You can no more predict the outcome of the next election today than you could in Jan 2020 or June 2015.
The curious thing about the current administration, and something that opponents might consider, is that the current tone is deliberate.
“Fixing the foundations” feels like the first part in a three act play, echoing the strategy that took Starmer to number 10, when everyone thought it impossible.
It’s definitely an unconventional start to an administration, but there’s definitely a plan at work. Smells a lot like expectation management to me.
But he's not "fixing the foundations" is he? One of his first acts was to spunk nearly £10 billion extra a year on his Union paymasters members no questions asked.
He's like a really nice kid who behaves beautifully to convince his parents to let him have a nice house party with some of his mates round and, as soon as he gets the keys by doing all his chores, and being nicer than his siblings, he goes absolutely balls-out and fucking ballistic.
Starmer needed to end the strikes pronto if he is to have the impact he needs within 5 years across the country and in the NHS in particular. Necessary and given the previous underfunding and covid efforts just.
Nice try.
He's right though. Unions had found ways to arrange strikes so that they hurt the government more than they hurt the strikers.
Consider the Minimum Service Rules the last government brought in. They were intended to redress that imbalance. But even when the government introduced them, they didn't use them, because they were bound to create more problems than they solved.
As the Good Book puts it,
Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.
Medical checks: get checked for calcium and mangnesium deficit, and Vitamin D
I cannot realistically do the 20-30K options, but I can do UK for smaller work (2 or 3 teeth) or try abroad for more complex options. So the process is:
Immediate fixes: swap diet coke for sparkling water/soda water/tonic water and reintroducing melon and chicken. This I have already done
Next steps (NHS1). Ask GP for calcium/magnesium checks and referral to a UK maxillofacial surgeon
Next steps (NHS2). Contact NHS dental hospitals directly
Next steps (UK Private). Contact UK periodontists /posh dentists and ask for a quote for two implants/3-on-2 with gum disease stabilisation and bone grafts. This is my preferred option as I think I can get this for under 10K
Next steps (Foreign private). Contact Central European dentists and see what they can do
Thank you all for your kind assistance, it is appreciated. @viewcode
Medical checks: get checked for calcium and mangnesium deficit, and Vitamin D
I cannot realistically do the 20-30K options, but I can do UK for smaller work (2 or 3 teeth) or try abroad for more complex options. So the process is:
Immediate fixes: swap diet coke for sparkling water/soda water/tonic water and reintroducing melon and chicken. This I have already done
Next steps (NHS1). Ask GP for calcium/magnesium checks and referral to a UK maxillofacial surgeon
Next steps (NHS2). Contact NHS dental hospitals directly
Next steps (UK Private). Contact UK periodontists /posh dentists and ask for a quote for two implants/3-on-2 with gum disease stabilisation and bone grafts. This is my preferred option as I think I can get this for under 10K
Next steps (Foreign private). Contact Central European dentists and see what they can do
Thank you all for your kind assistance, it is appreciated. @viewcode
Good luck. I'm not bothered much by going to the dentist but those options give me pause..
Those prices are brutal.
What did @Dura_Ace say? ‘If Mrs DA wants to render a patient unconscious she tells them what their bill is going to be.’
Medical checks: get checked for calcium and mangnesium deficit, and Vitamin D
I cannot realistically do the 20-30K options, but I can do UK for smaller work (2 or 3 teeth) or try abroad for more complex options. So the process is:
Immediate fixes: swap diet coke for sparkling water/soda water/tonic water and reintroducing melon and chicken. This I have already done
Next steps (NHS1). Ask GP for calcium/magnesium checks and referral to a UK maxillofacial surgeon
Next steps (NHS2). Contact NHS dental hospitals directly
Next steps (UK Private). Contact UK periodontists /posh dentists and ask for a quote for two implants/3-on-2 with gum disease stabilisation and bone grafts. This is my preferred option as I think I can get this for under 10K
Next steps (Foreign private). Contact Central European dentists and see what they can do
Thank you all for your kind assistance, it is appreciated. @viewcode
Good luck. I'm not bothered much by going to the dentist but those options give me pause..
What I think was a major problem is that I was seen by several dentists (just different ones in different areas - I work away from home) and nobody suggested a cure for gum disease other than "brush teeth better". It's a bacterial infection so there has to be some form of treatment, but in the UK this does not seem to be offered. Instead they recommend flossing and regular visits to a hygenist: which is fine but doesn't cure it.
So, recommendations to prevent long-term tooth loss.
Brush teeth twice a day. Floss if you can.
Mouthwashes are good but not at the same time as teethbrushing.
I remember this phase Tories are currently going through. Labour went through it after they lost in 2010. It’s tough.
It's a bit different. Labour had grief to process in 2010, Tories have known this was coming since 2021. Secondly coalition 2010 may have been a coalition with the main part itself fractured over Europe but it was a seamless monolith compared to lab with its division over Corbyn and Palestine and 2 children rule.
Harvest your capital gains Buy popcorn. Buy sub 12 months for 2 tier's first commons defeat.
It's far from easy.
It was worse post 1997, though. Then, there was no hope and noone could lay a finger on Tony.
Not a touch. We all came close to giving up.
I remember the story of Osborne and Finkelstein going to the Labour party conference before the 1997 election to hear Blair speak and then proceeding to get very drunk having concluded that they would never beat him. And they never did.
For a few days now. Is @rcs1000 anywhere need a resolution cos it is driving me bonkers.
Here is Vanilla's response:
So... we can enable the new embed system. But that doesn't seem to include ... errrr ... "embed comment functionality". Which is the entire point of Vanilla.
It probably. therefore, means it's time to move to another commenting system.
Thank you for the header, which I will read later.
Has anyone had the experience of their local shop reducing lines because of crime?
Went into my small (3500 sqft ish) up-the-road Coop last night and they have cut their number of ranges by ~1/3, which now feels empty. It's a lovely little set up - only been in around 8 years and they even bake bread on the premises, and had a very good range including eg about 15-20 types of ground coffee and beans.
They have removed all the premium products - eg said coffee, meat, high value and hard-to-break products. Much of what was left has been replaced by own brand items.
Talking to the staff, it is theft; for some time they have had multiple occurrences per day of druggy youth walking in, filling their sacks and walking out again, with impunity. The staff are under instructions not to intervene, and we are all familiar with policies making shop-lifting theft under £200 in value a permitted activity.
In Notts our rate of shoplifting for 23/24 is about 60% above the national rate (no idea whether that is even higher locally). For EW we have 3.5% of reported shop-lifting offences for 2%of the population.
There's much going on in the background that is notable - 20 police stations across Notts closed in 2013, all our community policemen removed in ~2015 as part of Mr Cameron cutting police by 15% over several years, our local police station (town of 50k) closed in 2017 where ~40 police were based, and so on.
Does anyone have similar accounts for impact of shoplifting?
I was chatting with some of my former colleagues in retail and it is just astonishing how much goes missing. This is expensive stuff and they have found shopping lists in some of the bags they have managed to intercept, with values into the 10s of thousands. All adds up, but even then it's not material to the overall revenues the shop is bringing in.
Their main issue is dealing with well-meaning customers spotting it and kicking up a fuss. They are under strict instruction not to intervene and so such confrontations cause the managers all sorts of bother.
The one thing we can be thankful for is that the drugs people are on don't tend to lead to violence. Something to watch out for though, with the retail experience in other countries much, much worse.
Why are staff under strict instructions not to intervene?
Legal liability. Someone gets injured and the company can’t prove that they said - “don’t do anything”…
In the US, this had led to staff being sacked for intervening.
In addition there is the threat of legal action from the shoplifters.
I’ve witnessed one “covering” a partner - filming it on her phone and loudly threatening assault charges/sexual assault charges if either are touched.
It’s worth noting that in the Goode Olde Days, “store detectives” and the like had a nasty rep for violence, false imprisonment and racism.
The police were only involved to take custody of the shoplifters, from the store staff, back then.
We could end up with an older model - everything high value behind the counter. What are currently cigarettes, spirits and batteries extended to meat, coffee and some more things.
I think the attitude intervention may swing back. We'll see.
What does this say about trust? It says that for about 50 years, from 1960 to 2010, shops felt they could trust 99.9% of customers not to shoplift their goods.
A big part of it is that shoplifting has been effectively decriminalised.
We hear a lot about "poverty", and I'm not saying lots of people aren't struggling, but almost all of them don't shoplift and do use food banks.
It's drug addicts and gangs nicking for cash - unpoliced- that are the big problem.
No excuse whatsoever for anyone to be shoplifting/thieving apart from the fact that they are lowlife scumbags. Nothing worse than a thief.
I think the converse - how many seats were won with >45% or >50% would also be really interesting.
As well as the political implications in terms of the greater than usual partisan instability, I think there's also a possible implications for FPTP itself.
One thing that opponents of FPTP often forget is that, most of the time, quite a large proportion of voters vote for the winning MP in their constituency. I wonder how much lower that proportion is this time, and how that might affect people's views of the voting system itself.
Thanks.
Just done a quick look for 2024. In GB, 93 seats were won with 50%+ of the vote. (That surprised me; I might want to do a check). This compares with 418 seats won with 50%+ of the vote in 2019, 468 in 2017, 316 in 2015, 213 in 2010, 213 in 2005 as well (freaky!), 321 in 2001, and 339 in 1997
Medical checks: get checked for calcium and mangnesium deficit, and Vitamin D
I cannot realistically do the 20-30K options, but I can do UK for smaller work (2 or 3 teeth) or try abroad for more complex options. So the process is:
Immediate fixes: swap diet coke for sparkling water/soda water/tonic water and reintroducing melon and chicken. This I have already done
Next steps (NHS1). Ask GP for calcium/magnesium checks and referral to a UK maxillofacial surgeon
Next steps (NHS2). Contact NHS dental hospitals directly
Next steps (UK Private). Contact UK periodontists /posh dentists and ask for a quote for two implants/3-on-2 with gum disease stabilisation and bone grafts. This is my preferred option as I think I can get this for under 10K
Next steps (Foreign private). Contact Central European dentists and see what they can do
Thank you all for your kind assistance, it is appreciated. @viewcode
Mrs DA says in no circumstances go east of the Danube for dental treatment. She trained at SPbSU and knows of what she speaks.
She basically doubled the price of implants during Covid and it made absolutely no difference to demand. What a racket.
The circumstances that aligned at produce a Labour landslide on a 33% vote share will not be repeated in 2029...
Maybe a CON MASSIVE MAJORITY on 32% instead? 👍
Possible, I'm sure, but difficult. Those Lib Dems are going to be a bugger to shift- they can shout about opposing the government just as well, and they are probably better than the Conservatives at the necessary street-fighting. (See 2010 for an example; Labour did badly but the Lib Dems did fine.)
As long as those seats are off the table, even a brilliant Conservative performance elsewhere tops out at about 300 seats.
Strategically, the Lib Dems have got the easiest game of all next time- mop up some more Nice seats that currently vote Conservative. (Don't like the government but think X is horrid? Vote for us!) The Conservatives have got to do some mixture of winning Reformers, blue-tinged LibDem voters, and classic suburban swingers. Even when the Starmer government screws up, that won't be an easy mix.
LDs stick to seats like shit to a stick.
Lib Dems work really hard for local people and make a noticeable difference. That's what actually happens. It's hard work. The national policy making and activity is fairly irrelevant - though Uncle Ed's stunts helped with the positive feelgood factor.
Comments
Consider the Minimum Service Rules the last government brought in. They were intended to redress that imbalance. But even when the government introduced them, they didn't use them, because they were bound to create more problems than they solved.
As the Good Book puts it,
Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.
What did @Dura_Ace say? ‘If Mrs DA wants to render a patient unconscious she tells them what their bill is going to be.’
So, recommendations to prevent long-term tooth loss.
New Thread
Just done a quick look for 2024. In GB, 93 seats were won with 50%+ of the vote.
(That surprised me; I might want to do a check).
This compares with 418 seats won with 50%+ of the vote in 2019, 468 in 2017, 316 in 2015, 213 in 2010, 213 in 2005 as well (freaky!), 321 in 2001, and 339 in 1997
She basically doubled the price of implants during Covid and it made absolutely no difference to demand. What a racket.