Looking forward, one of the challenges the Conservatives have is coming up with a shared story about the Truss days. At the moment, the gap between those who think the disaster was electing her and those who think the disaster was dumping her is just too big.
Going back to Thatcher, hardly anyone holds a candle for the Community Charge now.
Although from a philosophical perspective community charge was absolutely the right thing to do and would have avoided many of the issues of local government finance today.
The basic principle was the local government services - as distinct from central government mandates - should be provided locally and the cost spread evenly. Rubbish collection etc.
Central government mandates - social care etc - should be funded with central government subventions.
Local government taxes should not be about redistribution - that’s for income tax, inheritance tax, etc.
But it got caught up in a political campaign as a stick to beat Thatcher and the Tories with
I can confirm that the UK ambassador to South Korea @ColinCrooks1 will not be taking part in the Global Korea Forum, as the British Embassy in Korea does not support panels without female representation.
Sorry to go off topic, but overnight Harris has booked her first interview. Will be with CNN in Georgia, tomorrow, a joint effort with Walz as part of their tour.
Biden also to campaign with her in Pennsylvania next week.
Conservative journalist Megyn Kelly managed to get “emotional support governor” trending in the US.
A loyal member of the senior team who you can use for political counsel and sensitive missions with the certainty that, outside of an Aaron Sorkin production, they are not going to be scheming against you.
How is that different to an “emotional support governor”?
There is a sort of tradition that the VP is somewhere between useless, ignored or a scheming rival. See Dan Quayle. Biden was somewhere between ignored and despised under Obama.
Hence the weird (to those outside the US) comments about Cheney being given, actual, real work to do under Bush II.
Interesting statistic:
Of the 15 Vice Presidents who have become president, only four were elected President while in office.
And three of those were before 1840 (John Adams 1796, Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and Martin Van Buuren in 1836).
Of the others, eight succeeded due to the death of the President, one due to resignation, and two were elected as private citizens after their term in office had expired (Nixon and Biden).
So if Harris wins, she will become only the second incumbent Vice President in the modern era to be elected President in her own right after George H Bush in 1988.
I pooh-poohed this story last night on the ground of insanity. I was wrong about that because this is Truss we are talking about. Truss is both insane in herself and talks to insane right wing usonians to whom abolishing socialised medicine for cancer and everything else is an obvious and uncontroversial step to take.
This is the problem with a bonfire of regulations housebuilding scheme. We can't even enforce standards as they are and it's ruining the finances and living conditions of young people desperate to get on the housing ladder.
It's mad that I've had fewer issues in a 150 year old tenement, built to house dockers in what was the seediest part of Edinburgh.
A young woman, who didn’t want to be identified, tells me that within weeks of moving in, the entire staircase collapsed and her husband fell into the understairs cupboard.
"The contractor who came to fix it said there was only one screw in each step. There should have been 14," she says.
"We’ll leave as soon as we can – too many bad memories here."
Look at the comments under the article too. Housing developers are going to be this parliament's water companies.
Yet more reasons to deregulate planning, so the land doesn’t end up in the hands of a few large developers.
They have massive scales of economy and will always undercut smaller developers. I don't think this anything to do with planning.
The other baddie is management companies. Even in Scotland, where we have freehold, the factoring fees can be as high as £150 per month on new builds.
Yet in every nation where planning is not a restriction, houses are built in small amounts by small companies that compete with each other and not by an oligopoly of large developers.
It's entirely to do with planning. The likes of Barratt know they have no competition solely due to the planning system.
Eyes down, boys. We're heading into a 72 hour local planning regulation post-a-thon.
Are you bricking it?
If so, hang fire, there's lots mortar come.
It's enough to make me lose the plot. I am flat out of here.
I bet you end up at most semi-detached.
Posters should be free, hold any view on the matter.
Oh gosh. That's really bad.
At lease make the effort.
The thing about the housing debate is that everyone's responses are so predictable. We can play buzzword bingo with them.
It won't be long before someone has a full house.
But then it will collapse, because they have a screw loose.
Or completely missing.
I was just reading this about the high quality of modern mass building in Cambridgeshire or somewhere flat like that (which might interest @JosiasJessop )
'A young woman, who didn’t want to be identified, tells me that within weeks of moving in, the entire staircase collapsed and her husband fell into the understairs cupboard.
"The contractor who came to fix it said there was only one screw in each step. There should have been 14," she says.'
That was the story that kicked off this discussion, I believe.
Process
1) an elaborate design 2) the design specifies the exact number of screws to hold up a staircase tread. 3) metric tons of documents are generated to all the elaborate regulations 4) some bloke is given no time, to do all the staircases. 5) he leaves the project because he finds a better job. 6) the half finished staircase is installed. Because no one knows it is half finished. 7) inspected by being glanced at - if that. 8) house sold.
This is the problem with a bonfire of regulations housebuilding scheme. We can't even enforce standards as they are and it's ruining the finances and living conditions of young people desperate to get on the housing ladder.
It's mad that I've had fewer issues in a 150 year old tenement, built to house dockers in what was the seediest part of Edinburgh.
A young woman, who didn’t want to be identified, tells me that within weeks of moving in, the entire staircase collapsed and her husband fell into the understairs cupboard.
"The contractor who came to fix it said there was only one screw in each step. There should have been 14," she says.
"We’ll leave as soon as we can – too many bad memories here."
Look at the comments under the article too. Housing developers are going to be this parliament's water companies.
Yet more reasons to deregulate planning, so the land doesn’t end up in the hands of a few large developers.
They have massive scales of economy and will always undercut smaller developers. I don't think this anything to do with planning.
The other baddie is management companies. Even in Scotland, where we have freehold, the factoring fees can be as high as £150 per month on new builds.
Yet in every nation where planning is not a restriction, houses are built in small amounts by small companies that compete with each other and not by an oligopoly of large developers.
It's entirely to do with planning. The likes of Barratt know they have no competition solely due to the planning system.
Eyes down, boys. We're heading into a 72 hour local planning regulation post-a-thon.
Never change 😂
It's not just the sheer tedium of the topic but that the discussion will be remorselessly transacted without a shred of wit, levity, rhetorical flourish or even variation in emotional shade.
it's an immensely important topic, but also immensely boring for most people. Often even for me.
Sort of on topic, the real savings are probably in the types of treatment and care than extend, say, the life of a 85 year old in poor health by 18-24 months in slightly less poor health but with chronic conditions and in some pain, before they diminish again and die. And that won't be just cancer treatment, and nor will it be cheap.
I'm not sure how you'd quantity that, though, or deprioritise over a childhood or mainstream working adult cancer because you then start to go against the hypocratic oath.
We do make these sorts of decisions in the NHS to a degree. Breast cancer screening in the UK stops at 71, for example. That’s not because a woman’s risk goes down after 71. Quite the reverse, the risk just keeps going up with age. It’s because the expected lifespan saved goes down as you get older.
Looking forward, one of the challenges the Conservatives have is coming up with a shared story about the Truss days. At the moment, the gap between those who think the disaster was electing her and those who think the disaster was dumping her is just too big.
Going back to Thatcher, hardly anyone holds a candle for the Community Charge now.
That's a bit like attitudes to Nick Clegg. Was breaking the promise on tuition fees the mistake?, or making the promise in the first place?
Having made it, breaking it was the mistake: They could have finessed things by refusing to agree to vote against their own manifesto commitments in the coalition agreement with the conservatives.
My working assumption is that the Orange-book types who held many of the top slots at the time didn’t particularly agree with the manifesto commitment in the first place & so were untroubled by the possibility of voting against it. They failed to consider the impact it would have on both their voter base & their activists.
It wasn't actually in the manifesto, which was one of the reasons why it was wrongly judged as something easily traded away.
Sort of on topic, the real savings are probably in the types of treatment and care than extend, say, the life of a 85 year old in poor health by 18-24 months in slightly less poor health but with chronic conditions and in some pain, before they diminish again and die. And that won't be just cancer treatment, and nor will it be cheap.
I'm not sure how you'd quantity that, though, or deprioritise over a childhood or mainstream working adult cancer because you then start to go against the hypocratic oath.
That’s the whole point of the QALY methodology for prioritising healthcare (“quality-adjusted life years”)
I pooh-poohed this story last night on the ground of insanity. I was wrong about that because this is Truss we are talking about. Truss is both insane in herself and talks to insane right wing usonians to whom abolishing socialised medicine for cancer and everything else is an obvious and uncontroversial step to take.
Sort of on topic, the real savings are probably in the types of treatment and care than extend, say, the life of a 85 year old in poor health by 18-24 months in slightly less poor health but with chronic conditions and in some pain, before they diminish again and die. And that won't be just cancer treatment, and nor will it be cheap.
I'm not sure how you'd quantity that, though, or deprioritise over a childhood or mainstream working adult cancer because you then start to go against the hypocratic oath.
Isn't this what the Quality Adjusted Life Year metric is supposed to address? The QA part accounts for that year in pain with chronic conditions being different from a year where a younger adult is in remission and doesn't have those extra conditions, and the LY part rates "we cured a child's cancer and they got an extra 60 years" as worth sixty times more than "an elderly person got another year". Medicine has to prioritise, because we can't give it infinite resources.
That’s exactly what QALYs are for. My father was involved in promulgating usage in the NHS.
One of the more obvious fixes for the huge waiting lists in the NHS would be to temporarily nudge the value of a QALY down a bit - thus rationing the availabile treatment more by VFM rather than position in a queue.
Alas, this would require the sort of political bravery neither side of the house has (it would have been an obvious thing to include in Starmer's "everything is broken" speach yesterday).
This is the problem with a bonfire of regulations housebuilding scheme. We can't even enforce standards as they are and it's ruining the finances and living conditions of young people desperate to get on the housing ladder.
It's mad that I've had fewer issues in a 150 year old tenement, built to house dockers in what was the seediest part of Edinburgh.
Turning this round - wouldn't it be better to have a modest quantity of regulations actually enforced, rather than millions of them ignored by everyone?
This story definitely has a ring of plausibility about it. The people Liz is now hanging out with in the US regard state-provided health care as a kind of slavery: the government literally imposing its authority over the bodies of it citizens. So one can see how Liz would regard abolishing NHS services both as a facilitation of her great calling - growth, growth, growth - and as human emancipation. Two birds with one stone and all that.
The people here who want a much smaller state never seem to look at the US and realise that’s what you get. Cripplingly high healthcare costs, yet worse health outcomes.
This is the problem with a bonfire of regulations housebuilding scheme. We can't even enforce standards as they are and it's ruining the finances and living conditions of young people desperate to get on the housing ladder.
It's mad that I've had fewer issues in a 150 year old tenement, built to house dockers in what was the seediest part of Edinburgh.
Turning this round - wouldn't it be better to have a modest quantity of regulations actually enforced, rather than millions of them ignored by everyone?
Governor Greg announces a massive infrastructure investment package.
Every Texas representative in Congress voted against the Biden infrastructure package, which Abbott said Texas didn't need.
Shameless.
https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-txdot-announce-record-148-billion-transportation-investment Governor Greg Abbott today announced a record $148 billion in total investment for Texas’ transportation infrastructure. This investment includes the unanimous adoption of the more than $104 billion 10-year transportation plan by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to improve safety, address congestion and connectivity, and preserve roadways for Texas drivers. It also includes over $43 billion for development and routine maintenance. This is a $5.6 billion increase in total investment from the previous year.
“Strengthening our roadways and transportation infrastructure is critical for Texas to remain the Best State for Business in the nation,” said Governor Abbott. “With the adoption of this record-breaking $148 billion transportation investment, Texas will continue to meet the needs of Texans in rural, urban, and suburban communities while also improving roadway congestion and safety. People come to Texas because we provide the freedom and opportunity they can’t find anywhere else, and that’s why we’re investing in the future of Texas roads. Projects like this will ensure our products and people can move quickly to keep the Texas economy booming. Together, we are building a bigger, better Texas for years to come.”
“With a booming population and economy, TxDOT is meeting the moment with a record investment in our state roadway system to ensure Texas remains the preferred destination for families and businesses,” said Texas Transportation Commission Chairman J. Bruce Bugg, Jr. “Thanks to the vision of Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Legislature, this historic transportation investment focusing on safety and congestion relief will help meet the needs of Texans for years to come.”..
Sort of on topic, the real savings are probably in the types of treatment and care than extend, say, the life of a 85 year old in poor health by 18-24 months in slightly less poor health but with chronic conditions and in some pain, before they diminish again and die. And that won't be just cancer treatment, and nor will it be cheap.
I'm not sure how you'd quantity that, though, or deprioritise over a childhood or mainstream working adult cancer because you then start to go against the hypocratic oath.
Isn't this what the Quality Adjusted Life Year metric is supposed to address? The QA part accounts for that year in pain with chronic conditions being different from a year where a younger adult is in remission and doesn't have those extra conditions, and the LY part rates "we cured a child's cancer and they got an extra 60 years" as worth sixty times more than "an elderly person got another year". Medicine has to prioritise, because we can't give it infinite resources.
Yes, but I believe with two caveats.
Firstly, the politicians have meddled with this, and overridden the system, with regard to certain cancer drugs in particular, as it happens. Often in response to newspaper campaigns.
Secondly, it operates in relation to elective treatments and interventions, and not to acute emergency care. If an old person is brought to A&E after falling and breaking a hip, there isn't a situation where the NHS will tell them that patching them up doesn't earn enough QALYs to be worth their while and turns them away. They will be admitted to hospital and the best done for them, and their broken hip, at great expense.
Not sure I'd want an old person to be put down in that scenario, but it is an example of where the QALY calculation doesn't apply.
That’s not a great example. A hip replacement operation is not hugely expensive and has a good QALY return. You want to pick something more chronic, like dementia or heart disease.
This story definitely has a ring of plausibility about it. The people Liz is now hanging out with in the US regard state-provided health care as a kind of slavery: the government literally imposing its authority over the bodies of it citizens. So one can see how Liz would regard abolishing NHS services both as a facilitation of her great calling - growth, growth, growth - and as human emancipation. Two birds with one stone and all that.
The people here who want a much smaller state never seem to look at the US and realise that’s what you get. Cripplingly high healthcare costs, yet worse health outcomes.
The NHS structure is pretty much unique to the U.K. among advanced countries.
As is the US setup.
The US system is actually heavily socialised. IIRC if you took the military, Medicare and Medicaid budgets, you could pay for an American NHS.
The US system is expensive and poor in quality and coverage.
But there are many, many models of full healthcare, both in Europe and elsewhere.
Sort of on topic, the real savings are probably in the types of treatment and care than extend, say, the life of a 85 year old in poor health by 18-24 months in slightly less poor health but with chronic conditions and in some pain, before they diminish again and die. And that won't be just cancer treatment, and nor will it be cheap.
I'm not sure how you'd quantity that, though, or deprioritise over a childhood or mainstream working adult cancer because you then start to go against the hypocratic oath.
Isn't this what the Quality Adjusted Life Year metric is supposed to address? The QA part accounts for that year in pain with chronic conditions being different from a year where a younger adult is in remission and doesn't have those extra conditions, and the LY part rates "we cured a child's cancer and they got an extra 60 years" as worth sixty times more than "an elderly person got another year". Medicine has to prioritise, because we can't give it infinite resources.
Yes, but I believe with two caveats.
Firstly, the politicians have meddled with this, and overridden the system, with regard to certain cancer drugs in particular, as it happens. Often in response to newspaper campaigns.
Secondly, it operates in relation to elective treatments and interventions, and not to acute emergency care. If an old person is brought to A&E after falling and breaking a hip, there isn't a situation where the NHS will tell them that patching them up doesn't earn enough QALYs to be worth their while and turns them away. They will be admitted to hospital and the best done for them, and their broken hip, at great expense.
Not sure I'd want an old person to be put down in that scenario, but it is an example of where the QALY calculation doesn't apply.
That’s not a great example. A hip replacement operation is not hugely expensive and has a good QALY return. You want to pick something more chronic, like dementia or heart disease.
*Nobly resists making inappropriate joke about Liz Truss and dementia*...
(An Alan Partridge quote for the morning, no less)
I did Twelfth Night at School. It was pretty good.
I also did 12N at school. Never liked his romcoms though - always preferred the grittier plays like Macbeth and Henry V.
For the record I also preferred Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad to Friends and Sex and the City.
Breaking Bad is the greatest TV show ever after Chernobyl.
BB isn't all brilliant.
Some of the plot twists were pretty unbelievable.
There was the notorious episode with the fly.
The female characters, as usual in these shows, are basically just a kind of nagging chorus at the back while the men get on with the serious business of drug dealing and murder.
But overall yes it was amazing.
The fly episode is what happens when you’ve totally blown your budget and are an episode short, you need to produce a really cheap hour of TV somehow. Two actors, one camera, one existing location…
"Bottle episodes", I think they are called
There’s also clip shows when you’ve also blown your budget.
Star Trek: The Next Generation had Shades of Grey when they blew their budget introducing the Borg in an earlier episode.
Star Trek is the original source of the bottle episode meme.
Voyager began in 1995, so the young AOC could have been shown real-life examples of female leadership, like Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Kim Campbell, Golda Meir, Kazimira Prunskienė, etc.
(An Alan Partridge quote for the morning, no less)
I did Twelfth Night at School. It was pretty good.
I also did 12N at school. Never liked his romcoms though - always preferred the grittier plays like Macbeth and Henry V.
For the record I also preferred Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad to Friends and Sex and the City.
Breaking Bad is the greatest TV show ever after Chernobyl.
BB isn't all brilliant.
Some of the plot twists were pretty unbelievable.
There was the notorious episode with the fly.
The female characters, as usual in these shows, are basically just a kind of nagging chorus at the back while the men get on with the serious business of drug dealing and murder.
But overall yes it was amazing.
The fly episode is what happens when you’ve totally blown your budget and are an episode short, you need to produce a really cheap hour of TV somehow. Two actors, one camera, one existing location…
"Bottle episodes", I think they are called
There’s also clip shows when you’ve also blown your budget.
Star Trek: The Next Generation had Shades of Grey when they blew their budget introducing the Borg in an earlier episode.
Star Trek is the original source of the bottle episode meme.
Voyager began in 1995, so the young AOC could have been shown real-life examples of female leadership, like Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Kim Campbell, Golda Meir, Kazimira Prunskienė, etc.
So she's a fan of Voyager.
Just one more reason to think her judgement isn't great.
Although I suppose it could be worse. She could have cited Neelix as her inspiration.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
1) The MAGA Republicans in the election system hold up the results for states that Harris wins on the grounds they are “wrong”. They even try to send electors for Trump… 2) Trump demands that the EC meets on the date specified. With an incomplete set of EC electors. 3) MAGA Mob Part Deux appears on Capitol Hill…
This is the problem with a bonfire of regulations housebuilding scheme. We can't even enforce standards as they are and it's ruining the finances and living conditions of young people desperate to get on the housing ladder.
It's mad that I've had fewer issues in a 150 year old tenement, built to house dockers in what was the seediest part of Edinburgh.
Turning this round - wouldn't it be better to have a modest quantity of regulations actually enforced, rather than millions of them ignored by everyone?
Did this sort of nonsense happen before ? These sorts of issues seem much more prevalent on new build estates compared to previous times.
Sort of on topic, the real savings are probably in the types of treatment and care than extend, say, the life of a 85 year old in poor health by 18-24 months in slightly less poor health but with chronic conditions and in some pain, before they diminish again and die. And that won't be just cancer treatment, and nor will it be cheap.
I'm not sure how you'd quantity that, though, or deprioritise over a childhood or mainstream working adult cancer because you then start to go against the hypocratic oath.
Isn't this what the Quality Adjusted Life Year metric is supposed to address? The QA part accounts for that year in pain with chronic conditions being different from a year where a younger adult is in remission and doesn't have those extra conditions, and the LY part rates "we cured a child's cancer and they got an extra 60 years" as worth sixty times more than "an elderly person got another year". Medicine has to prioritise, because we can't give it infinite resources.
Yes, but I believe with two caveats.
Firstly, the politicians have meddled with this, and overridden the system, with regard to certain cancer drugs in particular, as it happens. Often in response to newspaper campaigns.
Secondly, it operates in relation to elective treatments and interventions, and not to acute emergency care. If an old person is brought to A&E after falling and breaking a hip, there isn't a situation where the NHS will tell them that patching them up doesn't earn enough QALYs to be worth their while and turns them away. They will be admitted to hospital and the best done for them, and their broken hip, at great expense.
Not sure I'd want an old person to be put down in that scenario, but it is an example of where the QALY calculation doesn't apply.
That’s not a great example. A hip replacement operation is not hugely expensive and has a good QALY return. You want to pick something more chronic, like dementia or heart disease.
Mobility in old people is strongly correlated with keeping them fit and active. Which is then strongly correlated with reduced requirements for medical care.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
States not ratifying electors? Faithless Electors?
Trump has been filling local vote certification/counting processes with loyalists for last four years so there's something afoot in that area. I don't know enough about the arcane USA voting counting procedures to know what the game is likely to be.
But I'm guessing somehow he wants it to end with his totally biased Supreme Court ruling in his favour.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
States not ratifying electors? Faithless Electors?
The other way is that if there’s any pending legal challenge, both parties will send a slate of electors to the Electoral College meeting and let Congress decide what to do. It’s a horribly arcane 18th century process for something that should be so simple in the 21st century.
A bit like the states taking weeks to count the votes in the first place, when almost every other Western democracy has the counting done in 24 hours.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
1) The MAGA Republicans in the election system hold up the results for states that Harris wins on the grounds they are “wrong”. They even try to send electors for Trump… 2) Trump demands that the EC meets on the date specified. With an incomplete set of EC electors. 3) MAGA Mob Part Deux appears on Capitol Hill…
I don't think 3 will work this time. Not at Capitol Hill. Biden and Dems will still be running the country even after the vote and so Washington will be in total lock-down in November onwards with a ring of steel around public buildings etc etc.
Sort of on topic, the real savings are probably in the types of treatment and care than extend, say, the life of a 85 year old in poor health by 18-24 months in slightly less poor health but with chronic conditions and in some pain, before they diminish again and die. And that won't be just cancer treatment, and nor will it be cheap.
I'm not sure how you'd quantity that, though, or deprioritise over a childhood or mainstream working adult cancer because you then start to go against the hypocratic oath.
Isn't this what the Quality Adjusted Life Year metric is supposed to address? The QA part accounts for that year in pain with chronic conditions being different from a year where a younger adult is in remission and doesn't have those extra conditions, and the LY part rates "we cured a child's cancer and they got an extra 60 years" as worth sixty times more than "an elderly person got another year". Medicine has to prioritise, because we can't give it infinite resources.
That’s exactly what QALYs are for. My father was involved in promulgating usage in the NHS.
One of the more obvious fixes for the huge waiting lists in the NHS would be to temporarily nudge the value of a QALY down a bit - thus rationing the availabile treatment more by VFM rather than position in a queue.
Alas, this would require the sort of political bravery neither side of the house has (it would have been an obvious thing to include in Starmer's "everything is broken" speach yesterday).
No. QALYs are used to decide on what treatments it’s worth paying for. They’re mainly about drug costs. Waiting lists are generally people waiting to be assessed for what treatment they should have. Changing the QALY threshold wouldn’t free up much clinician time. It would save the NHS money.
My guess, FWIW, is that if there is any truth in this at all Truss was probably deeply frustrated at the inertia and lack of response from Treasury officials who were telling her everything was impossible because they frankly refused to think out the box at all. So, they were given an extreme example of what a government could do if they really needed to cut spending immediately.
Other than an example of what could, in theory, be done it makes no sense whatsoever.
My guess, FWIW, is that if there is any truth in this at all Truss was probably deeply frustrated at the inertia and lack of response from Treasury officials who were telling her everything was impossible because they frankly refused to think out the box at all. So, they were given an extreme example of what a government could do if they really needed to cut spending immediately.
Other than an example of what could, in theory, be done it makes no sense whatsoever.
That last sentence does rather assume the actions of Liz Truss have to make sense.
I pooh-poohed this story last night on the ground of insanity. I was wrong about that because this is Truss we are talking about. Truss is both insane in herself and talks to insane right wing usonians to whom abolishing socialised medicine for cancer and everything else is an obvious and uncontroversial step to take.
Aside from that story being nothing to do with Truss.
The argument it makes is interesting, but I think wrong.
The lack of a national system is really a mix of state level control and the power of the medical industrial complex in the US.
Nothing directly to do with Truss but shorthand for the point that if she actively talks to US right-wingers about healthcare we are not just not looking out of the same Overton window, we are not even in the same Overton house.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
It's an important principle of democratic politics that both sides respect the process and accept the result.
Things start to break down in various ways when that stops happening. Even if it doesn't create a route for Trump to usurp power, it corrodes the body politic as a whole.
My guess, FWIW, is that if there is any truth in this at all Truss was probably deeply frustrated at the inertia and lack of response from Treasury officials who were telling her everything was impossible because they frankly refused to think out the box at all. So, they were given an extreme example of what a government could do if they really needed to cut spending immediately.
Other than an example of what could, in theory, be done it makes no sense whatsoever.
A charitable scenario might have been Truss demanding cuts of X billion, and someone commenting "that's the entire cancer treatment budget" perhaps
My guess, FWIW, is that if there is any truth in this at all Truss was probably deeply frustrated at the inertia and lack of response from Treasury officials who were telling her everything was impossible because they frankly refused to think out the box at all. So, they were given an extreme example of what a government could do if they really needed to cut spending immediately.
Other than an example of what could, in theory, be done it makes no sense whatsoever.
That last sentence does rather assume the actions of Liz Truss have to make sense.
This story definitely has a ring of plausibility about it. The people Liz is now hanging out with in the US regard state-provided health care as a kind of slavery: the government literally imposing its authority over the bodies of it citizens. So one can see how Liz would regard abolishing NHS services both as a facilitation of her great calling - growth, growth, growth - and as human emancipation. Two birds with one stone and all that.
The people here who want a much smaller state never seem to look at the US and realise that’s what you get. Cripplingly high healthcare costs, yet worse health outcomes.
The NHS structure is pretty much unique to the U.K. among advanced countries.
As is the US setup.
The US system is actually heavily socialised. IIRC if you took the military, Medicare and Medicaid budgets, you could pay for an American NHS.
The US system is expensive and poor in quality and coverage.
But there are many, many models of full healthcare, both in Europe and elsewhere.
More myths! The UK system is not that unique. Italy has something pretty similar, for example. Ditto New Zealand, ditto Spain, ditto Canada. (See https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/why-has-the-nhs-not-been-copied-spoiler-it-has ) And while there are differences between the NHS and the systems in France and Germany, they are more alike than any of them are like the US’s.
The US, indeed, spends very large amounts of public money on healthcare, and even more private money. It is a staggeringly inefficient system. And a lot of that is because of small state-ism. Most national healthcare systems use state power to aggressively drive down costs. The US doesn’t. The US has laws in place banning them from using the quasi-monopsonic power of the state as a purchaser of healthcare costs. Smaller state doesn’t mean the individual lives a life of libertarian joy. It means big companies take over, drive up costs and fuck employees.
My guess, FWIW, is that if there is any truth in this at all Truss was probably deeply frustrated at the inertia and lack of response from Treasury officials who were telling her everything was impossible because they frankly refused to think out the box at all. So, they were given an extreme example of what a government could do if they really needed to cut spending immediately.
Other than an example of what could, in theory, be done it makes no sense whatsoever.
That last sentence does rather assume the actions of Liz Truss have to make sense.
Don't we still have to refer to her as THE TRUSS?
To maintain the housebuilding theme? Yes, of course. (Wouldn't surprise me to find a modern house so badly done it's lacking all but one ...).
This is the problem with a bonfire of regulations housebuilding scheme. We can't even enforce standards as they are and it's ruining the finances and living conditions of young people desperate to get on the housing ladder.
It's mad that I've had fewer issues in a 150 year old tenement, built to house dockers in what was the seediest part of Edinburgh.
Turning this round - wouldn't it be better to have a modest quantity of regulations actually enforced, rather than millions of them ignored by everyone?
Did this sort of nonsense happen before ? These sorts of issues seem much more prevalent on new build estates compared to previous times.
Shoddy building work has been around since Ug moved out of his cave. Larger developers have also always tended to be the most shoddy - small time builders who trade on their reputations have much more incentive to get stuff right first time around.
The main issue is that the rapidly growing burden of regulation is imposing substantial costs on smaller builders, so squeezing them out in favour of the bigger (and generally worse) players.
Rewinding building regs to those in force in say 2000 would have much more effect on the cost of housing than Barty's preferred abolition of planning permission.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
It's an important principle of democratic politics that both sides respect the process and accept the result.
Things start to break down in various ways when that stops happening. Even if it doesn't create a route for Trump to usurp power, it corrodes the body politic as a whole.
Well he is going to do all that stuff and more besides, the key thing is to avoid indulging the stupid tosser by luxuriating in the latest antidemocratic nonsense he comes out with. A lesson unlearned by several PBers.
This is the problem with a bonfire of regulations housebuilding scheme. We can't even enforce standards as they are and it's ruining the finances and living conditions of young people desperate to get on the housing ladder.
It's mad that I've had fewer issues in a 150 year old tenement, built to house dockers in what was the seediest part of Edinburgh.
A young woman, who didn’t want to be identified, tells me that within weeks of moving in, the entire staircase collapsed and her husband fell into the understairs cupboard.
"The contractor who came to fix it said there was only one screw in each step. There should have been 14," she says.
"We’ll leave as soon as we can – too many bad memories here."
Look at the comments under the article too. Housing developers are going to be this parliament's water companies.
Yet more reasons to deregulate planning, so the land doesn’t end up in the hands of a few large developers.
They have massive scales of economy and will always undercut smaller developers. I don't think this anything to do with planning.
The other baddie is management companies. Even in Scotland, where we have freehold, the factoring fees can be as high as £150 per month on new builds.
Yet in every nation where planning is not a restriction, houses are built in small amounts by small companies that compete with each other and not by an oligopoly of large developers.
It's entirely to do with planning. The likes of Barratt know they have no competition solely due to the planning system.
Eyes down, boys. We're heading into a 72 hour local planning regulation post-a-thon.
Are you bricking it?
If so, hang fire, there's lots mortar come.
It's enough to make me lose the plot. I am flat out of here.
I bet you end up at most semi-detached.
Posters should be free, hold any view on the matter.
Oh gosh. That's really bad.
At lease make the effort.
The thing about the housing debate is that everyone's responses are so predictable. We can play buzzword bingo with them.
It won't be long before someone has a full house.
But then it will collapse, because they have a screw loose.
Or completely missing.
I was just reading this about the high quality of modern mass building in Cambridgeshire or somewhere flat like that (which might interest @JosiasJessop )
'A young woman, who didn’t want to be identified, tells me that within weeks of moving in, the entire staircase collapsed and her husband fell into the understairs cupboard.
"The contractor who came to fix it said there was only one screw in each step. There should have been 14," she says.'
That was the story that kicked off this discussion, I believe.
Process
1) an elaborate design 2) the design specifies the exact number of screws to hold up a staircase tread. 3) metric tons of documents are generated to all the elaborate regulations 4) some bloke is given no time, to do all the staircases. 5) he leaves the project because he finds a better job. 6) the half finished staircase is installed. Because no one knows it is half finished. 7) inspected by being glanced at - if that. 8) house sold.
What’s wrong with that?
'Samantha Curling, chairwoman of the National Association of Professional Snagging Inspectors, external, says they are sadly not isolated cases and "most developers have at least one site they’re not proud of".
"The supply chain has dwindled but the demand for new homes has increased so it’s a fighting battle to get skilled tradespeople to finish the job," she says.
"Many have told me they won’t work on new-build sites because of the rates of pay and the pressure to do more than is humanly possible."'
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
The plan is for Trump to set the overarching narrative of a stolen election then for pliant lackies in state houses, state courts, the senate, the house & SCOTUS to deliver him the election. If it's a very narrow Democrat win it could work, think Florida 2000 on steroids.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
The plan is for Trump to set the overarching narrative of a stolen election then for pliant lackies in state houses, state courts, the senate, the house & SCOTUS to deliver him the election. If it's a very narrow Democrat win it could work, think Florida 2000 on steroids.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
It's an important principle of democratic politics that both sides respect the process and accept the result.
Things start to break down in various ways when that stops happening. Even if it doesn't create a route for Trump to usurp power, it corrodes the body politic as a whole.
Also if he can get 'his' officials to refuse to certify the election goes to the States and there are more Republican States than Democrat States. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwxkSYHB7zU
This is the problem with a bonfire of regulations housebuilding scheme. We can't even enforce standards as they are and it's ruining the finances and living conditions of young people desperate to get on the housing ladder.
It's mad that I've had fewer issues in a 150 year old tenement, built to house dockers in what was the seediest part of Edinburgh.
A young woman, who didn’t want to be identified, tells me that within weeks of moving in, the entire staircase collapsed and her husband fell into the understairs cupboard.
"The contractor who came to fix it said there was only one screw in each step. There should have been 14," she says.
"We’ll leave as soon as we can – too many bad memories here."
Look at the comments under the article too. Housing developers are going to be this parliament's water companies.
Yet more reasons to deregulate planning, so the land doesn’t end up in the hands of a few large developers.
They have massive scales of economy and will always undercut smaller developers. I don't think this anything to do with planning.
The other baddie is management companies. Even in Scotland, where we have freehold, the factoring fees can be as high as £150 per month on new builds.
Yet in every nation where planning is not a restriction, houses are built in small amounts by small companies that compete with each other and not by an oligopoly of large developers.
It's entirely to do with planning. The likes of Barratt know they have no competition solely due to the planning system.
Eyes down, boys. We're heading into a 72 hour local planning regulation post-a-thon.
Are you bricking it?
If so, hang fire, there's lots mortar come.
It's enough to make me lose the plot. I am flat out of here.
I bet you end up at most semi-detached.
Posters should be free, hold any view on the matter.
Oh gosh. That's really bad.
At lease make the effort.
The thing about the housing debate is that everyone's responses are so predictable. We can play buzzword bingo with them.
It won't be long before someone has a full house.
But then it will collapse, because they have a screw loose.
Or completely missing.
I was just reading this about the high quality of modern mass building in Cambridgeshire or somewhere flat like that (which might interest @JosiasJessop )
'A young woman, who didn’t want to be identified, tells me that within weeks of moving in, the entire staircase collapsed and her husband fell into the understairs cupboard.
"The contractor who came to fix it said there was only one screw in each step. There should have been 14," she says.'
That was the story that kicked off this discussion, I believe.
Process
1) an elaborate design 2) the design specifies the exact number of screws to hold up a staircase tread. 3) metric tons of documents are generated to all the elaborate regulations 4) some bloke is given no time, to do all the staircases. 5) he leaves the project because he finds a better job. 6) the half finished staircase is installed. Because no one knows it is half finished. 7) inspected by being glanced at - if that. 8) house sold.
What’s wrong with that?
'Samantha Curling, chairwoman of the National Association of Professional Snagging Inspectors, external, says they are sadly not isolated cases and "most developers have at least one site they’re not proud of".
"The supply chain has dwindled but the demand for new homes has increased so it’s a fighting battle to get skilled tradespeople to finish the job," she says.
"Many have told me they won’t work on new-build sites because of the rates of pay and the pressure to do more than is humanly possible."'
Did you fall over with surprise when you read that?
The people running the house building companies believe in the Process State as much as the politicians and regulators.
They are lawyers and accountants. The Process was followed. Therefore they have no moral or legal responsibility, in their minds, for the outcome.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
The plan is for Trump to set the overarching narrative of a stolen election then for pliant lackies in state houses, state courts, the senate, the house & SCOTUS to deliver him the election. If it's a very narrow Democrat win it could work, think Florida 2000 on steroids.
No, it won't work.
It could. Why do you think MAGA have been working so hard to take over the election process in every state they can?
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
The plan is for Trump to set the overarching narrative of a stolen election then for pliant lackies in state houses, state courts, the senate, the house & SCOTUS to deliver him the election. If it's a very narrow Democrat win it could work, think Florida 2000 on steroids.
No, it won't work.
It could. Why do you think MAGA have been working so hard to take over the election process in every state they can?
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
The plan is for Trump to set the overarching narrative of a stolen election then for pliant lackies in state houses, state courts, the senate, the house & SCOTUS to deliver him the election. If it's a very narrow Democrat win it could work, think Florida 2000 on steroids.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
It's an important principle of democratic politics that both sides respect the process and accept the result.
Things start to break down in various ways when that stops happening. Even if it doesn't create a route for Trump to usurp power, it corrodes the body politic as a whole.
Also if he can get 'his' officials to refuse to certify the election goes to the States and there are more Republican States than Democrat States. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwxkSYHB7zU
Sort of on topic, the real savings are probably in the types of treatment and care than extend, say, the life of a 85 year old in poor health by 18-24 months in slightly less poor health but with chronic conditions and in some pain, before they diminish again and die. And that won't be just cancer treatment, and nor will it be cheap.
I'm not sure how you'd quantity that, though, or deprioritise over a childhood or mainstream working adult cancer because you then start to go against the hypocratic oath.
Isn't this what the Quality Adjusted Life Year metric is supposed to address? The QA part accounts for that year in pain with chronic conditions being different from a year where a younger adult is in remission and doesn't have those extra conditions, and the LY part rates "we cured a child's cancer and they got an extra 60 years" as worth sixty times more than "an elderly person got another year". Medicine has to prioritise, because we can't give it infinite resources.
Yes, but I believe with two caveats.
Firstly, the politicians have meddled with this, and overridden the system, with regard to certain cancer drugs in particular, as it happens. Often in response to newspaper campaigns.
Secondly, it operates in relation to elective treatments and interventions, and not to acute emergency care. If an old person is brought to A&E after falling and breaking a hip, there isn't a situation where the NHS will tell them that patching them up doesn't earn enough QALYs to be worth their while and turns them away. They will be admitted to hospital and the best done for them, and their broken hip, at great expense.
Not sure I'd want an old person to be put down in that scenario, but it is an example of where the QALY calculation doesn't apply.
That’s not a great example. A hip replacement operation is not hugely expensive and has a good QALY return. You want to pick something more chronic, like dementia or heart disease.
FWIW, my 97-year-old uncle is thriving after a cataract operation on his one good eye, and my son's 94-year-old granny-in-law is getting both eyes done soon.
Sort of on topic, the real savings are probably in the types of treatment and care than extend, say, the life of a 85 year old in poor health by 18-24 months in slightly less poor health but with chronic conditions and in some pain, before they diminish again and die. And that won't be just cancer treatment, and nor will it be cheap.
I'm not sure how you'd quantity that, though, or deprioritise over a childhood or mainstream working adult cancer because you then start to go against the hypocratic oath.
Isn't this what the Quality Adjusted Life Year metric is supposed to address? The QA part accounts for that year in pain with chronic conditions being different from a year where a younger adult is in remission and doesn't have those extra conditions, and the LY part rates "we cured a child's cancer and they got an extra 60 years" as worth sixty times more than "an elderly person got another year". Medicine has to prioritise, because we can't give it infinite resources.
Yes, but I believe with two caveats.
Firstly, the politicians have meddled with this, and overridden the system, with regard to certain cancer drugs in particular, as it happens. Often in response to newspaper campaigns.
Secondly, it operates in relation to elective treatments and interventions, and not to acute emergency care. If an old person is brought to A&E after falling and breaking a hip, there isn't a situation where the NHS will tell them that patching them up doesn't earn enough QALYs to be worth their while and turns them away. They will be admitted to hospital and the best done for them, and their broken hip, at great expense.
Not sure I'd want an old person to be put down in that scenario, but it is an example of where the QALY calculation doesn't apply.
That’s not a great example. A hip replacement operation is not hugely expensive and has a good QALY return. You want to pick something more chronic, like dementia or heart disease.
FWIW, my 97-year-old uncle is thriving after a cataract operation on his one good eye, and my son's 94-year-old granny-in-law is getting both eyes done soon.
Cataracts are a great example of a cheap op with a big QALY gain.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Made the mistake of employing a British housebuilder.
From the song Why Aye man:
"We're the nomad tribes, travelling boys (why aye, why aye man) In the dust and dirt and the racket and the noise (why aye, why aye man) Drills and hammers, diggers and picks (why aye, why aye man) Mixing concrete, laying bricks (why aye, why aye man) There's English, Irish, Scots, the lot United Nation's what we've got Brickies, chippies, every trade German-built and British-made"
Presumably before we got made redundant by the Poles.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
It's an important principle of democratic politics that both sides respect the process and accept the result.
Things start to break down in various ways when that stops happening. Even if it doesn't create a route for Trump to usurp power, it corrodes the body politic as a whole.
Also if he can get 'his' officials to refuse to certify the election goes to the States and there are more Republican States than Democrat States. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwxkSYHB7zU
We heard exactly the same stuff last time.
Maybe you missed the fury from the MAGA types when Republican election officials in various states certified the real results.
In many, many cases, they were thrown out at the next elections and replaced with hard core MAGA.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
It's an important principle of democratic politics that both sides respect the process and accept the result.
Things start to break down in various ways when that stops happening. Even if it doesn't create a route for Trump to usurp power, it corrodes the body politic as a whole.
Also if he can get 'his' officials to refuse to certify the election goes to the States and there are more Republican States than Democrat States. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwxkSYHB7zU
We heard exactly the same stuff last time.
Yes but a lot of the people (Like Pence) who refused to go along and did their duty the last time have been replaced by those willing to follow Trump's lead. This is already leading to litigation in Georgia, for example.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
It's an important principle of democratic politics that both sides respect the process and accept the result.
Things start to break down in various ways when that stops happening. Even if it doesn't create a route for Trump to usurp power, it corrodes the body politic as a whole.
Also if he can get 'his' officials to refuse to certify the election goes to the States and there are more Republican States than Democrat States. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwxkSYHB7zU
We heard exactly the same stuff last time.
Maybe you missed the fury from the MAGA types when Republican election officials in various states certified the real results.
In many, many cases, they were thrown out at the next elections and replaced with hard core MAGA.
It still isn't going to make Trump president. 270 to win – that's it. Trump and his moronic henchmen can try what they like, but unless he gets 270 he loses.
If this happens JohnO and I have already said we’re leaving the party, we won’t be the only ones.
Four in 10 Tory members would support a merger of the Conservative Party with Reform UK, a new poll has revealed.
Asked whether Nigel Farage’s party should merge with the Tories, a total of 42 per cent of Conservative members supported such a move.
The survey, conducted by YouGov, found that slightly more members opposed a Tory-Reform merger, at 51 per cent.
The Tories saw a draining of support to Reform at the general election, with 25 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters switching allegiance, according to YouGov.
Half of Tory members believed a merger would improve their chances of winning the next election.
Sort of on topic, the real savings are probably in the types of treatment and care than extend, say, the life of a 85 year old in poor health by 18-24 months in slightly less poor health but with chronic conditions and in some pain, before they diminish again and die. And that won't be just cancer treatment, and nor will it be cheap.
I'm not sure how you'd quantity that, though, or deprioritise over a childhood or mainstream working adult cancer because you then start to go against the hypocratic oath.
We do make these sorts of decisions in the NHS to a degree. Breast cancer screening in the UK stops at 71, for example. That’s not because a woman’s risk goes down after 71. Quite the reverse, the risk just keeps going up with age. It’s because the expected lifespan saved goes down as you get older.
You will not be automatically sent an invitation for screening, however you can still get screened if you ask.
My mum did exactly this at 75, cancer was found, 15 daily does of radio over 3 weeks and ring the bell. Right as rain how (5 years later)
If this happens JohnO and I have already said we’re leaving the party, we won’t be the only ones.
Four in 10 Tory members would support a merger of the Conservative Party with Reform UK, a new poll has revealed.
Asked whether Nigel Farage’s party should merge with the Tories, a total of 42 per cent of Conservative members supported such a move.
The survey, conducted by YouGov, found that slightly more members opposed a Tory-Reform merger, at 51 per cent.
The Tories saw a draining of support to Reform at the general election, with 25 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters switching allegiance, according to YouGov.
Half of Tory members believed a merger would improve their chances of winning the next election.
If this happens JohnO and I have already said we’re leaving the party, we won’t be the only ones.
Four in 10 Tory members would support a merger of the Conservative Party with Reform UK, a new poll has revealed.
Asked whether Nigel Farage’s party should merge with the Tories, a total of 42 per cent of Conservative members supported such a move.
The survey, conducted by YouGov, found that slightly more members opposed a Tory-Reform merger, at 51 per cent.
The Tories saw a draining of support to Reform at the general election, with 25 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters switching allegiance, according to YouGov.
Half of Tory members believed a merger would improve their chances of winning the next election.
This is like asking someone whether they want their girlfriend/boyfriend who left them back. It's not up to them. It's up to the girl/boyfriend. What do Reform UK members and voters think about a merger?
Sort of on topic, the real savings are probably in the types of treatment and care than extend, say, the life of a 85 year old in poor health by 18-24 months in slightly less poor health but with chronic conditions and in some pain, before they diminish again and die. And that won't be just cancer treatment, and nor will it be cheap.
I'm not sure how you'd quantity that, though, or deprioritise over a childhood or mainstream working adult cancer because you then start to go against the hypocratic oath.
Isn't this what the Quality Adjusted Life Year metric is supposed to address? The QA part accounts for that year in pain with chronic conditions being different from a year where a younger adult is in remission and doesn't have those extra conditions, and the LY part rates "we cured a child's cancer and they got an extra 60 years" as worth sixty times more than "an elderly person got another year". Medicine has to prioritise, because we can't give it infinite resources.
Yes, but I believe with two caveats.
Firstly, the politicians have meddled with this, and overridden the system, with regard to certain cancer drugs in particular, as it happens. Often in response to newspaper campaigns.
Secondly, it operates in relation to elective treatments and interventions, and not to acute emergency care. If an old person is brought to A&E after falling and breaking a hip, there isn't a situation where the NHS will tell them that patching them up doesn't earn enough QALYs to be worth their while and turns them away. They will be admitted to hospital and the best done for them, and their broken hip, at great expense.
Not sure I'd want an old person to be put down in that scenario, but it is an example of where the QALY calculation doesn't apply.
That’s not a great example. A hip replacement operation is not hugely expensive and has a good QALY return. You want to pick something more chronic, like dementia or heart disease.
FWIW, my 97-year-old uncle is thriving after a cataract operation on his one good eye, and my son's 94-year-old granny-in-law is getting both eyes done soon.
Cataracts are a great example of a cheap op with a big QALY gain.
Not only that, they have knock on benefits, since the individual won't require the same level of care.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
It's an important principle of democratic politics that both sides respect the process and accept the result.
Things start to break down in various ways when that stops happening. Even if it doesn't create a route for Trump to usurp power, it corrodes the body politic as a whole.
Also if he can get 'his' officials to refuse to certify the election goes to the States and there are more Republican States than Democrat States. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwxkSYHB7zU
We heard exactly the same stuff last time.
Maybe you missed the fury from the MAGA types when Republican election officials in various states certified the real results.
In many, many cases, they were thrown out at the next elections and replaced with hard core MAGA.
It still isn't going to make Trump president. 270 to win – that's it. Trump and his moronic henchmen can try what they like, but unless he gets 270 he loses.
Yes, but the vote counting stage remains a worry. That's how the Supreme Court got to decide in 2000.
Harris needs to win comfortably, otherwise there's a genuine risk.
If this happens JohnO and I have already said we’re leaving the party, we won’t be the only ones.
Four in 10 Tory members would support a merger of the Conservative Party with Reform UK, a new poll has revealed.
Asked whether Nigel Farage’s party should merge with the Tories, a total of 42 per cent of Conservative members supported such a move.
The survey, conducted by YouGov, found that slightly more members opposed a Tory-Reform merger, at 51 per cent.
The Tories saw a draining of support to Reform at the general election, with 25 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters switching allegiance, according to YouGov.
Half of Tory members believed a merger would improve their chances of winning the next election.
My guess, FWIW, is that if there is any truth in this at all Truss was probably deeply frustrated at the inertia and lack of response from Treasury officials who were telling her everything was impossible because they frankly refused to think out the box at all. So, they were given an extreme example of what a government could do if they really needed to cut spending immediately.
Other than an example of what could, in theory, be done it makes no sense whatsoever.
Broadly concur, but most cost cutting is political choices not civil servants blue sky thinking.
If this happens JohnO and I have already said we’re leaving the party, we won’t be the only ones.
Four in 10 Tory members would support a merger of the Conservative Party with Reform UK, a new poll has revealed.
Asked whether Nigel Farage’s party should merge with the Tories, a total of 42 per cent of Conservative members supported such a move.
The survey, conducted by YouGov, found that slightly more members opposed a Tory-Reform merger, at 51 per cent.
The Tories saw a draining of support to Reform at the general election, with 25 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters switching allegiance, according to YouGov.
Half of Tory members believed a merger would improve their chances of winning the next election.
If this happens JohnO and I have already said we’re leaving the party, we won’t be the only ones.
Four in 10 Tory members would support a merger of the Conservative Party with Reform UK, a new poll has revealed.
Asked whether Nigel Farage’s party should merge with the Tories, a total of 42 per cent of Conservative members supported such a move.
The survey, conducted by YouGov, found that slightly more members opposed a Tory-Reform merger, at 51 per cent.
The Tories saw a draining of support to Reform at the general election, with 25 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters switching allegiance, according to YouGov.
Half of Tory members believed a merger would improve their chances of winning the next election.
If this happens JohnO and I have already said we’re leaving the party, we won’t be the only ones.
Four in 10 Tory members would support a merger of the Conservative Party with Reform UK, a new poll has revealed.
Asked whether Nigel Farage’s party should merge with the Tories, a total of 42 per cent of Conservative members supported such a move.
The survey, conducted by YouGov, found that slightly more members opposed a Tory-Reform merger, at 51 per cent.
The Tories saw a draining of support to Reform at the general election, with 25 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters switching allegiance, according to YouGov.
Half of Tory members believed a merger would improve their chances of winning the next election.
Sort of on topic, the real savings are probably in the types of treatment and care than extend, say, the life of a 85 year old in poor health by 18-24 months in slightly less poor health but with chronic conditions and in some pain, before they diminish again and die. And that won't be just cancer treatment, and nor will it be cheap.
I'm not sure how you'd quantity that, though, or deprioritise over a childhood or mainstream working adult cancer because you then start to go against the hypocratic oath.
Isn't this what the Quality Adjusted Life Year metric is supposed to address? The QA part accounts for that year in pain with chronic conditions being different from a year where a younger adult is in remission and doesn't have those extra conditions, and the LY part rates "we cured a child's cancer and they got an extra 60 years" as worth sixty times more than "an elderly person got another year". Medicine has to prioritise, because we can't give it infinite resources.
Yes, but I believe with two caveats.
Firstly, the politicians have meddled with this, and overridden the system, with regard to certain cancer drugs in particular, as it happens. Often in response to newspaper campaigns.
Secondly, it operates in relation to elective treatments and interventions, and not to acute emergency care. If an old person is brought to A&E after falling and breaking a hip, there isn't a situation where the NHS will tell them that patching them up doesn't earn enough QALYs to be worth their while and turns them away. They will be admitted to hospital and the best done for them, and their broken hip, at great expense.
Not sure I'd want an old person to be put down in that scenario, but it is an example of where the QALY calculation doesn't apply.
That’s not a great example. A hip replacement operation is not hugely expensive and has a good QALY return. You want to pick something more chronic, like dementia or heart disease.
FWIW, my 97-year-old uncle is thriving after a cataract operation on his one good eye, and my son's 94-year-old granny-in-law is getting both eyes done soon.
Cataracts are a great example of a cheap op with a big QALY gain.
Thus a prime candidate for private treatment, as I can confirm
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
1) The MAGA Republicans in the election system hold up the results for states that Harris wins on the grounds they are “wrong”. They even try to send electors for Trump… 2) Trump demands that the EC meets on the date specified. With an incomplete set of EC electors. 3) MAGA Mob Part Deux appears on Capitol Hill…
If this happens JohnO and I have already said we’re leaving the party, we won’t be the only ones.
Four in 10 Tory members would support a merger of the Conservative Party with Reform UK, a new poll has revealed.
Asked whether Nigel Farage’s party should merge with the Tories, a total of 42 per cent of Conservative members supported such a move.
The survey, conducted by YouGov, found that slightly more members opposed a Tory-Reform merger, at 51 per cent.
The Tories saw a draining of support to Reform at the general election, with 25 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters switching allegiance, according to YouGov.
Half of Tory members believed a merger would improve their chances of winning the next election.
In practice it wouldn't be a merger. Farage would just accept the Conservative whip.
I can't see why Farage would accept those terms.
Ambition. Would need the next leader to be failing and open to Farage.
If Farage wanted to be in the Conservative Party, he could join the Conservative Party. He currently has far more leverage than a random Conservative backbench MP. If he's to agree to a merger, he'll want more. Like he takes over as leader, or at least he gets a senior Shadow Cabinet position.
If this happens JohnO and I have already said we’re leaving the party, we won’t be the only ones.
Lib Dem or Labour?
Neither, I am a fiscally dry free market Thatcherite, my principles haven’t changed.
Same problem as per mainstream Republicans after MAGA takeover. Only real answer is to stay and fight, as happened with Labour. Eventually an opportunity arises to ditch the nutters. But it requires stamina and a slightly longer-time horizon.
This is the problem with a bonfire of regulations housebuilding scheme. We can't even enforce standards as they are and it's ruining the finances and living conditions of young people desperate to get on the housing ladder.
It's mad that I've had fewer issues in a 150 year old tenement, built to house dockers in what was the seediest part of Edinburgh.
Turning this round - wouldn't it be better to have a modest quantity of regulations actually enforced, rather than millions of them ignored by everyone?
Did this sort of nonsense happen before ? These sorts of issues seem much more prevalent on new build estates compared to previous times.
Shoddy building work has been around since Ug moved out of his cave. Larger developers have also always tended to be the most shoddy - small time builders who trade on their reputations have much more incentive to get stuff right first time around.
The main issue is that the rapidly growing burden of regulation is imposing substantial costs on smaller builders, so squeezing them out in favour of the bigger (and generally worse) players.
Rewinding building regs to those in force in say 2000 would have much more effect on the cost of housing than Barty's preferred abolition of planning permission.
Though it is the requirement for planning permission that is giving permission to the big developers to build 100s of homes in estates, while preventing small developers from getting permission to build small quantities of homes.
If small developers didn't need permission to build, they'd be able to do so.
If this happens JohnO and I have already said we’re leaving the party, we won’t be the only ones.
Four in 10 Tory members would support a merger of the Conservative Party with Reform UK, a new poll has revealed.
Asked whether Nigel Farage’s party should merge with the Tories, a total of 42 per cent of Conservative members supported such a move.
The survey, conducted by YouGov, found that slightly more members opposed a Tory-Reform merger, at 51 per cent.
The Tories saw a draining of support to Reform at the general election, with 25 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters switching allegiance, according to YouGov.
Half of Tory members believed a merger would improve their chances of winning the next election.
In practice it wouldn't be a merger. Farage would just accept the Conservative whip.
I can't see why Farage would accept those terms.
Ambition. Would need the next leader to be failing and open to Farage.
If Farage wanted to be in the Conservative Party, he could join the Conservative Party. He currently has far more leverage than a random Conservative backbench MP. If he's to agree to a merger, he'll want more. Like he takes over as leader, or at least he gets a senior Shadow Cabinet position.
Farage is a disrupter, not a Conservative. Like Rupert Murdoch he hates the establishment, despises many of the institutions, and is in love with the less responsible elements of the media. He's right-wing but he ain't a Tory.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
It's an important principle of democratic politics that both sides respect the process and accept the result.
Things start to break down in various ways when that stops happening. Even if it doesn't create a route for Trump to usurp power, it corrodes the body politic as a whole.
Also if he can get 'his' officials to refuse to certify the election goes to the States and there are more Republican States than Democrat States. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwxkSYHB7zU
We heard exactly the same stuff last time.
Maybe you missed the fury from the MAGA types when Republican election officials in various states certified the real results.
In many, many cases, they were thrown out at the next elections and replaced with hard core MAGA.
It still isn't going to make Trump president. 270 to win – that's it. Trump and his moronic henchmen can try what they like, but unless he gets 270 he loses.
Yes, but the vote counting stage remains a worry. That's how the Supreme Court got to decide in 2000.
Harris needs to win comfortably, otherwise there's a genuine risk.
+1 - the last thing a state or 3 is going to want is a late running count with 10,000 votes uncounted while Trump sits with a 1000 vote lead trying to stop more counting from taking place so he wins.
If this happens JohnO and I have already said we’re leaving the party, we won’t be the only ones.
Four in 10 Tory members would support a merger of the Conservative Party with Reform UK, a new poll has revealed.
Asked whether Nigel Farage’s party should merge with the Tories, a total of 42 per cent of Conservative members supported such a move.
The survey, conducted by YouGov, found that slightly more members opposed a Tory-Reform merger, at 51 per cent.
The Tories saw a draining of support to Reform at the general election, with 25 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters switching allegiance, according to YouGov.
Half of Tory members believed a merger would improve their chances of winning the next election.
In practice it wouldn't be a merger. Farage would just accept the Conservative whip.
I can't see why Farage would accept those terms.
Ambition. Would need the next leader to be failing and open to Farage.
If Farage wanted to be in the Conservative Party, he could join the Conservative Party. He currently has far more leverage than a random Conservative backbench MP. If he's to agree to a merger, he'll want more. Like he takes over as leader, or at least he gets a senior Shadow Cabinet position.
Farage is a disrupter, not a Conservative. Like Rupert Murdoch he hates the establishment, despises many of the institutions, and is in love with the less responsible elements of the media. He's right-wing but he ain't a Tory.
Like Murdoch he is the establishment.
He hates others within the establishment, he wants to be the sole establishment left.
If this happens JohnO and I have already said we’re leaving the party, we won’t be the only ones.
Four in 10 Tory members would support a merger of the Conservative Party with Reform UK, a new poll has revealed.
Asked whether Nigel Farage’s party should merge with the Tories, a total of 42 per cent of Conservative members supported such a move.
The survey, conducted by YouGov, found that slightly more members opposed a Tory-Reform merger, at 51 per cent.
The Tories saw a draining of support to Reform at the general election, with 25 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters switching allegiance, according to YouGov.
Half of Tory members believed a merger would improve their chances of winning the next election.
In practice it wouldn't be a merger. Farage would just accept the Conservative whip.
I can't see why Farage would accept those terms.
Ambition. Would need the next leader to be failing and open to Farage.
If Farage wanted to be in the Conservative Party, he could join the Conservative Party. He currently has far more leverage than a random Conservative backbench MP. If he's to agree to a merger, he'll want more. Like he takes over as leader, or at least he gets a senior Shadow Cabinet position.
Farage is a disrupter, not a Conservative. Like Rupert Murdoch he hates the establishment, despises many of the institutions, and is in love with the less responsible elements of the media. He's right-wing but he ain't a Tory.
The Tory party are full of establishment types who hate "the establishment" and blame it for all and sundry and enjoy flirting with silly media. And as the Johnson and Truss governments have shown, the opposite of conservative, openly trying to weaken our institutions including judiciary.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
It's an important principle of democratic politics that both sides respect the process and accept the result.
Things start to break down in various ways when that stops happening. Even if it doesn't create a route for Trump to usurp power, it corrodes the body politic as a whole.
Also if he can get 'his' officials to refuse to certify the election goes to the States and there are more Republican States than Democrat States. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwxkSYHB7zU
We heard exactly the same stuff last time.
Maybe you missed the fury from the MAGA types when Republican election officials in various states certified the real results.
In many, many cases, they were thrown out at the next elections and replaced with hard core MAGA.
It still isn't going to make Trump president. 270 to win – that's it. Trump and his moronic henchmen can try what they like, but unless he gets 270 he loses.
Yes, but the vote counting stage remains a worry. That's how the Supreme Court got to decide in 2000.
Harris needs to win comfortably, otherwise there's a genuine risk.
Agreed, I'll be voting for Harris as many times as I can just to make sure.
Laying the ground for declaring the result in November invalid.
OK, he is going to claim the result is not valid (again) but i still don't see the path from there to "so I get to be President"
What are the missing steps?
Indeed. Who cares if he does declare the result invalid?
It's an important principle of democratic politics that both sides respect the process and accept the result.
Things start to break down in various ways when that stops happening. Even if it doesn't create a route for Trump to usurp power, it corrodes the body politic as a whole.
Also if he can get 'his' officials to refuse to certify the election goes to the States and there are more Republican States than Democrat States. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwxkSYHB7zU
We heard exactly the same stuff last time.
Yes but a lot of the people (Like Pence) who refused to go along and did their duty the last time have been replaced by those willing to follow Trump's lead. This is already leading to litigation in Georgia, for example.
Pence has been replaced by Harris, who I suspect is rather LESS likely to follow Trump's lead...
People here are underestimating the significance of the Electoral Count Reform & Presidential Transition Improvement Act 2022. This makes it a good deal harder to steal the election - and, in reality, Trump didn't get close to doing so last time under the old rules.
It's true that a tight election in a close state COULD turn on number of early voting locations in Democrat cities. That's the fine margins that exist and you see why both parties battle hard on that stuff. But a wholesale "steal" is even less realistic than it was in 2020.
Like he takes over as leader, or at least he gets a senior Shadow Cabinet position.
Why would he want a shadow cabinet position?
He can't be arsed doing the paperwork now. Why add a red box he will never read?
But he's measured up the flat at No 11 and Chequers and they fit perfectly. The helicopter contract could be reinstated too. He wouldn't mind the sort of paperwork that Party donors pay Lulu Lytle handsomely for.
Comments
The basic principle was the local government services - as distinct from central government mandates - should be provided locally and the cost spread evenly. Rubbish collection etc.
Central government mandates - social care etc - should be funded with central government subventions.
Local government taxes should not be about redistribution - that’s for income tax, inheritance tax, etc.
But it got caught up in a political campaign as a stick to beat Thatcher and the Tories with
I can confirm that the UK ambassador to South Korea @ColinCrooks1 will not be taking part in the Global Korea Forum, as the British Embassy in Korea does not support panels without female representation.
Of the 15 Vice Presidents who have become president, only four were elected President while in office.
And three of those were before 1840 (John Adams 1796, Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and Martin Van Buuren in 1836).
Of the others, eight succeeded due to the death of the President, one due to resignation, and two were elected as private citizens after their term in office had expired (Nixon and Biden).
So if Harris wins, she will become only the second incumbent Vice President in the modern era to be elected President in her own right after George H Bush in 1988.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/universal-health-care-racism.html
😂😂😂
…pause for breath…
😂😂😂😂
Process
1) an elaborate design
2) the design specifies the exact number of screws to hold up a staircase tread.
3) metric tons of documents are generated to all the elaborate regulations
4) some bloke is given no time, to do all the staircases.
5) he leaves the project because he finds a better job.
6) the half finished staircase is installed. Because no one knows it is half finished.
7) inspected by being glanced at - if that.
8) house sold.
What’s wrong with that?
Often even for me.
And he equates size of crowd at an event to mean there's millions of votes for him.
The argument it makes is interesting, but I think wrong.
The lack of a national system is really a mix of state level control and the power of the medical industrial complex in the US.
Alas, this would require the sort of political bravery neither side of the house has (it would have been an obvious thing to include in Starmer's "everything is broken" speach yesterday).
Every Texas representative in Congress voted against the Biden infrastructure package, which Abbott said Texas didn't need.
Shameless.
https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-txdot-announce-record-148-billion-transportation-investment
Governor Greg Abbott today announced a record $148 billion in total investment for Texas’ transportation infrastructure. This investment includes the unanimous adoption of the more than $104 billion 10-year transportation plan by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) to improve safety, address congestion and connectivity, and preserve roadways for Texas drivers. It also includes over $43 billion for development and routine maintenance. This is a $5.6 billion increase in total investment from the previous year.
“Strengthening our roadways and transportation infrastructure is critical for Texas to remain the Best State for Business in the nation,” said Governor Abbott. “With the adoption of this record-breaking $148 billion transportation investment, Texas will continue to meet the needs of Texans in rural, urban, and suburban communities while also improving roadway congestion and safety. People come to Texas because we provide the freedom and opportunity they can’t find anywhere else, and that’s why we’re investing in the future of Texas roads. Projects like this will ensure our products and people can move quickly to keep the Texas economy booming. Together, we are building a bigger, better Texas for years to come.”
“With a booming population and economy, TxDOT is meeting the moment with a record investment in our state roadway system to ensure Texas remains the preferred destination for families and businesses,” said Texas Transportation Commission Chairman J. Bruce Bugg, Jr. “Thanks to the vision of Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Legislature, this historic transportation investment focusing on safety and congestion relief will help meet the needs of Texans for years to come.”..
As is the US setup.
The US system is actually heavily socialised. IIRC if you took the military, Medicare and Medicaid budgets, you could pay for an American NHS.
The US system is expensive and poor in quality and coverage.
But there are many, many models of full healthcare, both in Europe and elsewhere.
What are the missing steps?
Just one more reason to think her judgement isn't great.
Although I suppose it could be worse. She could have cited Neelix as her inspiration.
2) Trump demands that the EC meets on the date specified. With an incomplete set of EC electors.
3) MAGA Mob Part Deux appears on Capitol Hill…
But I'm guessing somehow he wants it to end with his totally biased Supreme Court ruling in his favour.
At the end of the last outing, she ends up as Captain of a ship named Enterprise
Across the entire franchise there have been 9 such ships
Chronologically, the one she ends up commanding is the 7th...
A bit like the states taking weeks to count the votes in the first place, when almost every other Western democracy has the counting done in 24 hours.
Other than an example of what could, in theory, be done it makes no sense whatsoever.
(They're wrong, but it's the most logical possible explanation.)
Things start to break down in various ways when that stops happening. Even if it doesn't create a route for Trump to usurp power, it corrodes the body politic as a whole.
But she deserves no charity
The US, indeed, spends very large amounts of public money on healthcare, and even more private money. It is a staggeringly inefficient system. And a lot of that is because of small state-ism. Most national healthcare systems use state power to aggressively drive down costs. The US doesn’t. The US has laws in place banning them from using the quasi-monopsonic power of the state as a purchaser of healthcare costs. Smaller state doesn’t mean the individual lives a life of libertarian joy. It means big companies take over, drive up costs and fuck employees.
Larger developers have also always tended to be the most shoddy - small time builders who trade on their reputations have much more incentive to get stuff right first time around.
The main issue is that the rapidly growing burden of regulation is imposing substantial costs on smaller builders, so squeezing them out in favour of the bigger (and generally worse) players.
Rewinding building regs to those in force in say 2000 would have much more effect on the cost of housing than Barty's preferred abolition of planning permission.
"The supply chain has dwindled but the demand for new homes has increased so it’s a fighting battle to get skilled tradespeople to finish the job," she says.
"Many have told me they won’t work on new-build sites because of the rates of pay and the pressure to do more than is humanly possible."'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwxkSYHB7zU
The people running the house building companies believe in the Process State as much as the politicians and regulators.
They are lawyers and accountants. The Process was followed. Therefore they have no moral or legal responsibility, in their minds, for the outcome.
But, it won't.
"We're the nomad tribes, travelling boys (why aye, why aye man)
In the dust and dirt and the racket and the noise (why aye, why aye man)
Drills and hammers, diggers and picks (why aye, why aye man)
Mixing concrete, laying bricks (why aye, why aye man)
There's English, Irish, Scots, the lot
United Nation's what we've got
Brickies, chippies, every trade
German-built and British-made"
Presumably before we got made redundant by the Poles.
In many, many cases, they were thrown out at the next elections and replaced with hard core MAGA.
Four in 10 Tory members would support a merger of the Conservative Party with Reform UK, a new poll has revealed.
Asked whether Nigel Farage’s party should merge with the Tories, a total of 42 per cent of Conservative members supported such a move.
The survey, conducted by YouGov, found that slightly more members opposed a Tory-Reform merger, at 51 per cent.
The Tories saw a draining of support to Reform at the general election, with 25 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters switching allegiance, according to YouGov.
Half of Tory members believed a merger would improve their chances of winning the next election.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/28/four-in-10-tory-members-back-reform-uk-merger/
My mum did exactly this at 75, cancer was found, 15 daily does of radio over 3 weeks and ring the bell.
Right as rain how (5 years later)
Harris needs to win comfortably, otherwise there's a genuine risk.
Headline writers pitching for a slot here
https://x.com/ayeejuju/status/1828527493554544759?s=61
Harris 2.06 / 2.08
Trump 2.04 / 2.06
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.176878927
Start the clock.
https://x.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1828487455315571070
You could be the right wing of the new centre party, which finally achieves a Parliamentary majority for PR.
He can't be arsed doing the paperwork now. Why add a red box he will never read?
If small developers didn't need permission to build, they'd be able to do so.
He hates others within the establishment, he wants to be the sole establishment left.
If people like him are going the party is fecked.
People here are underestimating the significance of the Electoral Count Reform & Presidential Transition Improvement Act 2022. This makes it a good deal harder to steal the election - and, in reality, Trump didn't get close to doing so last time under the old rules.
It's true that a tight election in a close state COULD turn on number of early voting locations in Democrat cities. That's the fine margins that exist and you see why both parties battle hard on that stuff. But a wholesale "steal" is even less realistic than it was in 2020.