I’ve emotionally gone from being mentally and emotionally reconciled to a Trump win to having hope that Harris actually might do it. Sadly it’s the hope that kills you.
*Raises eyebrows*
Has Governor Walz's daughter taken up a new career?
You’re going to have to explain that one to me.
She’s called Hope and may have become an assassin according to your post…
It wasn’t really worth explaining…
But she is called Hope as she was an IVF baby and somehow the Republicans have managed to put themselves in the position of looking anti-IVF.
I thought they *were* anti-IVF?
I am anti taxpayer-funded IVF.
In the scheme of things I can think of a whole set of items that I object to far more.
Giving a family a chance of children seems to be a noble use of a tiny percentage of what I pay in taxes.
Certainly with fertility rates now below replacement level in the UK and USA
Sadly, reproductive services are something that the NHS have all but abandoned.
Technically, they still aim to offer three cycles to under-40s, and one to those aged 40 and 41 - but in most of the country are nowhere close to achieving this. The usual pattern is to mange the problem by delaying long enough that people age out of eligibility, so if you're in your mid 30s they'll drag it out so you get one cycle at 38 or 39, and another a couple of years later. And that's only if you're very persistent.
In reality, most people on average need around four cycles, with some trying up to six before giving up. Each cycle typically costs around £10k.
Fertility rapidly declines once you hit your late 20s, but as a society we've set ourselves up so that people are unable to even consider having children until a decade later. So we're effectively expecting people to pay £20k or so on average to be able to have children, and that's before you even get on to the nightmarish situation that NHS maternity services are in.
Agreed, though there is the freezing eggs option too.
Of course in the 1930s there was mass unemployment and most people of all ages rented but yet most 20 to 30 year olds had children and the fertility rate was above average so it is also a lifestyle choice, especially with more women wanting careers and leaving children until their 30s and early 40s if they decide to have them at all
Egg-freezing is £20k and only works about half the time. It's also less likely to be covered by private health insurance than IVF, though some employers do explicitly fund it separately.
As for it being a lifestyle choice, I think it's a bit stronger than that. It's a choice between building your career, being able to rent a flat by yourself, and generally having a stable life that you control before getting pregnant - or having kids in your 20s, and hoping that the state will provide an adequate safety net if things go wrong.
Not many people trust that safety net these days, and I don't think it's fair to blame them for that.
As with so much else, the best way to fix this would be to ease the pressure on housing. If the best a 20-something at the start of a professional career can expect is to live in a houseshare for the next decade, then is it any wonder why they're not settling down and having kids?
Absolutely!
And this is another reason why too everyone who is working ought to be able to afford a home of their own, from their own efforts, with no inheritance in their twenties as was achievable in the past and could be again if the prices were more appropriate.
An inheritance if you get one (and many won't) is likely to come in your sixties or later nowadays and won't get you on the housing ladder in your twenties.
Most people rented 100 years ago, they still managed to have children in their 20s
'Managed' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Society was organised entirely differently, and there were little to no reliable forms of contraception.
I am staggered by those who stagger through life waiting for an inheritance.
Inheritance is irrelevant to this argument as it 100 years ago most couples in their 20s rented and did not have an inheritance but still managed to have children.
Of course we could also go Vatican and restrict contraception too, certainly to 20-35 year olds at peak fertility in settled relationships
I'm not sure how settled most of those relationships would be if contraception was entirely eliminated.
Full Vatican of course would be no sex unless married and no contraception if having sex in marriage
No, no: it's no premarital sex.
So long as you never get married, it was never premarital sex.
Nope it is no sex outside of marriage 'the sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage. Outside of marriage it always constitutes a grave sin and excludes one from sacramental communion."
I’m just pleased that your religion nowadays is essentially powerless, no longer able to torture and condemn and murder and burn people who are slightly eccentric or independently minded or who otherwise don’t sign up to your almost-prehistoric nonsense, as has happened to so many unfortunate souls in times past.
That teacher in hiding near Batley waves “hello”
One hopes that Islam is on the same historical path as Christianity.
I really really hope that is true. It is - sincerely - one of my biggest wishes for the future of the world
As a councillor in East London I spent a fair bit of time talking politics etc. with Asian teenagers, and in the long term those conversations leave me very hopeful. But we’re looking at changes that happen over the generations, rather than anything that will resolve our short term challenges.
I’ve emotionally gone from being mentally and emotionally reconciled to a Trump win to having hope that Harris actually might do it. Sadly it’s the hope that kills you.
*Raises eyebrows*
Has Governor Walz's daughter taken up a new career?
You’re going to have to explain that one to me.
She’s called Hope and may have become an assassin according to your post…
It wasn’t really worth explaining…
But she is called Hope as she was an IVF baby and somehow the Republicans have managed to put themselves in the position of looking anti-IVF.
I thought they *were* anti-IVF?
I am anti taxpayer-funded IVF.
In the scheme of things I can think of a whole set of items that I object to far more.
Giving a family a chance of children seems to be a noble use of a tiny percentage of what I pay in taxes.
Certainly with fertility rates now below replacement level in the UK and USA
Sadly, reproductive services are something that the NHS have all but abandoned.
Technically, they still aim to offer three cycles to under-40s, and one to those aged 40 and 41 - but in most of the country are nowhere close to achieving this. The usual pattern is to mange the problem by delaying long enough that people age out of eligibility, so if you're in your mid 30s they'll drag it out so you get one cycle at 38 or 39, and another a couple of years later. And that's only if you're very persistent.
In reality, most people on average need around four cycles, with some trying up to six before giving up. Each cycle typically costs around £10k.
Fertility rapidly declines once you hit your late 20s, but as a society we've set ourselves up so that people are unable to even consider having children until a decade later. So we're effectively expecting people to pay £20k or so on average to be able to have children, and that's before you even get on to the nightmarish situation that NHS maternity services are in.
Agreed, though there is the freezing eggs option too.
Of course in the 1930s there was mass unemployment and most people of all ages rented but yet most 20 to 30 year olds had children and the fertility rate was above average so it is also a lifestyle choice, especially with more women wanting careers and leaving children until their 30s and early 40s if they decide to have them at all
Egg-freezing is £20k and only works about half the time. It's also less likely to be covered by private health insurance than IVF, though some employers do explicitly fund it separately.
As for it being a lifestyle choice, I think it's a bit stronger than that. It's a choice between building your career, being able to rent a flat by yourself, and generally having a stable life that you control before getting pregnant - or having kids in your 20s, and hoping that the state will provide an adequate safety net if things go wrong.
Not many people trust that safety net these days, and I don't think it's fair to blame them for that.
As with so much else, the best way to fix this would be to ease the pressure on housing. If the best a 20-something at the start of a professional career can expect is to live in a houseshare for the next decade, then is it any wonder why they're not settling down and having kids?
Absolutely!
And this is another reason why too everyone who is working ought to be able to afford a home of their own, from their own efforts, with no inheritance in their twenties as was achievable in the past and could be again if the prices were more appropriate.
An inheritance if you get one (and many won't) is likely to come in your sixties or later nowadays and won't get you on the housing ladder in your twenties.
Most people rented 100 years ago, they still managed to have children in their 20s
'Managed' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Society was organised entirely differently, and there were little to no reliable forms of contraception.
I am staggered by those who stagger through life waiting for an inheritance.
Inheritance is irrelevant to this argument as it 100 years ago most couples in their 20s rented and did not have an inheritance but still managed to have children.
Of course we could also go Vatican and restrict contraception too, certainly to 20-35 year olds at peak fertility in settled relationships
I'm not sure how settled most of those relationships would be if contraception was entirely eliminated.
Full Vatican of course would be no sex unless married and no contraception if having sex in marriage
No, no: it's no premarital sex.
So long as you never get married, it was never premarital sex.
Nope it is no sex outside of marriage 'the sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage. Outside of marriage it always constitutes a grave sin and excludes one from sacramental communion."
I’m just pleased that your religion nowadays is essentially powerless, no longer able to torture and condemn and murder and burn people who are slightly eccentric or independently minded or who otherwise don’t sign up to your almost-prehistoric nonsense, as has happened to so many unfortunate souls in times past.
The Roman Catholic church hasn't been the national church in the UK since the 16th century, albeit there are still 1.2 billion Roman Catholics globally
So why are you quoting Catholic gibberish, as opposed to Christian gibberish? You're never going to get back to the good old days, when "the clergy dazzled us with heaven or they damned us into hell."
I see the Kent county councillor making the Walthamstow speech has now gone unfortunately viral
He's a perfect way for the police to put the "two-tier" stuff to bed.
PB lawyers, what would he get charged with for this one?
There could be things around incitement; it also depends on what the rest of the speech content was. From the edited clip which is being pushed, we do not even know who he is talking about when he says "cut all their throats". The comments are full of "who does he mean?"
The claim that he is suggesting it for Tommy-Robinson-ites is only afaics in the text added by the likes of Tousi or others.
They go into "Free Palestine" chants, which is nearly clipped out at the end, and there being Palestine flags, which are also neatly clipped out.
Where's the rest of the clip to let the viewer make a judgement?
Adds: I see the Councillor has already been suspended.
I remember learning that original print run of the fourth set of Lone Wolf gamebooks are surprisingly valuable. They're just standard paperbacks, but in good nick I think they're worth £50 each (got about half a dozen or so).
Value can be strange. I've got a single gold sovereign from the reign of Queen Victoria. But it's worth less than my Kew Gardens 50p from a decade or two ago.
I had all of the Lone Wolf books as a kid. Dammit! Although they probably weren't original print runs. And I certainly didn't leave them in good nick.
Always lost and, of course, went back to the previous choice and pretended I'd made a different one.
I see the Kent county councillor making the Walthamstow speech has now gone unfortunately viral
He's a perfect way for the police to put the "two-tier" stuff to bed.
PB lawyers, what would he get charged with for this one?
There could be things around incitement; it also depends on what the rest of the speech content was. From the edited clip which is being pushed, we do not even know who he is talking about when he says "cut all their throats". The comments are full of "who does he mean?"
The claim that he is suggesting it for Tommy-Robinson-ites is only afaics in the text added by the likes of Tousi or others.
They go into "Free Palestine" chants, which is nearly clipped out at the end, and there being Palestine flags, which are also neatly clipped out.
Where's the rest of the clip to let the viewer make a judgement?
Adds: I see the Councillor has already been suspended.
lol
Indeed, a whole post of "this is bullshit lies!" followed by "oh he's been suspended" without acknowledging the prior defence of this person calling for murdering people.
I haven't defended anyone, Max.
I've pointed out that we need to avoid being fools falling for simplistic sectarian narratives pumped out by extremists for the own ends, and keep our brains engaged.
Quite a startling statistic deep in the YouGov polling on all the recent troubles. The British people rightly abhor the riots and violence - lock ‘em up - but they are much more sympathetic on the sentiments behind the initial and peaceful Southport protests
“Sympathies with the views of those taking part in the protests are somewhat broader – six in ten Britons (58%) say they have a great deal or fair amount of sympathy for the views of those peacefully taking part in demonstrations that were ostensibly triggered by the Southport murders. This includes majorities of Labour and Lib Dem voters (53-56%), as well as two-thirds of Conservatives (64%), with Reform voters are most sympathetic at 83%.”
Instead it will all get brushed aside as the work of fascists and racists and everything will carry on just as before.
I think it will - Labour will work hard to bring immigration down from the 1.2 million per year under the Tories and bang on about it for the next 5 years.
It's the most obvious example of how the Tories machine gunned their own foot in the run up to the election and salted their legacy until the next one.
Visa requirements for skilled workers in IT, telecommunications and engineering to come to Britain to fill jobs could be tightened up
Yes, I've been hearing that a new regional approach might be taken with highly skilled workers in London and the SE requiring much higher minimum incomes and a commitment to in office working from companies who want to sponsor people.
What's interesting is that for my sector, at least, companies from Europe (including mine) come to London because the skills are here, not because it's easy to sponsor low skilled people. What was an Irish company 5 years ago is now a UK company with it's HQ in the square mile.
I see the Kent county councillor making the Walthamstow speech has now gone unfortunately viral
He's a perfect way for the police to put the "two-tier" stuff to bed.
PB lawyers, what would he get charged with for this one?
There could be things around incitement; it also depends on what the rest of the speech content was. From the edited clip which is being pushed, we do not even know who he is talking about when he says "cut all their throats". The comments are full of "who does he mean?"
The claim that he is suggesting it for Tommy-Robinson-ites is only afaics in the text added by the likes of Tousi or others.
They go into "Free Palestine" chants, which is nearly clipped out at the end, and there being Palestine flags, which are also neatly clipped out.
Where's the rest of the clip to let the viewer make a judgement?
Adds: I see the Councillor has already been suspended.
lol
Facts are awkward things, aren't they?
'Tis very true, my sovereign King, My skill may weel be doubted; But facts are chiels that winna ding, An downa be disputed.
Quite a startling statistic deep in the YouGov polling on all the recent troubles. The British people rightly abhor the riots and violence - lock ‘em up - but they are much more sympathetic on the sentiments behind the initial and peaceful Southport protests
“Sympathies with the views of those taking part in the protests are somewhat broader – six in ten Britons (58%) say they have a great deal or fair amount of sympathy for the views of those peacefully taking part in demonstrations that were ostensibly triggered by the Southport murders. This includes majorities of Labour and Lib Dem voters (53-56%), as well as two-thirds of Conservatives (64%), with Reform voters are most sympathetic at 83%.”
Instead it will all get brushed aside as the work of fascists and racists and everything will carry on just as before.
I think it will - Labour will work hard to bring immigration down from the 1.2 million per year under the Tories and bang on about it for the next 5 years.
It's the most obvious example of how the Tories machine gunned their own foot in the run up to the election and salted their legacy until the next one.
Visa requirements for skilled workers in IT, telecommunications and engineering to come to Britain to fill jobs could be tightened up
Yes, I've been hearing that a new regional approach might be taken with highly skilled workers in London and the SE requiring much higher minimum incomes and a commitment to in office working from companies who want to sponsor people.
What's interesting is that for my sector, at least, companies from Europe (including mine) come to London because the skills are here, not because it's easy to sponsor low skilled people. What was an Irish company 5 years ago is now a UK company with it's HQ in the square mile.
Shall we just say I'm seeing a lot of abuse of tech visas around here with some consultancies bringing in Indian workers while amongst other tricks making local staff redundant...
I’ve emotionally gone from being mentally and emotionally reconciled to a Trump win to having hope that Harris actually might do it. Sadly it’s the hope that kills you.
*Raises eyebrows*
Has Governor Walz's daughter taken up a new career?
You’re going to have to explain that one to me.
She’s called Hope and may have become an assassin according to your post…
It wasn’t really worth explaining…
But she is called Hope as she was an IVF baby and somehow the Republicans have managed to put themselves in the position of looking anti-IVF.
I thought they *were* anti-IVF?
I am anti taxpayer-funded IVF.
In the scheme of things I can think of a whole set of items that I object to far more.
Giving a family a chance of children seems to be a noble use of a tiny percentage of what I pay in taxes.
Certainly with fertility rates now below replacement level in the UK and USA
Sadly, reproductive services are something that the NHS have all but abandoned.
Technically, they still aim to offer three cycles to under-40s, and one to those aged 40 and 41 - but in most of the country are nowhere close to achieving this. The usual pattern is to mange the problem by delaying long enough that people age out of eligibility, so if you're in your mid 30s they'll drag it out so you get one cycle at 38 or 39, and another a couple of years later. And that's only if you're very persistent.
In reality, most people on average need around four cycles, with some trying up to six before giving up. Each cycle typically costs around £10k.
Fertility rapidly declines once you hit your late 20s, but as a society we've set ourselves up so that people are unable to even consider having children until a decade later. So we're effectively expecting people to pay £20k or so on average to be able to have children, and that's before you even get on to the nightmarish situation that NHS maternity services are in.
Agreed, though there is the freezing eggs option too.
Of course in the 1930s there was mass unemployment and most people of all ages rented but yet most 20 to 30 year olds had children and the fertility rate was above average so it is also a lifestyle choice, especially with more women wanting careers and leaving children until their 30s and early 40s if they decide to have them at all
Egg-freezing is £20k and only works about half the time. It's also less likely to be covered by private health insurance than IVF, though some employers do explicitly fund it separately.
As for it being a lifestyle choice, I think it's a bit stronger than that. It's a choice between building your career, being able to rent a flat by yourself, and generally having a stable life that you control before getting pregnant - or having kids in your 20s, and hoping that the state will provide an adequate safety net if things go wrong.
Not many people trust that safety net these days, and I don't think it's fair to blame them for that.
As with so much else, the best way to fix this would be to ease the pressure on housing. If the best a 20-something at the start of a professional career can expect is to live in a houseshare for the next decade, then is it any wonder why they're not settling down and having kids?
Absolutely!
And this is another reason why too everyone who is working ought to be able to afford a home of their own, from their own efforts, with no inheritance in their twenties as was achievable in the past and could be again if the prices were more appropriate.
An inheritance if you get one (and many won't) is likely to come in your sixties or later nowadays and won't get you on the housing ladder in your twenties.
Most people rented 100 years ago, they still managed to have children in their 20s
'Managed' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Society was organised entirely differently, and there were little to no reliable forms of contraception.
I am staggered by those who stagger through life waiting for an inheritance.
Inheritance is irrelevant to this argument as it 100 years ago most couples in their 20s rented and did not have an inheritance but still managed to have children.
Of course we could also go Vatican and restrict contraception too, certainly to 20-35 year olds at peak fertility in settled relationships
I'm not sure how settled most of those relationships would be if contraception was entirely eliminated.
Full Vatican of course would be no sex unless married and no contraception if having sex in marriage
No, no: it's no premarital sex.
So long as you never get married, it was never premarital sex.
Nope it is no sex outside of marriage 'the sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage. Outside of marriage it always constitutes a grave sin and excludes one from sacramental communion."
I’m just pleased that your religion nowadays is essentially powerless, no longer able to torture and condemn and murder and burn people who are slightly eccentric or independently minded or who otherwise don’t sign up to your almost-prehistoric nonsense, as has happened to so many unfortunate souls in times past.
The Roman Catholic church hasn't been the national church in the UK since the 16th century, albeit there are still 1.2 billion Roman Catholics globally
Persecution is persecution, and the flavour of absurd belief chosen by those doing it doesn’t really matter. It’s all nonsense and the joy of the modern world is that anyone coming out with statements such as yours nowadays would be disregarded as a rather sad and deluded eccentric, whereas a few hundred years back, the likes of you would probably have been able to get some poor innocent in the village tortured and killed.
I’ve emotionally gone from being mentally and emotionally reconciled to a Trump win to having hope that Harris actually might do it. Sadly it’s the hope that kills you.
*Raises eyebrows*
Has Governor Walz's daughter taken up a new career?
You’re going to have to explain that one to me.
She’s called Hope and may have become an assassin according to your post…
It wasn’t really worth explaining…
But she is called Hope as she was an IVF baby and somehow the Republicans have managed to put themselves in the position of looking anti-IVF.
I thought they *were* anti-IVF?
I am anti taxpayer-funded IVF.
In the scheme of things I can think of a whole set of items that I object to far more.
Giving a family a chance of children seems to be a noble use of a tiny percentage of what I pay in taxes.
Certainly with fertility rates now below replacement level in the UK and USA
Sadly, reproductive services are something that the NHS have all but abandoned.
Technically, they still aim to offer three cycles to under-40s, and one to those aged 40 and 41 - but in most of the country are nowhere close to achieving this. The usual pattern is to mange the problem by delaying long enough that people age out of eligibility, so if you're in your mid 30s they'll drag it out so you get one cycle at 38 or 39, and another a couple of years later. And that's only if you're very persistent.
In reality, most people on average need around four cycles, with some trying up to six before giving up. Each cycle typically costs around £10k.
Fertility rapidly declines once you hit your late 20s, but as a society we've set ourselves up so that people are unable to even consider having children until a decade later. So we're effectively expecting people to pay £20k or so on average to be able to have children, and that's before you even get on to the nightmarish situation that NHS maternity services are in.
Agreed, though there is the freezing eggs option too.
Of course in the 1930s there was mass unemployment and most people of all ages rented but yet most 20 to 30 year olds had children and the fertility rate was above average so it is also a lifestyle choice, especially with more women wanting careers and leaving children until their 30s and early 40s if they decide to have them at all
Egg-freezing is £20k and only works about half the time. It's also less likely to be covered by private health insurance than IVF, though some employers do explicitly fund it separately.
As for it being a lifestyle choice, I think it's a bit stronger than that. It's a choice between building your career, being able to rent a flat by yourself, and generally having a stable life that you control before getting pregnant - or having kids in your 20s, and hoping that the state will provide an adequate safety net if things go wrong.
Not many people trust that safety net these days, and I don't think it's fair to blame them for that.
As with so much else, the best way to fix this would be to ease the pressure on housing. If the best a 20-something at the start of a professional career can expect is to live in a houseshare for the next decade, then is it any wonder why they're not settling down and having kids?
Absolutely!
And this is another reason why too everyone who is working ought to be able to afford a home of their own, from their own efforts, with no inheritance in their twenties as was achievable in the past and could be again if the prices were more appropriate.
An inheritance if you get one (and many won't) is likely to come in your sixties or later nowadays and won't get you on the housing ladder in your twenties.
Most people rented 100 years ago, they still managed to have children in their 20s
'Managed' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Society was organised entirely differently, and there were little to no reliable forms of contraception.
I am staggered by those who stagger through life waiting for an inheritance.
Inheritance is irrelevant to this argument as it 100 years ago most couples in their 20s rented and did not have an inheritance but still managed to have children.
Of course we could also go Vatican and restrict contraception too, certainly to 20-35 year olds at peak fertility in settled relationships
I'm not sure how settled most of those relationships would be if contraception was entirely eliminated.
Full Vatican of course would be no sex unless married and no contraception if having sex in marriage
No, no: it's no premarital sex.
So long as you never get married, it was never premarital sex.
Nope it is no sex outside of marriage 'the sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage. Outside of marriage it always constitutes a grave sin and excludes one from sacramental communion."
I’m just pleased that your religion nowadays is essentially powerless, no longer able to torture and condemn and murder and burn people who are slightly eccentric or independently minded or who otherwise don’t sign up to your almost-prehistoric nonsense, as has happened to so many unfortunate souls in times past.
That teacher in hiding near Batley waves “hello”
One hopes that Islam is on the same historical path as Christianity.
I really really hope that is true. It is - sincerely - one of my biggest wishes for the future of the world
As a councillor in East London I spent a fair bit of time talking politics etc. with Asian teenagers, and in the long term those conversations leave me very hopeful. But we’re looking at changes that happen over the generations, rather than anything that will resolve our short term challenges.
A rare moment of agreement between us! I’m not entirely despairing; I think there is hope. But it will take a lot of time, as you say
Here is some interesting evidence. A friend of mine has recently been in Kabul, talking to the Taliban. He says they’ve genuinely changed. Why? Because a lot of them have been in exile in places like the UAE where their daughters got good educations and they have brought that personal experience back
The trouble is the old Taliban f*ckers are as miserable as ever. But the younger ones - some of them - are comparatively enlightened
That's for the factory to make the cables, the landing site is in pre-application mode (see my link from earlier today)..
The chap I mentioned previously - turning family farm into solar + very small business park - is looking at adding some storage to his solar array.
One good thing the last government did - under a certain number of MWh, bulk storage doesn't count as a power station for planning purposes. There's basically nothing to stop him parking a couple of shipping containers somewhere. He's thinking of a circular wood on his property - plant with fast growing trees and replace with a mix of more interesting stuff as it grows out.
Labour councillor demands that we “cut all their throats” (he means the far right protestors I think) - he is applauded, then the crowd breaks into Free Free Palestine
This game is tiresome. Does the source matter if the video is real? It seems real to me
Actually I think it does matter - very much. Vidoes are cropped and manipulated for social media, often as a tactic to generate polarisation / reaction for those who want to trade off it. And the first check is "where is this from? what is this source doing?". Then qs such as "is this representative of what happened?" and the rest.
I'm seeing quite a lot of this in Lee Anderson's FB group. "I agree with this" type of reactions with little reflection as to where it leads. It's like an online marketing funnel in some ways.
Given that Mayhar Tousi is a prominent Right / Far Right Youtuber trying to look mainstream, and that a tactic being used by the Farage -> Robinson tendency is to platform ethnic minority spokespeople, I think it especially applies here.
One example I can point to from the other side is the two black athletes who were stopped in their car in London a couple of years by police, allegations of racial profiling, deliberate targeting, dragging out of vehicle etc following. The videoclips which were all over media were clipped to exclude that the couple in the car spent quite some time before they exited the car - so that was context removed from the police actions.
Absolutely. Being an online extremist is no doubt great fun but there's a price to it and one of these is you forfeit being believed by anybody with their head screwed on. Given most of what these cranks and bigots claim is true is not true the most rational response is to blanket reject all of it without further ado. Anything else is not a good use of your time.
I see the Kent county councillor making the Walthamstow speech has now gone unfortunately viral
He's a perfect way for the police to put the "two-tier" stuff to bed.
PB lawyers, what would he get charged with for this one?
There could be things around incitement; it also depends on what the rest of the speech content was. From the edited clip which is being pushed, we do not even know who he is talking about when he says "cut all their throats". The comments are full of "who does he mean?"
The claim that he is suggesting it for Tommy-Robinson-ites is only afaics in the text added by the likes of Tousi or others.
They go into "Free Palestine" chants, which is nearly clipped out at the end, and there being Palestine flags, which are also neatly clipped out.
Where's the rest of the clip to let the viewer make a judgement?
Adds: I see the Councillor has already been suspended.
lol
Indeed, a whole post of "this is bullshit lies!" followed by "oh he's been suspended" without acknowledging the prior defence of this person calling for murdering people.
I haven't defended anyone, Max.
I've pointed out that we need to avoid being fools falling for simplistic sectarian narratives pumped out by extremists for the own ends, and keep our brains engaged.
You absolutely tried to defend him. You said the sources were biased. You claimed the whole march was peaceful. You said we needed the fuller context
No possible context can excuse the inciteful statements that guy made in public. You made yourself look ridiculous
Quite a startling statistic deep in the YouGov polling on all the recent troubles. The British people rightly abhor the riots and violence - lock ‘em up - but they are much more sympathetic on the sentiments behind the initial and peaceful Southport protests
“Sympathies with the views of those taking part in the protests are somewhat broader – six in ten Britons (58%) say they have a great deal or fair amount of sympathy for the views of those peacefully taking part in demonstrations that were ostensibly triggered by the Southport murders. This includes majorities of Labour and Lib Dem voters (53-56%), as well as two-thirds of Conservatives (64%), with Reform voters are most sympathetic at 83%.”
Instead it will all get brushed aside as the work of fascists and racists and everything will carry on just as before.
I think it will - Labour will work hard to bring immigration down from the 1.2 million per year under the Tories and bang on about it for the next 5 years.
It's the most obvious example of how the Tories machine gunned their own foot in the run up to the election and salted their legacy until the next one.
Visa requirements for skilled workers in IT, telecommunications and engineering to come to Britain to fill jobs could be tightened up
Yes, I've been hearing that a new regional approach might be taken with highly skilled workers in London and the SE requiring much higher minimum incomes and a commitment to in office working from companies who want to sponsor people.
What's interesting is that for my sector, at least, companies from Europe (including mine) come to London because the skills are here, not because it's easy to sponsor low skilled people. What was an Irish company 5 years ago is now a UK company with it's HQ in the square mile.
Shall we just say I'm seeing a lot of abuse of tech visas around here with some consultancies bringing in Indian workers while amongst other tricks making local staff redundant...
And the setup in the UK - certain firms effectively issuing visas - if perfect for an abuse. Sell the visa to an overseas worker. If you write the terms right, you can force them to work for you at a market uncompetitive wage, as well.
I’ve emotionally gone from being mentally and emotionally reconciled to a Trump win to having hope that Harris actually might do it. Sadly it’s the hope that kills you.
*Raises eyebrows*
Has Governor Walz's daughter taken up a new career?
You’re going to have to explain that one to me.
She’s called Hope and may have become an assassin according to your post…
It wasn’t really worth explaining…
But she is called Hope as she was an IVF baby and somehow the Republicans have managed to put themselves in the position of looking anti-IVF.
I thought they *were* anti-IVF?
I am anti taxpayer-funded IVF.
In the scheme of things I can think of a whole set of items that I object to far more.
Giving a family a chance of children seems to be a noble use of a tiny percentage of what I pay in taxes.
Certainly with fertility rates now below replacement level in the UK and USA
Sadly, reproductive services are something that the NHS have all but abandoned.
Technically, they still aim to offer three cycles to under-40s, and one to those aged 40 and 41 - but in most of the country are nowhere close to achieving this. The usual pattern is to mange the problem by delaying long enough that people age out of eligibility, so if you're in your mid 30s they'll drag it out so you get one cycle at 38 or 39, and another a couple of years later. And that's only if you're very persistent.
In reality, most people on average need around four cycles, with some trying up to six before giving up. Each cycle typically costs around £10k.
Fertility rapidly declines once you hit your late 20s, but as a society we've set ourselves up so that people are unable to even consider having children until a decade later. So we're effectively expecting people to pay £20k or so on average to be able to have children, and that's before you even get on to the nightmarish situation that NHS maternity services are in.
Agreed, though there is the freezing eggs option too.
Of course in the 1930s there was mass unemployment and most people of all ages rented but yet most 20 to 30 year olds had children and the fertility rate was above average so it is also a lifestyle choice, especially with more women wanting careers and leaving children until their 30s and early 40s if they decide to have them at all
Egg-freezing is £20k and only works about half the time. It's also less likely to be covered by private health insurance than IVF, though some employers do explicitly fund it separately.
As for it being a lifestyle choice, I think it's a bit stronger than that. It's a choice between building your career, being able to rent a flat by yourself, and generally having a stable life that you control before getting pregnant - or having kids in your 20s, and hoping that the state will provide an adequate safety net if things go wrong.
Not many people trust that safety net these days, and I don't think it's fair to blame them for that.
As with so much else, the best way to fix this would be to ease the pressure on housing. If the best a 20-something at the start of a professional career can expect is to live in a houseshare for the next decade, then is it any wonder why they're not settling down and having kids?
Absolutely!
And this is another reason why too everyone who is working ought to be able to afford a home of their own, from their own efforts, with no inheritance in their twenties as was achievable in the past and could be again if the prices were more appropriate.
An inheritance if you get one (and many won't) is likely to come in your sixties or later nowadays and won't get you on the housing ladder in your twenties.
Most people rented 100 years ago, they still managed to have children in their 20s
'Managed' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Society was organised entirely differently, and there were little to no reliable forms of contraception.
I am staggered by those who stagger through life waiting for an inheritance.
Inheritance is irrelevant to this argument as it 100 years ago most couples in their 20s rented and did not have an inheritance but still managed to have children.
Of course we could also go Vatican and restrict contraception too, certainly to 20-35 year olds at peak fertility in settled relationships
I'm not sure how settled most of those relationships would be if contraception was entirely eliminated.
Full Vatican of course would be no sex unless married and no contraception if having sex in marriage
Of course, we could just ignore religion in our everyday lives.
And continue with below replacement level birthrate
Looking at the stats for European countries, there seems to be a pretty close correlation between religious devotion and low birth rates. Countries with higher levels of church attendance (e.g. Italy, Spain, Greece) have lower birth rates than more secular countries (e.g. France, Denmark). So it would seem that less, rather than more, religion is needed in order to raise birth rates.
I’ve emotionally gone from being mentally and emotionally reconciled to a Trump win to having hope that Harris actually might do it. Sadly it’s the hope that kills you.
*Raises eyebrows*
Has Governor Walz's daughter taken up a new career?
You’re going to have to explain that one to me.
She’s called Hope and may have become an assassin according to your post…
It wasn’t really worth explaining…
But she is called Hope as she was an IVF baby and somehow the Republicans have managed to put themselves in the position of looking anti-IVF.
I thought they *were* anti-IVF?
I am anti taxpayer-funded IVF.
In the scheme of things I can think of a whole set of items that I object to far more.
Giving a family a chance of children seems to be a noble use of a tiny percentage of what I pay in taxes.
Certainly with fertility rates now below replacement level in the UK and USA
Sadly, reproductive services are something that the NHS have all but abandoned.
Technically, they still aim to offer three cycles to under-40s, and one to those aged 40 and 41 - but in most of the country are nowhere close to achieving this. The usual pattern is to mange the problem by delaying long enough that people age out of eligibility, so if you're in your mid 30s they'll drag it out so you get one cycle at 38 or 39, and another a couple of years later. And that's only if you're very persistent.
In reality, most people on average need around four cycles, with some trying up to six before giving up. Each cycle typically costs around £10k.
Fertility rapidly declines once you hit your late 20s, but as a society we've set ourselves up so that people are unable to even consider having children until a decade later. So we're effectively expecting people to pay £20k or so on average to be able to have children, and that's before you even get on to the nightmarish situation that NHS maternity services are in.
Agreed, though there is the freezing eggs option too.
Of course in the 1930s there was mass unemployment and most people of all ages rented but yet most 20 to 30 year olds had children and the fertility rate was above average so it is also a lifestyle choice, especially with more women wanting careers and leaving children until their 30s and early 40s if they decide to have them at all
Egg-freezing is £20k and only works about half the time. It's also less likely to be covered by private health insurance than IVF, though some employers do explicitly fund it separately.
As for it being a lifestyle choice, I think it's a bit stronger than that. It's a choice between building your career, being able to rent a flat by yourself, and generally having a stable life that you control before getting pregnant - or having kids in your 20s, and hoping that the state will provide an adequate safety net if things go wrong.
Not many people trust that safety net these days, and I don't think it's fair to blame them for that.
As with so much else, the best way to fix this would be to ease the pressure on housing. If the best a 20-something at the start of a professional career can expect is to live in a houseshare for the next decade, then is it any wonder why they're not settling down and having kids?
Absolutely!
And this is another reason why too everyone who is working ought to be able to afford a home of their own, from their own efforts, with no inheritance in their twenties as was achievable in the past and could be again if the prices were more appropriate.
An inheritance if you get one (and many won't) is likely to come in your sixties or later nowadays and won't get you on the housing ladder in your twenties.
Most people rented 100 years ago, they still managed to have children in their 20s
'Managed' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Society was organised entirely differently, and there were little to no reliable forms of contraception.
I am staggered by those who stagger through life waiting for an inheritance.
Inheritance is irrelevant to this argument as it 100 years ago most couples in their 20s rented and did not have an inheritance but still managed to have children.
Of course we could also go Vatican and restrict contraception too, certainly to 20-35 year olds at peak fertility in settled relationships
I'm not sure how settled most of those relationships would be if contraception was entirely eliminated.
Full Vatican of course would be no sex unless married and no contraception if having sex in marriage
No, no: it's no premarital sex.
So long as you never get married, it was never premarital sex.
Nope it is no sex outside of marriage 'the sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage. Outside of marriage it always constitutes a grave sin and excludes one from sacramental communion."
I’m just pleased that your religion nowadays is essentially powerless, no longer able to torture and condemn and murder and burn people who are slightly eccentric or independently minded or who otherwise don’t sign up to your almost-prehistoric nonsense, as has happened to so many unfortunate souls in times past.
That teacher in hiding near Batley waves “hello”
One hopes that Islam is on the same historical path as Christianity.
I really really hope that is true. It is - sincerely - one of my biggest wishes for the future of the world
As a councillor in East London I spent a fair bit of time talking politics etc. with Asian teenagers, and in the long term those conversations leave me very hopeful. But we’re looking at changes that happen over the generations, rather than anything that will resolve our short term challenges.
A rare moment of agreement between us! I’m not entirely despairing; I think there is hope. But it will take a lot of time, as you say
Here is some interesting evidence. A friend of mine has recently been in Kabul, talking to the Taliban. He says they’ve genuinely changed. Why? Because a lot of them have been in exile in places like the UAE where their daughters got good educations and they have brought that personal experience back
The trouble is the old Taliban f*ckers are as miserable as ever. But the younger ones - some of them - are comparatively enlightened
🙏
You’re not so old that you can’t turn around a legacy of otherwise having spent an entire life pointing at stuff and saying that it’s all shit, and leaving the planet having done nothing to make any of it better.
I’ve emotionally gone from being mentally and emotionally reconciled to a Trump win to having hope that Harris actually might do it. Sadly it’s the hope that kills you.
*Raises eyebrows*
Has Governor Walz's daughter taken up a new career?
You’re going to have to explain that one to me.
She’s called Hope and may have become an assassin according to your post…
It wasn’t really worth explaining…
But she is called Hope as she was an IVF baby and somehow the Republicans have managed to put themselves in the position of looking anti-IVF.
I thought they *were* anti-IVF?
I am anti taxpayer-funded IVF.
In the scheme of things I can think of a whole set of items that I object to far more.
Giving a family a chance of children seems to be a noble use of a tiny percentage of what I pay in taxes.
Certainly with fertility rates now below replacement level in the UK and USA
Sadly, reproductive services are something that the NHS have all but abandoned.
Technically, they still aim to offer three cycles to under-40s, and one to those aged 40 and 41 - but in most of the country are nowhere close to achieving this. The usual pattern is to mange the problem by delaying long enough that people age out of eligibility, so if you're in your mid 30s they'll drag it out so you get one cycle at 38 or 39, and another a couple of years later. And that's only if you're very persistent.
In reality, most people on average need around four cycles, with some trying up to six before giving up. Each cycle typically costs around £10k.
Fertility rapidly declines once you hit your late 20s, but as a society we've set ourselves up so that people are unable to even consider having children until a decade later. So we're effectively expecting people to pay £20k or so on average to be able to have children, and that's before you even get on to the nightmarish situation that NHS maternity services are in.
Agreed, though there is the freezing eggs option too.
Of course in the 1930s there was mass unemployment and most people of all ages rented but yet most 20 to 30 year olds had children and the fertility rate was above average so it is also a lifestyle choice, especially with more women wanting careers and leaving children until their 30s and early 40s if they decide to have them at all
Egg-freezing is £20k and only works about half the time. It's also less likely to be covered by private health insurance than IVF, though some employers do explicitly fund it separately.
As for it being a lifestyle choice, I think it's a bit stronger than that. It's a choice between building your career, being able to rent a flat by yourself, and generally having a stable life that you control before getting pregnant - or having kids in your 20s, and hoping that the state will provide an adequate safety net if things go wrong.
Not many people trust that safety net these days, and I don't think it's fair to blame them for that.
As with so much else, the best way to fix this would be to ease the pressure on housing. If the best a 20-something at the start of a professional career can expect is to live in a houseshare for the next decade, then is it any wonder why they're not settling down and having kids?
Absolutely!
And this is another reason why too everyone who is working ought to be able to afford a home of their own, from their own efforts, with no inheritance in their twenties as was achievable in the past and could be again if the prices were more appropriate.
An inheritance if you get one (and many won't) is likely to come in your sixties or later nowadays and won't get you on the housing ladder in your twenties.
Most people rented 100 years ago, they still managed to have children in their 20s
'Managed' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Society was organised entirely differently, and there were little to no reliable forms of contraception.
I am staggered by those who stagger through life waiting for an inheritance.
Inheritance is irrelevant to this argument as it 100 years ago most couples in their 20s rented and did not have an inheritance but still managed to have children.
Of course we could also go Vatican and restrict contraception too, certainly to 20-35 year olds at peak fertility in settled relationships
I'm not sure how settled most of those relationships would be if contraception was entirely eliminated.
Full Vatican of course would be no sex unless married and no contraception if having sex in marriage
Of course, we could just ignore religion in our everyday lives.
And continue with below replacement level birthrate
So you make it inevitable that millions are born into poverty and end up reliant on the state. I thought you Tories hated benefit culture, now you want to turn the taps on?
No that is the other extreme. Below replacement level birth rates just make it inevitable those of working age have to pay ever higher taxes to support the old, retirement ages become later as we need to work longer and economic growth slows.
Conservatives support the family too, they may not be socialists but they are not laissez faire economic liberals either. Plus now it is the middle class having lower birth rates than the working class if anything as graduate women delay childbirth for careers first
Oh come on, @HYUFD: you must know that the exceptionally high cost of housing is a massive deterrent to having children early.
One of my best friends, who I've known since fourth form, got married at 22, bought a house, and had kids early. He worked for the council.
That would be completely impossible today.
His children are not going to be able to afford houses - even assuming they save a significant proportion of their disposable income - until they are into their 30s.
I’ve emotionally gone from being mentally and emotionally reconciled to a Trump win to having hope that Harris actually might do it. Sadly it’s the hope that kills you.
*Raises eyebrows*
Has Governor Walz's daughter taken up a new career?
You’re going to have to explain that one to me.
She’s called Hope and may have become an assassin according to your post…
It wasn’t really worth explaining…
But she is called Hope as she was an IVF baby and somehow the Republicans have managed to put themselves in the position of looking anti-IVF.
I thought they *were* anti-IVF?
I am anti taxpayer-funded IVF.
In the scheme of things I can think of a whole set of items that I object to far more.
Giving a family a chance of children seems to be a noble use of a tiny percentage of what I pay in taxes.
Certainly with fertility rates now below replacement level in the UK and USA
Sadly, reproductive services are something that the NHS have all but abandoned.
Technically, they still aim to offer three cycles to under-40s, and one to those aged 40 and 41 - but in most of the country are nowhere close to achieving this. The usual pattern is to mange the problem by delaying long enough that people age out of eligibility, so if you're in your mid 30s they'll drag it out so you get one cycle at 38 or 39, and another a couple of years later. And that's only if you're very persistent.
In reality, most people on average need around four cycles, with some trying up to six before giving up. Each cycle typically costs around £10k.
Fertility rapidly declines once you hit your late 20s, but as a society we've set ourselves up so that people are unable to even consider having children until a decade later. So we're effectively expecting people to pay £20k or so on average to be able to have children, and that's before you even get on to the nightmarish situation that NHS maternity services are in.
Agreed, though there is the freezing eggs option too.
Of course in the 1930s there was mass unemployment and most people of all ages rented but yet most 20 to 30 year olds had children and the fertility rate was above average so it is also a lifestyle choice, especially with more women wanting careers and leaving children until their 30s and early 40s if they decide to have them at all
Egg-freezing is £20k and only works about half the time. It's also less likely to be covered by private health insurance than IVF, though some employers do explicitly fund it separately.
As for it being a lifestyle choice, I think it's a bit stronger than that. It's a choice between building your career, being able to rent a flat by yourself, and generally having a stable life that you control before getting pregnant - or having kids in your 20s, and hoping that the state will provide an adequate safety net if things go wrong.
Not many people trust that safety net these days, and I don't think it's fair to blame them for that.
As with so much else, the best way to fix this would be to ease the pressure on housing. If the best a 20-something at the start of a professional career can expect is to live in a houseshare for the next decade, then is it any wonder why they're not settling down and having kids?
Absolutely!
And this is another reason why too everyone who is working ought to be able to afford a home of their own, from their own efforts, with no inheritance in their twenties as was achievable in the past and could be again if the prices were more appropriate.
An inheritance if you get one (and many won't) is likely to come in your sixties or later nowadays and won't get you on the housing ladder in your twenties.
Most people rented 100 years ago, they still managed to have children in their 20s
'Managed' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Society was organised entirely differently, and there were little to no reliable forms of contraception.
I am staggered by those who stagger through life waiting for an inheritance.
Inheritance is irrelevant to this argument as it 100 years ago most couples in their 20s rented and did not have an inheritance but still managed to have children.
Of course we could also go Vatican and restrict contraception too, certainly to 20-35 year olds at peak fertility in settled relationships
I'm not sure how settled most of those relationships would be if contraception was entirely eliminated.
Full Vatican of course would be no sex unless married and no contraception if having sex in marriage
No, no: it's no premarital sex.
So long as you never get married, it was never premarital sex.
Nope it is no sex outside of marriage 'the sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage. Outside of marriage it always constitutes a grave sin and excludes one from sacramental communion."
I’m just pleased that your religion nowadays is essentially powerless, no longer able to torture and condemn and murder and burn people who are slightly eccentric or independently minded or who otherwise don’t sign up to your almost-prehistoric nonsense, as has happened to so many unfortunate souls in times past.
That teacher in hiding near Batley waves “hello”
One hopes that Islam is on the same historical path as Christianity.
I really really hope that is true. It is - sincerely - one of my biggest wishes for the future of the world
As a councillor in East London I spent a fair bit of time talking politics etc. with Asian teenagers, and in the long term those conversations leave me very hopeful. But we’re looking at changes that happen over the generations, rather than anything that will resolve our short term challenges.
A rare moment of agreement between us! I’m not entirely despairing; I think there is hope. But it will take a lot of time, as you say
Here is some interesting evidence. A friend of mine has recently been in Kabul, talking to the Taliban. He says they’ve genuinely changed. Why? Because a lot of them have been in exile in places like the UAE where their daughters got good educations and they have brought that personal experience back
The trouble is the old Taliban f*ckers are as miserable as ever. But the younger ones - some of them - are comparatively enlightened
🙏
You’re not so old that you can’t turn around a legacy of otherwise having spent an entire life pointing at stuff and saying that it’s all shit, and leaving the planet having done nothing to make any of it better.
I see the Kent county councillor making the Walthamstow speech has now gone unfortunately viral
He's a perfect way for the police to put the "two-tier" stuff to bed.
PB lawyers, what would he get charged with for this one?
There could be things around incitement; it also depends on what the rest of the speech content was. From the edited clip which is being pushed, we do not even know who he is talking about when he says "cut all their throats". The comments are full of "who does he mean?"
The claim that he is suggesting it for Tommy-Robinson-ites is only afaics in the text added by the likes of Tousi or others.
They go into "Free Palestine" chants, which is nearly clipped out at the end, and there being Palestine flags, which are also neatly clipped out.
Where's the rest of the clip to let the viewer make a judgement?
Adds: I see the Councillor has already been suspended.
lol
Indeed, a whole post of "this is bullshit lies!" followed by "oh he's been suspended" without acknowledging the prior defence of this person calling for murdering people.
I haven't defended anyone, Max.
I've pointed out that we need to avoid being fools falling for simplistic sectarian narratives pumped out by extremists for the own ends, and keep our brains engaged.
You absolutely tried to defend him. You said the sources were biased. You claimed the whole march was peaceful. You said we needed the fuller context
No possible context can excuse the inciteful statements that guy made in public. You made yourself look ridiculous
Nope - pure BS.
I pointed out that context matters and we need to make judgements based on full information, rather than knee jerks based on edited videoclips.
Pointing out that Tousi is biased, quoting a reputable media report, and keeping examination of context separate from advocacy is 101 for 14 year olds learning about journalism for writing a school magazine.
I’ve emotionally gone from being mentally and emotionally reconciled to a Trump win to having hope that Harris actually might do it. Sadly it’s the hope that kills you.
*Raises eyebrows*
Has Governor Walz's daughter taken up a new career?
You’re going to have to explain that one to me.
She’s called Hope and may have become an assassin according to your post…
It wasn’t really worth explaining…
But she is called Hope as she was an IVF baby and somehow the Republicans have managed to put themselves in the position of looking anti-IVF.
I thought they *were* anti-IVF?
I am anti taxpayer-funded IVF.
In the scheme of things I can think of a whole set of items that I object to far more.
Giving a family a chance of children seems to be a noble use of a tiny percentage of what I pay in taxes.
Certainly with fertility rates now below replacement level in the UK and USA
Sadly, reproductive services are something that the NHS have all but abandoned.
Technically, they still aim to offer three cycles to under-40s, and one to those aged 40 and 41 - but in most of the country are nowhere close to achieving this. The usual pattern is to mange the problem by delaying long enough that people age out of eligibility, so if you're in your mid 30s they'll drag it out so you get one cycle at 38 or 39, and another a couple of years later. And that's only if you're very persistent.
In reality, most people on average need around four cycles, with some trying up to six before giving up. Each cycle typically costs around £10k.
Fertility rapidly declines once you hit your late 20s, but as a society we've set ourselves up so that people are unable to even consider having children until a decade later. So we're effectively expecting people to pay £20k or so on average to be able to have children, and that's before you even get on to the nightmarish situation that NHS maternity services are in.
Agreed, though there is the freezing eggs option too.
Of course in the 1930s there was mass unemployment and most people of all ages rented but yet most 20 to 30 year olds had children and the fertility rate was above average so it is also a lifestyle choice, especially with more women wanting careers and leaving children until their 30s and early 40s if they decide to have them at all
Egg-freezing is £20k and only works about half the time. It's also less likely to be covered by private health insurance than IVF, though some employers do explicitly fund it separately.
As for it being a lifestyle choice, I think it's a bit stronger than that. It's a choice between building your career, being able to rent a flat by yourself, and generally having a stable life that you control before getting pregnant - or having kids in your 20s, and hoping that the state will provide an adequate safety net if things go wrong.
Not many people trust that safety net these days, and I don't think it's fair to blame them for that.
As with so much else, the best way to fix this would be to ease the pressure on housing. If the best a 20-something at the start of a professional career can expect is to live in a houseshare for the next decade, then is it any wonder why they're not settling down and having kids?
Absolutely!
And this is another reason why too everyone who is working ought to be able to afford a home of their own, from their own efforts, with no inheritance in their twenties as was achievable in the past and could be again if the prices were more appropriate.
An inheritance if you get one (and many won't) is likely to come in your sixties or later nowadays and won't get you on the housing ladder in your twenties.
Most people rented 100 years ago, they still managed to have children in their 20s
'Managed' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Society was organised entirely differently, and there were little to no reliable forms of contraception.
I am staggered by those who stagger through life waiting for an inheritance.
Inheritance is irrelevant to this argument as it 100 years ago most couples in their 20s rented and did not have an inheritance but still managed to have children.
Of course we could also go Vatican and restrict contraception too, certainly to 20-35 year olds at peak fertility in settled relationships
I'm not sure how settled most of those relationships would be if contraception was entirely eliminated.
Full Vatican of course would be no sex unless married and no contraception if having sex in marriage
No, no: it's no premarital sex.
So long as you never get married, it was never premarital sex.
Nope it is no sex outside of marriage 'the sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage. Outside of marriage it always constitutes a grave sin and excludes one from sacramental communion."
I’m just pleased that your religion nowadays is essentially powerless, no longer able to torture and condemn and murder and burn people who are slightly eccentric or independently minded or who otherwise don’t sign up to your almost-prehistoric nonsense, as has happened to so many unfortunate souls in times past.
That teacher in hiding near Batley waves “hello”
One hopes that Islam is on the same historical path as Christianity.
I really really hope that is true. It is - sincerely - one of my biggest wishes for the future of the world
As a councillor in East London I spent a fair bit of time talking politics etc. with Asian teenagers, and in the long term those conversations leave me very hopeful. But we’re looking at changes that happen over the generations, rather than anything that will resolve our short term challenges.
A rare moment of agreement between us! I’m not entirely despairing; I think there is hope. But it will take a lot of time, as you say
Here is some interesting evidence. A friend of mine has recently been in Kabul, talking to the Taliban. He says they’ve genuinely changed. Why? Because a lot of them have been in exile in places like the UAE where their daughters got good educations and they have brought that personal experience back
The trouble is the old Taliban f*ckers are as miserable as ever. But the younger ones - some of them - are comparatively enlightened
🙏
‘We’ll only chop one of your hands off’
I believe the Taliban have genuinely cracked down on the smack growing. Of course that’s opened the market up even further for the synthetic opioids, unintended consequences and all that..
OT while throwing away my books, I've come across Advocates by PB's favourite lawyer, David Pannick, before he became a lord. £15 hardback in 1992, shortly to start its slow journey to the council tip.
Don't throw away books, there'll always be someone interested in them. Support second-hand bookshops.
Sadly, there aren't. It's not just me, friends report charity bookshops were not even interested in signed copies. The old ecosystem where prolific readers used charity shops as a lending library are gone, as have the dedicated second hand bookshops of Bloomsbury and Charing Cross Road.
Most of my books are out-of-date tech books whose information is readily available online. The rest, well, it's possible I might get the odd nibble from Ebay but the hassle of listing them all, and then having to pack and post them when it's not a full-time hobby, is disproportionate.
But it is sad and frustrating, which is why it is taking so long as I stop to ponder each volume. I'm not a barrister so why buy Advocates more than 30 years ago? I can only assume Pannick had been on television or in the news around that time.
Been finding that too with clearing relatives' houses and doing the usual 60-something clearout post retirement. Certainly for ordinary charity shops, though the specialist charity bookshops in Edinburgh have been better (not much use to you). In the end we simply dumped our unwanted books to add to those in a deceased relative's house which we were getting a charity with a specialist furniture shop to clear - they have a specialist bookshop as well. That way we got the books cleared.
I don't know what it is. Booklovers dying off? Houses too small these days?
But obsolete editions of tech books can go into the recycling bin (not tip) without any compunction.
In England the people best set up to do it are Oxfam; they have various online outlets including rare and collectible books *
They also have a recycling plant in Wakefield or Huddersfield or similar for the processing. Not my favourite charity, but that's where they'd go as I can deliver to a local charity shop without pfaff.
They also have a specific emphasis on text books, which may be sent to developing countries.
National Trust are also surprisingly big in secondhand books at larger properties. Mine (NT top 20 300k visitors) has snack truck, mini-nursery, cafe, restaurant, NT shop, 2nd hand bookshop.
* For posh-nosh gobbling but uncivilised PBers they currently have a First Edition of The Gentleman's Table Guide by E. Ricket and C. Thomas (1871) for £3500.
Interesting! I see they also have free courier (from local dropoff) if one wants to send them books. That I didn't know, which would be useful for the more academic or specialist stuff.
I can't find a Scottish number, but nationally there are 120 specialist Oxfam bookshops.
There's one specialist in Edinburgh, but I have rather too many books for that to be convenient, so your post may turn out to be a lifesaver!
I've got rather a lot of inherited books to lose, too, but I'm really not keen on Oxfam.
Anyone want a collection of political biographies? Most of them were probably remaindered immediately.
Or a large collection of 1950/60s? pulp fiction (John Creasey, Ian Fleming et al)?
Probably all destined for recycling, I suppose.
I think a fair amount of second hand books donated to charity shops end up being sold on to online outfits that have the scale to sell unpopular books to the rare people who want them. You might be able to sell to them directly.
One such outfit in Ireland will buy books via ziffit.com - might be worth a try.
Yes. More organised charity shops filter out donations that might do well online, and sell them online.
I’ve emotionally gone from being mentally and emotionally reconciled to a Trump win to having hope that Harris actually might do it. Sadly it’s the hope that kills you.
*Raises eyebrows*
Has Governor Walz's daughter taken up a new career?
You’re going to have to explain that one to me.
She’s called Hope and may have become an assassin according to your post…
It wasn’t really worth explaining…
But she is called Hope as she was an IVF baby and somehow the Republicans have managed to put themselves in the position of looking anti-IVF.
I thought they *were* anti-IVF?
I am anti taxpayer-funded IVF.
In the scheme of things I can think of a whole set of items that I object to far more.
Giving a family a chance of children seems to be a noble use of a tiny percentage of what I pay in taxes.
Certainly with fertility rates now below replacement level in the UK and USA
Sadly, reproductive services are something that the NHS have all but abandoned.
Technically, they still aim to offer three cycles to under-40s, and one to those aged 40 and 41 - but in most of the country are nowhere close to achieving this. The usual pattern is to mange the problem by delaying long enough that people age out of eligibility, so if you're in your mid 30s they'll drag it out so you get one cycle at 38 or 39, and another a couple of years later. And that's only if you're very persistent.
In reality, most people on average need around four cycles, with some trying up to six before giving up. Each cycle typically costs around £10k.
Fertility rapidly declines once you hit your late 20s, but as a society we've set ourselves up so that people are unable to even consider having children until a decade later. So we're effectively expecting people to pay £20k or so on average to be able to have children, and that's before you even get on to the nightmarish situation that NHS maternity services are in.
Agreed, though there is the freezing eggs option too.
Of course in the 1930s there was mass unemployment and most people of all ages rented but yet most 20 to 30 year olds had children and the fertility rate was above average so it is also a lifestyle choice, especially with more women wanting careers and leaving children until their 30s and early 40s if they decide to have them at all
Egg-freezing is £20k and only works about half the time. It's also less likely to be covered by private health insurance than IVF, though some employers do explicitly fund it separately.
As for it being a lifestyle choice, I think it's a bit stronger than that. It's a choice between building your career, being able to rent a flat by yourself, and generally having a stable life that you control before getting pregnant - or having kids in your 20s, and hoping that the state will provide an adequate safety net if things go wrong.
Not many people trust that safety net these days, and I don't think it's fair to blame them for that.
As with so much else, the best way to fix this would be to ease the pressure on housing. If the best a 20-something at the start of a professional career can expect is to live in a houseshare for the next decade, then is it any wonder why they're not settling down and having kids?
Absolutely!
And this is another reason why too everyone who is working ought to be able to afford a home of their own, from their own efforts, with no inheritance in their twenties as was achievable in the past and could be again if the prices were more appropriate.
An inheritance if you get one (and many won't) is likely to come in your sixties or later nowadays and won't get you on the housing ladder in your twenties.
Most people rented 100 years ago, they still managed to have children in their 20s
'Managed' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Society was organised entirely differently, and there were little to no reliable forms of contraception.
I am staggered by those who stagger through life waiting for an inheritance.
Inheritance is irrelevant to this argument as it 100 years ago most couples in their 20s rented and did not have an inheritance but still managed to have children.
Of course we could also go Vatican and restrict contraception too, certainly to 20-35 year olds at peak fertility in settled relationships
I'm not sure how settled most of those relationships would be if contraception was entirely eliminated.
Full Vatican of course would be no sex unless married and no contraception if having sex in marriage
Of course, we could just ignore religion in our everyday lives.
And continue with below replacement level birthrate
So you make it inevitable that millions are born into poverty and end up reliant on the state. I thought you Tories hated benefit culture, now you want to turn the taps on?
No that is the other extreme. Below replacement level birth rates just make it inevitable those of working age have to pay ever higher taxes to support the old, retirement ages become later as we need to work longer and economic growth slows.
Conservatives support the family too, they may not be socialists but they are not laissez faire economic liberals either. Plus now it is the middle class having lower birth rates than the working class if anything as graduate women delay childbirth for careers first
Oh come on, @HYUFD: you must know that the exceptionally high cost of housing is a massive deterrent to having children early.
One of my best friends, who I've known since fourth form, got married at 22, bought a house, and had kids early. He worked for the council.
Did he end up buying a ship and calling her Dignity?
sending Starliner back unmanned is slightly embarrassing but rather less terminal then a manned Starliner failing to land...
What's interesting is that new suits need to be flown up if the plan is for Wilmore / Wilkins to become "part" of the SpaceX 9 crew because Boeing refused to use the connectors SpaceX use and offered free access to..
To be fair to Boeing, NASA didn’t go for the idea of a common connector, so it didn’t go into the specifications for commercial crew - they thought that would be of no use without common standard for suits. 80% solutions….
Typical of NASA to not realise that, with two or three different ways to get people up and down to and from the ISS, they might occasionally have reason to use each other’s vehicles. Especially so for the first, experimental, flights.
Half of me gets the feeling that the political appointee NASA Administrator doesn’t want to give SpaceX the opportunity to gloat ahead of the election, hence the talk of “early 2025”, by which time the eight-day mission will have turned in to eight months!
I’ve emotionally gone from being mentally and emotionally reconciled to a Trump win to having hope that Harris actually might do it. Sadly it’s the hope that kills you.
*Raises eyebrows*
Has Governor Walz's daughter taken up a new career?
You’re going to have to explain that one to me.
She’s called Hope and may have become an assassin according to your post…
It wasn’t really worth explaining…
But she is called Hope as she was an IVF baby and somehow the Republicans have managed to put themselves in the position of looking anti-IVF.
I thought they *were* anti-IVF?
I am anti taxpayer-funded IVF.
In the scheme of things I can think of a whole set of items that I object to far more.
Giving a family a chance of children seems to be a noble use of a tiny percentage of what I pay in taxes.
Certainly with fertility rates now below replacement level in the UK and USA
Sadly, reproductive services are something that the NHS have all but abandoned.
Technically, they still aim to offer three cycles to under-40s, and one to those aged 40 and 41 - but in most of the country are nowhere close to achieving this. The usual pattern is to mange the problem by delaying long enough that people age out of eligibility, so if you're in your mid 30s they'll drag it out so you get one cycle at 38 or 39, and another a couple of years later. And that's only if you're very persistent.
In reality, most people on average need around four cycles, with some trying up to six before giving up. Each cycle typically costs around £10k.
Fertility rapidly declines once you hit your late 20s, but as a society we've set ourselves up so that people are unable to even consider having children until a decade later. So we're effectively expecting people to pay £20k or so on average to be able to have children, and that's before you even get on to the nightmarish situation that NHS maternity services are in.
Agreed, though there is the freezing eggs option too.
Of course in the 1930s there was mass unemployment and most people of all ages rented but yet most 20 to 30 year olds had children and the fertility rate was above average so it is also a lifestyle choice, especially with more women wanting careers and leaving children until their 30s and early 40s if they decide to have them at all
Egg-freezing is £20k and only works about half the time. It's also less likely to be covered by private health insurance than IVF, though some employers do explicitly fund it separately.
As for it being a lifestyle choice, I think it's a bit stronger than that. It's a choice between building your career, being able to rent a flat by yourself, and generally having a stable life that you control before getting pregnant - or having kids in your 20s, and hoping that the state will provide an adequate safety net if things go wrong.
Not many people trust that safety net these days, and I don't think it's fair to blame them for that.
As with so much else, the best way to fix this would be to ease the pressure on housing. If the best a 20-something at the start of a professional career can expect is to live in a houseshare for the next decade, then is it any wonder why they're not settling down and having kids?
Absolutely!
And this is another reason why too everyone who is working ought to be able to afford a home of their own, from their own efforts, with no inheritance in their twenties as was achievable in the past and could be again if the prices were more appropriate.
An inheritance if you get one (and many won't) is likely to come in your sixties or later nowadays and won't get you on the housing ladder in your twenties.
Most people rented 100 years ago, they still managed to have children in their 20s
'Managed' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Society was organised entirely differently, and there were little to no reliable forms of contraception.
I am staggered by those who stagger through life waiting for an inheritance.
Inheritance is irrelevant to this argument as it 100 years ago most couples in their 20s rented and did not have an inheritance but still managed to have children.
Of course we could also go Vatican and restrict contraception too, certainly to 20-35 year olds at peak fertility in settled relationships
I'm not sure how settled most of those relationships would be if contraception was entirely eliminated.
Full Vatican of course would be no sex unless married and no contraception if having sex in marriage
No, no: it's no premarital sex.
So long as you never get married, it was never premarital sex.
Nope it is no sex outside of marriage 'the sexual act must take place exclusively within marriage. Outside of marriage it always constitutes a grave sin and excludes one from sacramental communion."
I’m just pleased that your religion nowadays is essentially powerless, no longer able to torture and condemn and murder and burn people who are slightly eccentric or independently minded or who otherwise don’t sign up to your almost-prehistoric nonsense, as has happened to so many unfortunate souls in times past.
That teacher in hiding near Batley waves “hello”
One hopes that Islam is on the same historical path as Christianity.
You mean we're due a thirty years' war in Europe which kills a third of the population ?
I'm hoping they're on a slightly different meander.
OT while throwing away my books, I've come across Advocates by PB's favourite lawyer, David Pannick, before he became a lord. £15 hardback in 1992, shortly to start its slow journey to the council tip.
Don't throw away books, there'll always be someone interested in them. Support second-hand bookshops.
Sadly, there aren't. It's not just me, friends report charity bookshops were not even interested in signed copies. The old ecosystem where prolific readers used charity shops as a lending library are gone, as have the dedicated second hand bookshops of Bloomsbury and Charing Cross Road.
Most of my books are out-of-date tech books whose information is readily available online. The rest, well, it's possible I might get the odd nibble from Ebay but the hassle of listing them all, and then having to pack and post them when it's not a full-time hobby, is disproportionate.
But it is sad and frustrating, which is why it is taking so long as I stop to ponder each volume. I'm not a barrister so why buy Advocates more than 30 years ago? I can only assume Pannick had been on television or in the news around that time.
Been finding that too with clearing relatives' houses and doing the usual 60-something clearout post retirement. Certainly for ordinary charity shops, though the specialist charity bookshops in Edinburgh have been better (not much use to you). In the end we simply dumped our unwanted books to add to those in a deceased relative's house which we were getting a charity with a specialist furniture shop to clear - they have a specialist bookshop as well. That way we got the books cleared.
I don't know what it is. Booklovers dying off? Houses too small these days?
But obsolete editions of tech books can go into the recycling bin (not tip) without any compunction.
In England the people best set up to do it are Oxfam; they have various online outlets including rare and collectible books *
They also have a recycling plant in Wakefield or Huddersfield or similar for the processing. Not my favourite charity, but that's where they'd go as I can deliver to a local charity shop without pfaff.
They also have a specific emphasis on text books, which may be sent to developing countries.
National Trust are also surprisingly big in secondhand books at larger properties. Mine (NT top 20 300k visitors) has snack truck, mini-nursery, cafe, restaurant, NT shop, 2nd hand bookshop.
* For posh-nosh gobbling but uncivilised PBers they currently have a First Edition of The Gentleman's Table Guide by E. Ricket and C. Thomas (1871) for £3500.
Interesting! I see they also have free courier (from local dropoff) if one wants to send them books. That I didn't know, which would be useful for the more academic or specialist stuff.
I can't find a Scottish number, but nationally there are 120 specialist Oxfam bookshops.
OT while throwing away my books, I've come across Advocates by PB's favourite lawyer, David Pannick, before he became a lord. £15 hardback in 1992, shortly to start its slow journey to the council tip.
Don't throw away books, there'll always be someone interested in them. Support second-hand bookshops.
Sadly, there aren't. It's not just me, friends report charity bookshops were not even interested in signed copies. The old ecosystem where prolific readers used charity shops as a lending library are gone, as have the dedicated second hand bookshops of Bloomsbury and Charing Cross Road.
Most of my books are out-of-date tech books whose information is readily available online. The rest, well, it's possible I might get the odd nibble from Ebay but the hassle of listing them all, and then having to pack and post them when it's not a full-time hobby, is disproportionate.
But it is sad and frustrating, which is why it is taking so long as I stop to ponder each volume. I'm not a barrister so why buy Advocates more than 30 years ago? I can only assume Pannick had been on television or in the news around that time.
Been finding that too with clearing relatives' houses and doing the usual 60-something clearout post retirement. Certainly for ordinary charity shops, though the specialist charity bookshops in Edinburgh have been better (not much use to you). In the end we simply dumped our unwanted books to add to those in a deceased relative's house which we were getting a charity with a specialist furniture shop to clear - they have a specialist bookshop as well. That way we got the books cleared.
I don't know what it is. Booklovers dying off? Houses too small these days?
But obsolete editions of tech books can go into the recycling bin (not tip) without any compunction.
In England the people best set up to do it are Oxfam; they have various online outlets including rare and collectible books *
They also have a recycling plant in Wakefield or Huddersfield or similar for the processing. Not my favourite charity, but that's where they'd go as I can deliver to a local charity shop without pfaff.
They also have a specific emphasis on text books, which may be sent to developing countries.
National Trust are also surprisingly big in secondhand books at larger properties. Mine (NT top 20 300k visitors) has snack truck, mini-nursery, cafe, restaurant, NT shop, 2nd hand bookshop.
* For posh-nosh gobbling but uncivilised PBers they currently have a First Edition of The Gentleman's Table Guide by E. Ricket and C. Thomas (1871) for £3500.
Interesting! I see they also have free courier (from local dropoff) if one wants to send them books. That I didn't know, which would be useful for the more academic or specialist stuff.
I can't find a Scottish number, but nationally there are 120 specialist Oxfam bookshops.
There's one specialist in Edinburgh, but I have rather too many books for that to be convenient, so your post may turn out to be a lifesaver!
I've got rather a lot of inherited books to lose, too, but I'm really not keen on Oxfam.
Anyone want a collection of political biographies? Most of them were probably remaindered immediately.
Or a large collection of 1950/60s? pulp fiction (John Creasey, Ian Fleming et al)?
Probably all destined for recycling, I suppose.
Didn't one of our PBers open a second hand bookshop ?
Quite a startling statistic deep in the YouGov polling on all the recent troubles. The British people rightly abhor the riots and violence - lock ‘em up - but they are much more sympathetic on the sentiments behind the initial and peaceful Southport protests
“Sympathies with the views of those taking part in the protests are somewhat broader – six in ten Britons (58%) say they have a great deal or fair amount of sympathy for the views of those peacefully taking part in demonstrations that were ostensibly triggered by the Southport murders. This includes majorities of Labour and Lib Dem voters (53-56%), as well as two-thirds of Conservatives (64%), with Reform voters are most sympathetic at 83%.”
Instead it will all get brushed aside as the work of fascists and racists and everything will carry on just as before.
I think it will - Labour will work hard to bring immigration down from the 1.2 million per year under the Tories and bang on about it for the next 5 years.
It's the most obvious example of how the Tories machine gunned their own foot in the run up to the election and salted their legacy until the next one.
The Tories will (correctly) claim that the inevitable drop in immigration is in large part due to Rishi having tightened up the visa rules which were relaxed a bit too much by Boris. Tricky to explain succinctly without also reinforcing the "Immigration - down!" part of the message.
As you say, it's an example of how shit the last government was at basic politics - why he didn't he make those changes at the start of his premiership rather than right at the end, so that he would have had at least a chance to reap some of the political reward.
But the Tories should really try to find some area where the new govt are less likely to meet expectations (infrastructure or housing would be my bet), and start laying the groundwork now so that they can go big on it at the next election. Forget immigration 'til the one after that, it's not going to do them any good at the next election - and banging on about it now will just make swing voters associate them with Refuk.
That's actually not a bad article on autism. It brings the sensory integration/overload issues directly front and centre, which is one giveaway that it's actually being written by someone with real understanding of ASD (rather than the popular images of ASD). Also highlights well the benefits of technology and new ways of working for autistic people.
I’ve emotionally gone from being mentally and emotionally reconciled to a Trump win to having hope that Harris actually might do it. Sadly it’s the hope that kills you.
*Raises eyebrows*
Has Governor Walz's daughter taken up a new career?
You’re going to have to explain that one to me.
She’s called Hope and may have become an assassin according to your post…
It wasn’t really worth explaining…
But she is called Hope as she was an IVF baby and somehow the Republicans have managed to put themselves in the position of looking anti-IVF.
I thought they *were* anti-IVF?
I am anti taxpayer-funded IVF.
In the scheme of things I can think of a whole set of items that I object to far more.
Giving a family a chance of children seems to be a noble use of a tiny percentage of what I pay in taxes.
Certainly with fertility rates now below replacement level in the UK and USA
Sadly, reproductive services are something that the NHS have all but abandoned.
Technically, they still aim to offer three cycles to under-40s, and one to those aged 40 and 41 - but in most of the country are nowhere close to achieving this. The usual pattern is to mange the problem by delaying long enough that people age out of eligibility, so if you're in your mid 30s they'll drag it out so you get one cycle at 38 or 39, and another a couple of years later. And that's only if you're very persistent.
In reality, most people on average need around four cycles, with some trying up to six before giving up. Each cycle typically costs around £10k.
Fertility rapidly declines once you hit your late 20s, but as a society we've set ourselves up so that people are unable to even consider having children until a decade later. So we're effectively expecting people to pay £20k or so on average to be able to have children, and that's before you even get on to the nightmarish situation that NHS maternity services are in.
Agreed, though there is the freezing eggs option too.
Of course in the 1930s there was mass unemployment and most people of all ages rented but yet most 20 to 30 year olds had children and the fertility rate was above average so it is also a lifestyle choice, especially with more women wanting careers and leaving children until their 30s and early 40s if they decide to have them at all
Egg-freezing is £20k and only works about half the time. It's also less likely to be covered by private health insurance than IVF, though some employers do explicitly fund it separately.
As for it being a lifestyle choice, I think it's a bit stronger than that. It's a choice between building your career, being able to rent a flat by yourself, and generally having a stable life that you control before getting pregnant - or having kids in your 20s, and hoping that the state will provide an adequate safety net if things go wrong.
Not many people trust that safety net these days, and I don't think it's fair to blame them for that.
As with so much else, the best way to fix this would be to ease the pressure on housing. If the best a 20-something at the start of a professional career can expect is to live in a houseshare for the next decade, then is it any wonder why they're not settling down and having kids?
Absolutely!
And this is another reason why too everyone who is working ought to be able to afford a home of their own, from their own efforts, with no inheritance in their twenties as was achievable in the past and could be again if the prices were more appropriate.
An inheritance if you get one (and many won't) is likely to come in your sixties or later nowadays and won't get you on the housing ladder in your twenties.
Most people rented 100 years ago, they still managed to have children in their 20s
'Managed' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Society was organised entirely differently, and there were little to no reliable forms of contraception.
I am staggered by those who stagger through life waiting for an inheritance.
Inheritance is irrelevant to this argument as it 100 years ago most couples in their 20s rented and did not have an inheritance but still managed to have children.
Of course we could also go Vatican and restrict contraception too, certainly to 20-35 year olds at peak fertility in settled relationships
I'm not sure how settled most of those relationships would be if contraception was entirely eliminated.
Full Vatican of course would be no sex unless married and no contraception if having sex in marriage
Of course, we could just ignore religion in our everyday lives.
As most sensible people do whether religious or otherwise. I have a faith it only applies to me not anyone else
I’ve emotionally gone from being mentally and emotionally reconciled to a Trump win to having hope that Harris actually might do it. Sadly it’s the hope that kills you.
*Raises eyebrows*
Has Governor Walz's daughter taken up a new career?
You’re going to have to explain that one to me.
She’s called Hope and may have become an assassin according to your post…
It wasn’t really worth explaining…
But she is called Hope as she was an IVF baby and somehow the Republicans have managed to put themselves in the position of looking anti-IVF.
I thought they *were* anti-IVF?
I am anti taxpayer-funded IVF.
In the scheme of things I can think of a whole set of items that I object to far more.
Giving a family a chance of children seems to be a noble use of a tiny percentage of what I pay in taxes.
Certainly with fertility rates now below replacement level in the UK and USA
Sadly, reproductive services are something that the NHS have all but abandoned.
Technically, they still aim to offer three cycles to under-40s, and one to those aged 40 and 41 - but in most of the country are nowhere close to achieving this. The usual pattern is to mange the problem by delaying long enough that people age out of eligibility, so if you're in your mid 30s they'll drag it out so you get one cycle at 38 or 39, and another a couple of years later. And that's only if you're very persistent.
In reality, most people on average need around four cycles, with some trying up to six before giving up. Each cycle typically costs around £10k.
Fertility rapidly declines once you hit your late 20s, but as a society we've set ourselves up so that people are unable to even consider having children until a decade later. So we're effectively expecting people to pay £20k or so on average to be able to have children, and that's before you even get on to the nightmarish situation that NHS maternity services are in.
Agreed, though there is the freezing eggs option too.
Of course in the 1930s there was mass unemployment and most people of all ages rented but yet most 20 to 30 year olds had children and the fertility rate was above average so it is also a lifestyle choice, especially with more women wanting careers and leaving children until their 30s and early 40s if they decide to have them at all
Egg-freezing is £20k and only works about half the time. It's also less likely to be covered by private health insurance than IVF, though some employers do explicitly fund it separately.
As for it being a lifestyle choice, I think it's a bit stronger than that. It's a choice between building your career, being able to rent a flat by yourself, and generally having a stable life that you control before getting pregnant - or having kids in your 20s, and hoping that the state will provide an adequate safety net if things go wrong.
Not many people trust that safety net these days, and I don't think it's fair to blame them for that.
As with so much else, the best way to fix this would be to ease the pressure on housing. If the best a 20-something at the start of a professional career can expect is to live in a houseshare for the next decade, then is it any wonder why they're not settling down and having kids?
Absolutely!
And this is another reason why too everyone who is working ought to be able to afford a home of their own, from their own efforts, with no inheritance in their twenties as was achievable in the past and could be again if the prices were more appropriate.
An inheritance if you get one (and many won't) is likely to come in your sixties or later nowadays and won't get you on the housing ladder in your twenties.
Most people rented 100 years ago, they still managed to have children in their 20s
'Managed' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Society was organised entirely differently, and there were little to no reliable forms of contraception.
I am staggered by those who stagger through life waiting for an inheritance.
Inheritance is irrelevant to this argument as it 100 years ago most couples in their 20s rented and did not have an inheritance but still managed to have children.
Of course we could also go Vatican and restrict contraception too, certainly to 20-35 year olds at peak fertility in settled relationships
I'm not sure how settled most of those relationships would be if contraception was entirely eliminated.
Full Vatican of course would be no sex unless married and no contraception if having sex in marriage
Of course, we could just ignore religion in our everyday lives.
And continue with below replacement level birthrate
Looking at the stats for European countries, there seems to be a pretty close correlation between religious devotion and low birth rates. Countries with higher levels of church attendance (e.g. Italy, Spain, Greece) have lower birth rates than more secular countries (e.g. France, Denmark). So it would seem that less, rather than more, religion is needed in order to raise birth rates.
Not true, Catholic Ireland for example has the highest birth rate in Europe and above average religious devotion. In France it is immigrant Muslims having the most babies, same with Denmark. In Italy and Spain it is over 60s most religious and they are well past child bearing years.
The highest global birthrate in the world is in Africa which is also the most religious continent in the world
Comments
Why is it the Catholic church led by a bunch of celibate men get to decide on when Catholics can have sex?
I mean if you don't play the game you shouldn't be allowed to set the rules.
I've pointed out that we need to avoid being fools falling for simplistic sectarian narratives pumped out by extremists for the own ends, and keep our brains engaged.
What's interesting is that for my sector, at least, companies from Europe (including mine) come to London because the skills are here, not because it's easy to sponsor low skilled people. What was an Irish company 5 years ago is now a UK company with it's HQ in the square mile.
My skill may weel be doubted;
But facts are chiels that winna ding,
An downa be disputed.
Here is some interesting evidence. A friend of mine has recently been in Kabul, talking to the Taliban. He says they’ve genuinely changed. Why? Because a lot of them have been in exile in places like the UAE where their daughters got good educations and they have brought that personal experience back
The trouble is the old Taliban f*ckers are as miserable as ever. But the younger ones - some of them - are comparatively enlightened
🙏
One good thing the last government did - under a certain number of MWh, bulk storage doesn't count as a power station for planning purposes. There's basically nothing to stop him parking a couple of shipping containers somewhere. He's thinking of a circular wood on his property - plant with fast growing trees and replace with a mix of more interesting stuff as it grows out.
No possible context can excuse the inciteful statements that guy made in public. You made yourself look ridiculous
One of my best friends, who I've known since fourth form, got married at 22, bought a house, and had kids early. He worked for the council.
That would be completely impossible today.
His children are not going to be able to afford houses - even assuming they save a significant proportion of their disposable income - until they are into their 30s.
Never mind. I shall rise serenely above, pleased that at least we agree on some hopeful signs for the world
NEW THREAD
I pointed out that context matters and we need to make judgements based on full information, rather than knee jerks based on edited videoclips.
Pointing out that Tousi is biased, quoting a reputable media report, and keeping examination of context separate from advocacy is 101 for 14 year olds learning about journalism for writing a school magazine.
Get a grip, man
(Although the criticism could be levelled at both I suppose)
I believe the Taliban have genuinely cracked down on the smack growing. Of course that’s opened the market up even further for the synthetic opioids, unintended consequences and all that..
Half of me gets the feeling that the political appointee NASA Administrator doesn’t want to give SpaceX the opportunity to gloat ahead of the election, hence the talk of “early 2025”, by which time the eight-day mission will have turned in to eight months!
I'm hoping they're on a slightly different meander.
As you say, it's an example of how shit the last government was at basic politics - why he didn't he make those changes at the start of his premiership rather than right at the end, so that he would have had at least a chance to reap some of the political reward.
But the Tories should really try to find some area where the new govt are less likely to meet expectations (infrastructure or housing would be my bet), and start laying the groundwork now so that they can go big on it at the next election. Forget immigration 'til the one after that, it's not going to do them any good at the next election - and banging on about it now will just make swing voters associate them with Refuk.
Also highlights well the benefits of technology and new ways of working for autistic people.
The highest global birthrate in the world is in Africa which is also the most religious continent in the world