalition they were incredibly unprepared.
I must confess, as a one-time, although not really by then, activist I'd assumed that there'd been a group pf back-roomers dealing with what-if's. And I would have thought that PR was a red-line.
5.5% rise which will be pensionable for their index linked defined benefit pensions that are worth about four times more than a private sector defined contribution pension.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
The lying by Labour is starting already. We will be taxed until the pips squeak. Leopards don't change their spots.
The government's tax take hit record highs under the Conservatives.
Haven't you just criticised 'austerity' ?
That record tax take was and is being spent.
Ditto with all the borrowed money.
Liz Truss was right. We need growth. We can't cut our way to growth.
Everyone agrees we need growth (except maybe some Greens). It's not a Truss-specific position. It's not some clever, revolutionary observation.
More important is your third sentence: we can't cut our way to growth. That has been Government policy since 2010. That's what needs to change.
There's a big difference between the short term and the long term when it comes to economic growth. In fact, the two directly contradict each other, which is why it's so difficult to get politicians who run the economy well.
We can boost growth for a year or two by boosting state spending in the short term. Politicians' focus is all on the short term, i.e. at most five years and usually much less.
But over the medium to long term, by severing the link between effort and reward, channelling money to unproductive sectors of the economy and encouraging idleness and fecklnessness, increasing the size of state is totally counter-productive, otherwise all governments would print and hand out free money all the time.
To grow robustly over the long term we need low taxes, low government spending and light regulation. It's not rocket science but our political system is set up to deliver the exact opposite.
We have failed on all three for years now on all three and the current government is about to make it a whole lot worse.
That's ill-informed nonsense. State spending can boost the economy. Mariana Mazzucato, for example, has done extensive work on how state funding supports innovation, something we have numerous US examples for. State funding of infrastructure (e.g., transport, energy) can boost the economy. Light regulation is not a panacea: in many cases, companies prefer clear and consistent regulation. Low taxes, as again we see in US examples, doesn't grow the economy: it just channels more money to the wealthy and produces government deficits. We've tried low government spending with austerity and it's just led to public services becoming so bad that they harm the economy (too many people ill and not receiving help is bad for the job market and productivity, courts too logjammed harms the rule of law, police unable to tackle shoplifting harms retail).
Far left activists arrested for French train bombings.
Train bombings? Or do you mean track cable bombing?
Track cable setting on fire. Bombing is a bit of an exaggeration.
As I said on Saturday when everybody was blaming Vladimir "Confirmation Bias"
They used explosives to initiate the fires, apparently. Thermite?
Still could be Vladimir - the KGB of the Cold War (which he adores) loved to try and use anti-government groups in the West. See the Mitrovokin Archive.
The funding of anti-fracking and anti-LNG shipping terminal groups is proven. And there have been a number of reports of attempts to use criminals to carry out attacks in the West, by Russia.
Thank you Kieran Pedley for an insightful analysis. Watching the 'leadership candidates' is like watching bald men fighting over a comb!
What happens if none of the many candidates get ten MPs to nominate them? Not impossible with so many candidates and so few MPs.
Or what if only one gets ten MPs to nominate, so that once again the membership are denied a choice.
To be honest they are all such lightweights that whoever wins, the membership will look back on the golden era of Liz Truss
Jenrick and Stride are on five each. Badenock trails on three.
Moderately depressing that 5 Tory MPs exist who think Mel Stride in the answer to any question save who's turn is it to get the biscuits.
I'm depressed that any MPs think any of that list are the solution to the Tory party's current lack of voters and the slightly longer term issue of their voters dying off problems
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
Because what was created wasn’t a market.
From the point of view of the University, why charge less than the cap? 18 year olds borrowing money *to be paid back later* are probably the easiest marks in the fair ground.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
They would cut fees soon enough if it was that or not fill the places.
Rationing student loans for fees by performance with only people with 3 A's able to borrow the full amount and proportionate amount for lower grades down to £3,000 for 2 E's would concentrate their minds.
And force the lower grade ones to shut or return to focusing on vocational qualifications.
Thank you Kieran Pedley for an insightful analysis. Watching the 'leadership candidates' is like watching bald men fighting over a comb!
What happens if none of the many candidates get ten MPs to nominate them? Not impossible with so many candidates and so few MPs.
Or what if only one gets ten MPs to nominate, so that once again the membership are denied a choice.
To be honest they are all such lightweights that whoever wins, the membership will look back on the golden era of Liz Truss
Jenrick and Stride are on five each. Badenock trails on three.
Moderately depressing that 5 Tory MPs exist who think Mel Stride in the answer to any question save who's turn is it to get the biscuits.
I'm depressed that any MPs think any of that list are the solution to the Tory party's current lack of voters and the slightly longer term issue of their voters dying off problems
Tugendhat seems to poll best with voters but the quickest way for the Tories to win back younger voters is a Labour government running a poor economy whoever their next leader is
Thank you Kieran Pedley for an insightful analysis. Watching the 'leadership candidates' is like watching bald men fighting over a comb!
What happens if none of the many candidates get ten MPs to nominate them? Not impossible with so many candidates and so few MPs.
Or what if only one gets ten MPs to nominate, so that once again the membership are denied a choice.
To be honest they are all such lightweights that whoever wins, the membership will look back on the golden era of Liz Truss
Jenrick and Stride are on five each. Badenock trails on three.
Moderately depressing that 5 Tory MPs exist who think Mel Stride in the answer to any question save who's turn is it to get the biscuits.
I'm depressed that any MPs think any of that list are the solution to the Tory party's current lack of voters and the slightly longer term issue of their voters dying off problems
Though looking at the 121 available candidates, it's not obvious that there is anyone better who has chosen to sit this one out.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
Because what was created wasn’t a market.
From the point of view of the University, why charge less than the cap? 18 year olds borrowing money *to be paid back later* are probably the easiest marks in the fair ground.
Oh I know it's not a true market - the problem is there is no market when the money is borrowed on the never never and likely won't be paid back..
Thank you Kieran Pedley for an insightful analysis. Watching the 'leadership candidates' is like watching bald men fighting over a comb!
What happens if none of the many candidates get ten MPs to nominate them? Not impossible with so many candidates and so few MPs.
Or what if only one gets ten MPs to nominate, so that once again the membership are denied a choice.
To be honest they are all such lightweights that whoever wins, the membership will look back on the golden era of Liz Truss
Jenrick and Stride are on five each. Badenock trails on three.
Moderately depressing that 5 Tory MPs exist who think Mel Stride in the answer to any question save who's turn is it to get the biscuits.
I'm depressed that any MPs think any of that list are the solution to the Tory party's current lack of voters and the slightly longer term issue of their voters dying off problems
Tugendhat seems to poll best with voters but the quickest way for the Tories to win back younger voters is a Labour government running a poor economy whoever their next leader is
Tories. Putting party before country for 200 years.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
Simple, just have government set the maximum fees that can be charged by each university. So the lowest ranked universities are banned from charging as high fees as Oxbridge and Imperial and LSE can for instance unless in exceptional courses they can show have a well above average graduate earnings premium
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
They would cut fees soon enough if it was that or not fill the places.
Rationing student loans for fees by performance with only people with 3 A's able to borrow the full amount and proportionate amount for lower grades down to £3,000 for 2 E's would concentrate their minds.
And force the lower grade ones to shut or return to focusing on vocational qualifications.
But it's not a real loan (remember, most people not paying it back in full is a design feature), so there's little benefit to cutting fees.
What economics says that lower-rated universities should do under the circumstances is charge full fees and offer an eye-catching cashback bursary. Which some of them did.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
In 30 years time we'll be bemoaning the unbreakable Labour - LibDem two-party system (the LDs having quietly dropped their PR policy for... reasons).
Given just 12% voted LD on 4th July and 24% voted Tory and 14% even voted Reform highly unlikely. Combined the Tories and Reform on 38% were even higher than Labour on 33%
Please stop combining conservative and reform votes - it is wholly misleading and silly
I was about to post the same and for two reasons:
a) if you are going to combine Tory and Reform, why not combine Lab, LD and Green? It would be daft but consistent.
b) When knocking up for the LDs in Guildford on election day we are obviously only knocking up our confirmed voters. My personal results from several hundred houses knocked on were:
A very large number of LDs obviously 1 Tory 0 Labour (although several made the point that they were voting LD tactically) 1 not voting (whom I almost convinced to vote) A dozen or so Reform
Others reported the same trend re confirmed LDs voting Reform
These Reform voters had said they were going to vote LD. There were lots of them swayed by the Reform message. I am assuming these are disaffected voters, but if the LDs were losing them to Reform, how many would Labour have had in that boat as well as it is not like there is much overlap between LD and Reform.
So to claim Reform voters can be put in the same pile as Tories is wrong.
Not all of them no but the majority of those Reform voters would have voted for Boris in 2019, even in Guildford and even if they had said before they were going LD this time. Most of them would have voted Leave in 2016 as well, Guildford as a whole voted Remain though so it was Remainers who won it for the LDs
Well I wouldn't dispute anything you have said there. I agree the majority is probably Tory. But a majority is a lot different to adding 100% of them which you have done and you could do the same with Lab, LD and Green which just cancels out the whole proposition. And yes Remain was a factor in the areas where the LDs won, although I believe Surrey Heath voted Leave and still went LD so it isn't as simple as that.
It is just the adding of 100% of the Reform vote to Tory and completely ignoring the Lab/LD/Green side of the equation which is the issue. Remember before the election you were doing the same assuming the majority of Reform would vote Tory. They didn't
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
See also: private school fees.
It's not just Stella Artois where expensive=reassurance.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
In 30 years time we'll be bemoaning the unbreakable Labour - LibDem two-party system (the LDs having quietly dropped their PR policy for... reasons).
Given just 12% voted LD on 4th July and 24% voted Tory and 14% even voted Reform highly unlikely. Combined the Tories and Reform on 38% were even higher than Labour on 33%
Please stop combining conservative and reform votes - it is wholly misleading and silly
I was about to post the same and for two reasons:
a) if you are going to combine Tory and Reform, why not combine Lab, LD and Green? It would be daft but consistent.
b) When knocking up for the LDs in Guildford on election day we are obviously only knocking up our confirmed voters. My personal results from several hundred houses knocked on were:
A very large number of LDs obviously 1 Tory 0 Labour (although several made the point that they were voting LD tactically) 1 not voting (whom I almost convinced to vote) A dozen or so Reform
Others reported the same trend re confirmed LDs voting Reform
These Reform voters had said they were going to vote LD. There were lots of them swayed by the Reform message. I am assuming these are disaffected voters, but if the LDs were losing them to Reform, how many would Labour have had in that boat as well as it is not like there is much overlap between LD and Reform.
So to claim Reform voters can be put in the same pile as Tories is wrong.
Not all of them no but the majority of those Reform voters would have voted for Boris in 2019, even in Guildford and even if they had said before they were going LD this time. Most of them would have voted Leave in 2016 as well, Guildford as a whole voted Remain though so it was Remainers who won it for the LDs
Well I wouldn't dispute anything you have said there. I agree the majority is probably Tory. But a majority is a lot different to adding 100% of them which you have done and you could do the same with Lab, LD and Green which just cancels out the whole proposition. And yes Remain was a factor in the areas where the LDs won, although I believe Surrey Heath voted Leave and still went LD so it isn't as simple as that.
It is just the adding of 100% of the Reform vote to Tory and completely ignoring the Lab/LD/Green side of the equation which is the issue. Remember before the election you were doing the same assuming the majority of Reform would vote Tory. They didn't
You need both I agree, 2019 Tories defecting to Labour and LD in 2024 as well as to Reform.
On the above poll Tugendhat seems to have to best chance of winning them back, Patel the worst
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
Simple, just have government set the maximum fees that can be charged by each university. So the lowest ranked universities are banned from charging as high fees as Oxbridge and Imperial and LSE can for instance unless in exceptional courses they can show have a well above average graduate earnings premium
That doesn't work because no students will attend a clearly second rate university - as Stuart points out education is a Veblen good..
Great thread. The economic significance of the battery industry is still hugely underestimated.
1/Here's something I've been wondering about recently: How did the U.S. miss the battery revolution?
With every other technological revolution, we anticipated it well in advance, and as a result we were the first -- or one of the first -- to take advantage of it... https://x.com/Noahpinion/status/1817597177281335482
Another person who thinks the computer was invented in the US.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
Simple, just have government set the maximum fees that can be charged by each university. So the lowest ranked universities are banned from charging as high fees as Oxbridge and Imperial and LSE can for instance unless in exceptional courses they can show have a well above average graduate earnings premium
Government setting prices is, of course, pretty much the opposite of a market.
CGT to 40%? Why would anyone want to invest in anything or start a company under such a punitive regime, rather than simply working for a salary?
Presumably failed investments will be able to be written of against CGT liabilities?
Exactly. Why would you risk your capital to be hit at 40% on any returns. Why not just use it for something less risky.
It runs counter to the growth agenda Reeves claims to have.
If all of these rumours turn out to be true - the rest of HS2 postponed indefinitely, Thames crossing killed etc etc - then we’re back to exactly the same broken logic that Osbourne used to justify austerity & it result in exactly the same outcome - anaemic growth held up by lack of investment in infrastructure.
My children are probably going to be best advised to leave the country: Why stay in the land of low salaries, low expectations & shit services? France & Germany manages better public services even if they are struggling with similar growth issues, whilst the US has shown clearly just how much growth we’re leaving on the table by refusing to invest.
Thank you Kieran Pedley for an insightful analysis. Watching the 'leadership candidates' is like watching bald men fighting over a comb!
What happens if none of the many candidates get ten MPs to nominate them? Not impossible with so many candidates and so few MPs.
Or what if only one gets ten MPs to nominate, so that once again the membership are denied a choice.
To be honest they are all such lightweights that whoever wins, the membership will look back on the golden era of Liz Truss
Jenrick and Stride are on five each. Badenock trails on three.
Moderately depressing that 5 Tory MPs exist who think Mel Stride in the answer to any question save who's turn is it to get the biscuits.
I'm depressed that any MPs think any of that list are the solution to the Tory party's current lack of voters and the slightly longer term issue of their voters dying off problems
Tugendhat seems to poll best with voters but the quickest way for the Tories to win back younger voters is a Labour government running a poor economy whoever their next leader is
The last election was about delivery. If Labour deliver a public sector that’s at least improved and a decent bit of growth, they’ll win. The Tories need to stop obsessing over dividing lines and set out something fairly competent
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
They would cut fees soon enough if it was that or not fill the places.
Rationing student loans for fees by performance with only people with 3 A's able to borrow the full amount and proportionate amount for lower grades down to £3,000 for 2 E's would concentrate their minds.
And force the lower grade ones to shut or return to focusing on vocational qualifications.
So you force the closure of the university which a pride and joy of the local area.
1) how do you deal with the economic fallout of doing so 2) how do you handle the local MPs who know they've just lost any chance of re-election...
As I keep repeating, JD Vance 2014 was not a bad guy.
JD Vance on Justice Scalia in 2014. "He's become a very shrill old man. I used to really like him, and I used to believe all of his stuff about judicial minimalism was sincere. Now I see it as a political charade." https://x.com/JoshMBlackman/status/1817581641214398877
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
Simple, just have government set the maximum fees that can be charged by each university. So the lowest ranked universities are banned from charging as high fees as Oxbridge and Imperial and LSE can for instance unless in exceptional courses they can show have a well above average graduate earnings premium
My god! Is your analysis on every area of life so simplistic? There are many "lower ranked" universities that (when considering individual courses) have higher levels of employability than Oxbridge. Indeed, many Oxbridge grads are not employed because of the value of their degree but because they have better family networks, or perhaps the school they went to previously. Using your perspective, Oxford should get more funding for their Classics courses than another university would get for teaching a course on applied computer engineering.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
See also: private school fees.
It's not just Stella Artois where expensive=reassurance.
I'd forgotten that ad. Ironic since it's now tuns of wife beater than get downed by the masses at 6am at the airport on their way to resort bliss. I suppose when all there was was Tennent's and Carling, Stella was at least reassuringly strong.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
Simple, just have government set the maximum fees that can be charged by each university. So the lowest ranked universities are banned from charging as high fees as Oxbridge and Imperial and LSE can for instance unless in exceptional courses they can show have a well above average graduate earnings premium
That doesn't work because no students will attend a clearly second rate university - as Stuart points out education is a Veblen good..
There is no-one out there pretending that York St John is better than York - even though they both have the same fees.
As I keep repeating, JD Vance 2014 was not a bad guy.
JD Vance on Justice Scalia in 2014. "He's become a very shrill old man. I used to really like him, and I used to believe all of his stuff about judicial minimalism was sincere. Now I see it as a political charade." https://x.com/JoshMBlackman/status/1817581641214398877
Trumpism has driven significant chunk of the Republican party completely insane.
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
They would cut fees soon enough if it was that or not fill the places.
Rationing student loans for fees by performance with only people with 3 A's able to borrow the full amount and proportionate amount for lower grades down to £3,000 for 2 E's would concentrate their minds.
And force the lower grade ones to shut or return to focusing on vocational qualifications.
So you force the closure of the university which a pride and joy of the local area.
1) how do you deal with the economic fallout of doing so 2) how do you handle the local MPs who know they've just lost any chance of re-election...
A level grades are not necessarily a predictor of degree ones, nor of future earnings.
CGT to 40%? Why would anyone want to invest in anything or start a company under such a punitive regime, rather than simply working for a salary?
Presumably failed investments will be able to be written of against CGT liabilities?
Exactly. Why would you risk your capital to be hit at 40% on any returns. Why not just use it for something less risky.
It runs counter to the growth agenda Reeves claims to have.
If all of these rumours turn out to be true - the rest of HS2 postponed indefinitely, Thames crossing killed etc etc - then we’re back to exactly the same broken logic that Osbourne used to justify austerity & it result in exactly the same outcome - anaemic growth held up by lack of investment in infrastructure.
My children are probably going to be best advised to leave the country: Why stay in the land of low salaries, low expectations & shit services? France & Germany manages better public services even if they are struggling with similar growth issues, whilst the US has shown clearly just how much growth we’re leaving on the table by refusing to invest.
Madness.
I suspect the problem with HS2 is that it requires Euston and that's a scarily expensive combination of 2/3 different project all of which need to be delivered now because 30-40 years of investment was delayed..
Whilst taxing investment and scrapping new hospital infrastructure?
Hmmm.
Also it shows the true scale of how austerity has impacted public sector wages....
Hopefully it will encourage a number of doctors back away from contract work and reduce agency costs (I suspect that's actually a significant factor in the offer)..
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
Simple, just have government set the maximum fees that can be charged by each university. So the lowest ranked universities are banned from charging as high fees as Oxbridge and Imperial and LSE can for instance unless in exceptional courses they can show have a well above average graduate earnings premium
Alternatively, get the government out of higher education completely, and let the college, the bank, and the student agree on a funding model. If the student ends up bankrupt after graduation, then the university and the bank have to sort things out between themselves.
Oxbridge colleges will then charge £30k per year, and the local polytechnic about £2.50.
Great thread. The economic significance of the battery industry is still hugely underestimated.
1/Here's something I've been wondering about recently: How did the U.S. miss the battery revolution?
With every other technological revolution, we anticipated it well in advance, and as a result we were the first -- or one of the first -- to take advantage of it... https://x.com/Noahpinion/status/1817597177281335482
Another person who thinks the computer was invented in the US.
"..as a result we were the first -- or one of the first -- to take advantage of it..."
Quibbling about who takes priority of invention, when we're talking about industrial strategy, rather misses the point. China certainly didn't invent Li-ion batteries (or much else in modern times), but they lead the world in both research and industrial development,
They need to win back the headbangers now happily installed in the home of headbangers; they need to win over those who fled to the sensible shores of Labour and Lib Dems; they need to stop their residual voters dying.
Should be easy.
One Nationers should take over the Lib Dems.
Question to our Lib Dem members, how many in the voluntary party support the Orange Book policies now?
Possibly the 2015 election was disastrous in that it destroyed Orange Book Liberalism and left a party barely distinguishable from SKS Labour.
Clegg's problem in 2015 was Cameron was already offering Orange Book Liberalism in all but name anyway, while the social democrats who had voted for his party before defected to Ed Miliband's Labour Party
Tuition fees. And not to so much what was done as the way it was done.
Orange Book LDs back tuition fees and ideally based on the graduate premium from and cost of the degree. Social Democrat LDs however largely want university education to be free
That's me told then; I've always been against tuition fees. Although I was a Liberal before I was a LibDem.
Tuition fees are arguably the greatest unforced error in the history of the universe.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
They aren't, their problem is they are one size fits all not set at market rate.
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
You clearly don't have a clue how markets work (but then again nor did anyone else who implemented the scheme).
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses 2) it leaves money they could otherwise get 3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
Simple, just have government set the maximum fees that can be charged by each university. So the lowest ranked universities are banned from charging as high fees as Oxbridge and Imperial and LSE can for instance unless in exceptional courses they can show have a well above average graduate earnings premium
Alternatively, get the government out of higher education completely, and let the college, the bank, and the student agree on a funding model. If the student ends up bankrupt after graduation, then the university and the bank have to sort things out between themselves.
Oxbridge colleges will then charge £30k per year, and the local polytechnic about £2.50.
Comments
'I fell asleep listening to him': Trump Bitcoin speech attendees say he was 'embarrassing'
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-rambling-embarrassing-bitcoin-speech-attendees/
..Marc van der Chijs said, "I don’t think Trump’s speech will gain him a lot of new voters among Bitcoiners."
"The other way around, many will now see him for what he really is," he added. "It was my first time watching him speak live. He sounds like a low IQ conman to me, I wouldn’t believe anything he tells me."..
https://bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/articles/cn05nxv2z9po
Edit - actually, not true. Most of use can see Trump is a low IQ conman.
Just under Oliver Cromwell he not only executed King Charles I and declared England and Wales a republic, he also scrapped the House of Lords and scrapped the Book of Common Prayer and removed most icons and paintings and stained glass from C of E churches and smashed high altars. Even under Henry VIII it was mainly monasteries wealth and art taken rather than that in churches and cathedrals.
Cromwell effectively turned the C of E from an Anglican church to a low church Presbyterian or Baptist church with no Bishops until the Restoration of Charles II restored the monarchy, the BCP, the House of Lords and Bishops and art and iconography in C of E churches
The selling off of public buildings and land was part of the 2010 package. There were all sorts of measures around community transfers for empty local authority buildings (not many happened) and we've had the One Public Estate initiative whereby central and local Government work together to amalgamate Services within a single building or group of buildings and free up others for disposal. The problem there was if a local authority building was deemed surplus, that authority wanted to trouser the whole receipt but the other partners also wanted a cut.
How much any of that has brought in I'm not sure - the Government Property Unit will tell you all about releasing prime office space in and around Whitehall which has been re-purposed as hotels (the Corinthia in Northumberland Avenue?) or used by other companies.
Councils themselves have been cutting back on their property portfolios for decades and the administrative holdings have been reduced since the pandemic with more staff working at locations other than the main office so we have for example flexible working spaces in libraries and even fire stations.
The big land holding for authorities is or are schools and with rolls falling there's going to be a big temptation to amalgamate schools and sell off the surplus land and building for residential redevelopment. Obviously, that only works where the school owns the lot - in Voluntary Aided schools, the Council owns the playing field but the Diocese owns the school buildings.
As for Academies, the usual terms of an Academy lease is IF the school closes or moves, the land and buildings revert to the Council so failing Academies could be another source of capital receipt.
Not a small claim when you consider that includes Operation Barabarossa, Alexander's trek through Gedrosia and the Emperor inviting the Rebellion to attack the second Death Star.
Not only did they nearly destroy the Lib Dems, they are actually a disaster in terms of funding HE.
I am sure these middle class, white, protesters were not kicked and battered repeatedly in spite of not being compliant with Plod's demands.
I've no issue whatsoever with the private sector being involved in the provision of some of these services and indeed all councils have call-off contracts for some of the lesser used or more obscure functions.
The bigger issue is how and in what way the private sector operates within the public sector. There's a balance between the value of the Service and the profit margin for the private operator. The public authority doesn't operate to profit margins (or very small ones) but the private sector operator wants (quite rightly) not only to be rewarded for its efforts but to turn a profit.
One of the "carrots" the private operator can offer is career advancement for staff within the profession or discipline and that's positive (though can lead to cherry picking as the "best" staff are often moved to other work leaving the public work to shall we say lower quality employees) but at the same time the private operator often comes in with promises of driving out efficiencies which aren't realised as the private company's own bureaucracy and processes are comparable in complexity and cost to those of the council.
More important is your third sentence: we can't cut our way to growth. That has been Government policy since 2010. That's what needs to change.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/07/27/cgt-tax-income-equal-labour-plans-hole-funding-budget/
Here comes .... BOD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4IiktFp3p4
They are indeed very diverse and because some of the services are statutory requirements and/or sensitive and are therefore prioritised, a lot of the day to day business that the council should be doing gets little funding or attention.
There are also a lot of interactions where people expect the council to deal with things when there's relatively little that they can do. Often because they are really police matters which the police are refusing to deal with because they don't have the time either.
Let's hope the Tories go large on it in the next GE campaign: close a shedload of hospitals, slash disability benefits, let a few state schools fall down, allow roads to return to nature, social care only for those who can afford it... Sounds like a winner to me.
'Armed communist Maduro gangs “Colectivos” are now storming polling stations in Punta Cardón in the Falcón state, Venezuela.
They are there to steal the boxes with the votes'
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1817761441002189307
The party hadn't to my knowledge ever properly debated the issue and rather like Clegg's latter support for AV, it was one without general party agreement. The free student fees policy delivered a number of seats and probably made the Coalition a reality but Clegg would again cave when the Browne report came out and the "we're all in this together" schtick didn't work any better for him than it would for Cameron.
As a Party member at the time, the whole 2011-12 period was a nightmare. Having seemingly "prepared" for the possibility of going into Government with another party, it was almost as though no one had even considered it might be the Tories on the other side of the table.
When is her speech?
And not only was it a bad report that entirely misunderstood the situation, but it was written by a man who had admitted lying in court during a libel suit against a newspaper that had exposed his cottaging habits, and got off because he was in front of the notorious David Eady, who considered it a very serious matter to tell the truth in the press but a very trivial matter to lie on oath. He should have been in prison, not writing government reports.
There were a dozen reasons to vote against it. None at all to vote for it. And yet the Lib Dems still did.
But it's not as though the interplay between the sacred and profane wasn't a continuing thing in Catholic Europe. Art in the Protestant world was for a time impoverished by iconoclasm.
Presumably failed investments will be able to be written of against CGT liabilities?
Bags of time to harvest gains at the current rate between now and a budget. Ongoing problem for hedge fund managers taking money out as loans, but cry me a river.
The Peruvian reaction is all over the place - but united on “WTAF - we are the poor, screwed up place in South America?!?”
We can boost growth for a year or two by boosting state spending in the short term. Politicians' focus is all on the short term, i.e. at most five years and usually much less.
But over the medium to long term, by severing the link between effort and reward, channelling money to unproductive sectors of the economy and encouraging idleness and fecklnessness, increasing the size of state is totally counter-productive, otherwise all governments would print and hand out free money all the time.
To grow robustly over the long term we need low taxes, low government spending and light regulation. It's not rocket science but our political system is set up to deliver the exact opposite.
We have failed on all three for years now on all three and the current government is about to make it a whole lot worse.
https://x.com/SteveStuWill/status/1817362847195971907
If they were then economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine at Imperial for example would have the highest fees and arts degrees would be cheapest
Serial offenders, previous convictions, some on bail, disrupting the court process and not engaging. Of course they will get a long sentence and rightly so.
Far left activists arrested for French train bombings.
They would have considered "top of tallest building" to be liberal pinko namby pambyness because death is far to quick without prolonged purifying agony.
Even had people flogged for cooking a goose at Christmas or celebrating it in any jovial way.
As well as the Irish Holocaust with half of Northern Ireland deported to the west Indies as slaves and their land given to sound protestant types.
Utter utter c**ts
It runs counter to the growth agenda Reeves claims to have.
By God it is tempting though for these spoiled scions of wealthy people that have clearly been insufficiently taxed.
As I said on Saturday when everybody was blaming Vladimir "Confirmation Bias"
Assuming this policy is announced in October, I'm looking at doing something similar by selling my primary residence in the uk (incurring 0% tax) and using the money to re-base myself somewhere else for the forthcoming tax year before making any disposals.
Much like the shock expressed over the VAT on private school fees figure not being expected to raise half as much revenue as promised because, shock horror, increased taxes causes people to change their behaviour, so too will taxing investment as income lead to less money being raised than predicted, plus the effects of a brain drain and reduced investment in the UK economy.
40% CGT would be one of the highest rates in the western world, and a firm signal that the UK is closed for business.
Its a mix of fake news and spin. CGT will increase but not to 40%. Private pension tax relief will be cut in some format, either the amount per year and/or the rate, but wont be scrapped.
Recall one guy - on early release from a sentence for car theft. He ended up in court, having been caught stealing a car. It turned out he was on bail for 2 other, separate, offences of stealing cars.
So he’d got early release, bail and bail again. His lawyer got quite upset when they sent him up the river to await trial.
And I would have thought that PR was a red-line.
Pull up the drawbridge Jack
David Gauke, the former justice secretary, has announced he has rejoined the Conservative Party.
Because no university is going to charge less than the full rate because
1) it implies their course is less good than other courses
2) it leaves money they could otherwise get
3) the money is borrowed so it's never going to be fully repaid in many cases anyway...
Still could be Vladimir - the KGB of the Cold War (which he adores) loved to try and use anti-government groups in the West. See the Mitrovokin Archive.
The funding of anti-fracking and anti-LNG shipping terminal groups is proven. And there have been a number of reports of attempts to use criminals to carry out attacks in the West, by Russia.
From the point of view of the University, why charge less than the cap? 18 year olds borrowing money *to be paid back later* are probably the easiest marks in the fair ground.
Rationing student loans for fees by performance with only people with 3 A's able to borrow the full amount and proportionate amount for lower grades down to £3,000 for 2 E's would concentrate their minds.
And force the lower grade ones to shut or return to focusing on vocational qualifications.
What economics says that lower-rated universities should do under the circumstances is charge full fees and offer an eye-catching cashback bursary. Which some of them did.
It is just the adding of 100% of the Reform vote to Tory and completely ignoring the Lab/LD/Green side of the equation which is the issue. Remember before the election you were doing the same assuming the majority of Reform would vote Tory. They didn't
It's not just Stella Artois where expensive=reassurance.
On the above poll Tugendhat seems to have to best chance of winning them back, Patel the worst
My children are probably going to be best advised to leave the country: Why stay in the land of low salaries, low expectations & shit services? France & Germany manages better public services even if they are struggling with similar growth issues, whilst the US has shown clearly just how much growth we’re leaving on the table by refusing to invest.
Madness.
1) how do you deal with the economic fallout of doing so
2) how do you handle the local MPs who know they've just lost any chance of re-election...
JD Vance on Justice Scalia in 2014. "He's become a very shrill old man. I used to really like him, and I used to believe all of his stuff about judicial minimalism was sincere. Now I see it as a political charade."
https://x.com/JoshMBlackman/status/1817581641214398877
Ironic since it's now tuns of wife beater than get downed by the masses at 6am at the airport on their way to resort bliss. I suppose when all there was was Tennent's and Carling, Stella was at least reassuringly strong.
Government offers doctors 20% pay rise
Hmmm.
Hopefully it will encourage a number of doctors back away from contract work and reduce agency costs (I suspect that's actually a significant factor in the offer)..
Oxbridge colleges will then charge £30k per year, and the local polytechnic about £2.50.
Quibbling about who takes priority of invention, when we're talking about industrial strategy, rather misses the point.
China certainly didn't invent Li-ion batteries (or much else in modern times), but they lead the world in both research and industrial development,