politicalbetting
Home› General

Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

Sign In Register

Categories

The State of the Union, Week 6 – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,212
edited November 7 in General
imageThe State of the Union, Week 6 – politicalbetting.com

You could change ‘state’ to ‘stasis’ in the title, and you wouldn’t be far wrong: hardly any movement since last week, which is exactly how I started off last week’s comments. So, what movement has there been?

Read the full story here

«134

Comments

  • TazTaz Posts: 14,972
    Firstski.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,972
    Hoping for Harris on the basis she's crap, but less crap than the alternative. A bit like our election really.

    However expecting the Trumpdozer.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,114
    Just doesn't feel like Harris is far enough ahead on national polling to win the ECV to me.

    As no sign of any movement and early voting already started then it looks on balance to be Trump 2.0.

    Hope I am wrong.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,405
    Do not forget that for Sanders and King are technically independent so a 50-50 result is actually

    48 Dem
    2 Ind
    50 GOP.

    A Democrat majority is

    51 Dem
    2 Ind
    47 GOP

    This is particularly important if you're betting on the result.

    I *think* all the GOP senators are properly GOP and not caucusing independents. Joe Manchin is not going for re-election so WV reverts to a straight Dem-GOP battle.

  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,668
    Cookie said:

    FPT:

    noneoftheabove said:

    TOPPING said:

    noneoftheabove said:

    TOPPING said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    This is the catastrophe looming for the UK under Labour

    “One Fifth of All Millionaires To Leave Britain by 2028”

    https://x.com/guidofawkes/status/1843554081672954112?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/07/britain-suffer-biggest-millionaires-exodus-globally-non-dom/

    Labour are chasing away the rich 1%, who pay 30% of our entire tax take. The world has changed and people can work remotely

    Labour are going to run out of money, they will have to tax more and more, driving away MORE rich people - meanwhile poor people keep arriving. We’re in a doom loop

    While there is definitely an exodus of millionaires - I know one or two who have already gone - the big risk is the brain drain of the young and ambitious.

    What's left in broken britain for people other than to be pay pigs for unproductive spongers and boat people? If you're in your 20s, bright, ambitious, you can stay in broken britain and be taxed to the eyeballs while being unable to ever save money to get on the property ladder (and be cheated at every turn if you finally do), or you can bugger off to Dubai, pay 0% tax and like as not avoid the graduate tax aka student loan while you're at it.

    It's not just the millionaires we'll lose over the next five years. It's the young and ambitious who can make more and pay less tax elsewhere.
    It probably won't be long before Rachel Thieves puts in place exchange controls. The basic problem is that Labour does not understand wealth creation. It is a party for the public sector, hence the reason why NHS consultants and senior managers will retire with tax-free pension pots of £2.5M, while wealth generators will have any sale of a business that they have built up taxed, taxed and more taxed!
    If she does anything like the IFS recommendation of setting CGT at income tax rates, the amount of capital flight will be catastrophic, as will the collapse in FDI. There would be no incentive whatsoever to invest in a UK business, and no incentive for anyone of serious means to stay in the country, when there are so many other countries doing their best to encourage capital.
    Unlike @kjh who wants us to know (or is it believe) that he is in the "£3M to £10M range" (lol), I do know people who are leaving or giving it serious consideration. This is the difference between the current public sector obsessed Labour Party and Blair's New Labour, the latter of which understood and encouraged wealth creation. Lord Mandelson needs to advise them to get a grip quick before the economy becomes more and more fucked.
    From my vantage point, in a small country well-known for having no personal income tax nor capital gains tax, with VAT at 5% and Corporation Tax 7%, rents are up around 30% year on year as the place is importing people faster than the many builders can keep up with demand.
    Hi Sandpit. Cut and paste from my other post:

    I did not say people won't leave for better jobs or a better life. However people who are rich who haven't left already (as per the topic) aren't now going to leave because of tax now.
    They really really will
    Why? What will they gain? I note @MarqueeMark liked, but he hasn't left.

    This might be a misunderstanding. I am not saying the aspiring won't leave, and that is an issue. I'm not saying people won't leave for quality of life issues.

    I'm particularly saying those who are well off who haven't left won't now because of tax. If they were they would have already done it. They might for a job or quality of life, but that would happen anyway.
    As I said, taxes, schmaxes. But many rich people might get the feeling that this govt is coming for them and this is just the start.
    Top tip - they could just cancel their Telegraph and Speccie subscriptions and this feeling would miraculously disappear. Much cheaper than leaving the country too.
    The two most notable totemic issues for Lab over the past decade or two have been private school VAT and foxhunting.

    Neither amount to a hill of beans economics (or indeed animal welfare-)wise but are red meat to the rank and file. And both are designed to make a point against a certain demographic who Lab believes are to be made to alter their beliefs with laws to back them up.

    That doesn't come from the pages of the Speccie or the Telegraph.
    That is such a warped view. The main concerns of the left are the NHS and education. Housing should have equal weight but doesn't. Fox hunting isn't in the top 20.

    Your warped view comes from places like the Speccie and Telegraph, it is simply not real.
    Pretty much the only policy announced by Labour prior to the election was the VAT on private schools. Which was not done to improve education - because even the densest can see that it won't benefit state school pupils - it was done to punish people using private schools. Because it is an issue which the left cares deeply about.
    Now arguably it is a suboptimal situation to have a two-tier education system. But of all the pressing needs to address in education, this doesn't seem to be anywhere close to the top of the list. It is there because it is important to the activists.

    Ditto foxhunting in 1997 (replace animal welfare for education). Though Lab came in in 1997 with rather more of a plan than Lab in 2024.

    They want to have a go at trail hunting this time too.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,069
    edited October 8
    On thread: the Cookie-gut-feeling indicator has the presidential race moving from a probable-Kamala to a dunno-but-if-you're-offering-me-evens-on-both-then-Donald-looks-value. Squeaky bum time and still a few weeks for either one of them to change things.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,144
    The Indy in Nebraska is certainly picking up some media traction
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,934
    Still think that the Florida and Texas Senate races are nowhere near in the bag for the Republicans. Two really unpleasant Republicans seeking re-election.

    Clearly, really unpleasant Republicans DO get re-elected. Just, maybe not this year.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585
    Cookie said:

    FPT:

    noneoftheabove said:

    TOPPING said:

    noneoftheabove said:

    TOPPING said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    This is the catastrophe looming for the UK under Labour

    “One Fifth of All Millionaires To Leave Britain by 2028”

    https://x.com/guidofawkes/status/1843554081672954112?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/07/britain-suffer-biggest-millionaires-exodus-globally-non-dom/

    Labour are chasing away the rich 1%, who pay 30% of our entire tax take. The world has changed and people can work remotely

    Labour are going to run out of money, they will have to tax more and more, driving away MORE rich people - meanwhile poor people keep arriving. We’re in a doom loop

    While there is definitely an exodus of millionaires - I know one or two who have already gone - the big risk is the brain drain of the young and ambitious.

    What's left in broken britain for people other than to be pay pigs for unproductive spongers and boat people? If you're in your 20s, bright, ambitious, you can stay in broken britain and be taxed to the eyeballs while being unable to ever save money to get on the property ladder (and be cheated at every turn if you finally do), or you can bugger off to Dubai, pay 0% tax and like as not avoid the graduate tax aka student loan while you're at it.

    It's not just the millionaires we'll lose over the next five years. It's the young and ambitious who can make more and pay less tax elsewhere.
    It probably won't be long before Rachel Thieves puts in place exchange controls. The basic problem is that Labour does not understand wealth creation. It is a party for the public sector, hence the reason why NHS consultants and senior managers will retire with tax-free pension pots of £2.5M, while wealth generators will have any sale of a business that they have built up taxed, taxed and more taxed!
    If she does anything like the IFS recommendation of setting CGT at income tax rates, the amount of capital flight will be catastrophic, as will the collapse in FDI. There would be no incentive whatsoever to invest in a UK business, and no incentive for anyone of serious means to stay in the country, when there are so many other countries doing their best to encourage capital.
    Unlike @kjh who wants us to know (or is it believe) that he is in the "£3M to £10M range" (lol), I do know people who are leaving or giving it serious consideration. This is the difference between the current public sector obsessed Labour Party and Blair's New Labour, the latter of which understood and encouraged wealth creation. Lord Mandelson needs to advise them to get a grip quick before the economy becomes more and more fucked.
    From my vantage point, in a small country well-known for having no personal income tax nor capital gains tax, with VAT at 5% and Corporation Tax 7%, rents are up around 30% year on year as the place is importing people faster than the many builders can keep up with demand.
    Hi Sandpit. Cut and paste from my other post:

    I did not say people won't leave for better jobs or a better life. However people who are rich who haven't left already (as per the topic) aren't now going to leave because of tax now.
    They really really will
    Why? What will they gain? I note @MarqueeMark liked, but he hasn't left.

    This might be a misunderstanding. I am not saying the aspiring won't leave, and that is an issue. I'm not saying people won't leave for quality of life issues.

    I'm particularly saying those who are well off who haven't left won't now because of tax. If they were they would have already done it. They might for a job or quality of life, but that would happen anyway.
    As I said, taxes, schmaxes. But many rich people might get the feeling that this govt is coming for them and this is just the start.
    Top tip - they could just cancel their Telegraph and Speccie subscriptions and this feeling would miraculously disappear. Much cheaper than leaving the country too.
    The two most notable totemic issues for Lab over the past decade or two have been private school VAT and foxhunting.

    Neither amount to a hill of beans economics (or indeed animal welfare-)wise but are red meat to the rank and file. And both are designed to make a point against a certain demographic who Lab believes are to be made to alter their beliefs with laws to back them up.

    That doesn't come from the pages of the Speccie or the Telegraph.
    That is such a warped view. The main concerns of the left are the NHS and education. Housing should have equal weight but doesn't. Fox hunting isn't in the top 20.

    Your warped view comes from places like the Speccie and Telegraph, it is simply not real.
    Pretty much the only policy announced by Labour prior to the election was the VAT on private schools. Which was not done to improve education - because even the densest can see that it won't benefit state school pupils - it was done to punish people using private schools. Because it is an issue which the left cares deeply about.
    Now arguably it is a suboptimal situation to have a two-tier education system. But of all the pressing needs to address in education, this doesn't seem to be anywhere close to the top of the list. It is there because it is important to the activists.

    Ditto foxhunting in 1997 (replace animal welfare for education). Though Lab came in in 1997 with rather more of a plan than Lab in 2024.

    Private schools was a sob to the left to get Labour members out campaigning and not sitting at home.. Beyond that it won't raise any money and creates a whole set of secondary issues but it didn't stop Labour from splintering before the election.

    Granted it seems to have merely delayed things a couple of months so the infighting starts now..

    And there is plenty of scope for infighting because of a lot of MPs will be discovering that thanks to the size of Labour's majority they have no chance of promotion in the next 4 years so will just be backbench lobby fodder and last chance social workers for their constituents.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,172
    Pulpstar said:

    Do not forget that for Sanders and King are technically independent so a 50-50 result is actually

    48 Dem
    2 Ind
    50 GOP.

    A Democrat majority is

    51 Dem
    2 Ind
    47 GOP

    This is particularly important if you're betting on the result.

    I *think* all the GOP senators are properly GOP and not caucusing independents. Joe Manchin is not going for re-election so WV reverts to a straight Dem-GOP battle.

    Laying the GOP is the value bet at current odds. Though not screamingly so.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,934
    The record of national, state and special elections since 2020 has been that the Democrats do significantly better than the polling. I will not be at all surprised if that is again the case by November 6th.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 63,114
    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,172
    MarqueeMark said:

    Still think that the Florida and Texas Senate races are nowhere near in the bag for the Republicans. Two really unpleasant Republicans seeking re-election.

    Clearly, really unpleasant Republicans DO get re-elected. Just, maybe not this year.

    The idiot in Florida is not only fairly unpopular, but also voted against FEMA funding. This week could be seriously awkward for him.
    Both he and Cruz are still more likely than not to be re-elected, but neither are certainties, as you say.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,172
    edited October 8
    MarqueeMark said:

    The record of national, state and special elections since 2020 has been that the Democrats do significantly better than the polling. I will not be at all surprised if that is again the case by November 6th.

    Of course pollsters might have adjusted for that.
    No one really knows - though some are still doing the stupid, and weighting by recalled 2019 vote.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,694
    edited October 8
    MarqueeMark said:

    The record of national, state and special elections since 2020 has been that the Democrats do significantly better than the polling. I will not be at all surprised if that is again the case by November 6th.

    I really hope that you are right. And you've quite a good 'nose' for these things.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,811
    Just dropped in The Guardian:

    Jenrick sabotaged his Tory leadership chances at conference, survey of members suggests, with Cleverly rising fast
    Conservative members were more likely to be turned off by what they saw of Robert Jenrick at the party conference than impressed, a survey suggests.

    Jenrick arrived at the conference as the clear bookmakers’ favourite. But, according to a ConservativeHome survey of Tory members, only 23% of them said that what happened at conference made them more likely to support him – and 43% said they were less likely to support him afterwards.

    Tom Tugendhat experienced a similar loss of support – but he is expected to be out of the contest by the end of today anyway as the candidate most likely to be eliminated in today’s ballot of MPs.

    Conservative members favour Kemi Badenoch for next leader, according to numerous ConHome surveys, and proper polling, but 35% of respondents said conference made them less likely to support her, while 30% said the opposite.

    The survey suggests the big winner was James Cleverly. Some 55% of Tories said conference made him a more attractive candidate, while only 14% said it didn’t.

    ------------

    NB: PB gets a mention downstream!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,172
    IanB2 said:

    The Indy in Nebraska is certainly picking up some media traction

    4.3 on Betfair (small amount available).
    Seems value.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,496
    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,932
    edited October 8
    @Selebian Saw your joke on the last thread but missed that it was a joke. Feel an idiot now
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,405
    edited October 8
    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Wales has an an older population profile so should see more deaths than England. Not sure about Scotland. Norn has the youngest population iirc so should see the highest birth rate.
    England has a slightly more immigrant heavy population so should have slightly higher birth rates for the same age profile as the other nations, but it's not quite enough to outweigh Norn's slightly younger population *I think !
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,069
    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Scotland a) has been struggling with birth rates for some time, and b) has been struggling with earlier deaths for some time (so the tipping point into natural shrinkage comes earlier).

    ISTR a few years ago England's birth rate was being propped up by immigrants with more children, though I don't know if this is still true.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,069
    kjh said:

    @Selebian Missed your joke on the last thread. Feel an idiot .

    It took me three or four reads to get!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,496
    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Wales has an an older population profile so should see more deaths than England. Not sure about Scotland. Norn has the youngest population iirc so should see the highest birth rate.
    England has a slightly more immigrant heavy population so should have slightly higher birth rates for the same age profile as the other nations, but it's not quite enough to outweigh Norn's slightly younger population *I think !
    That’s a massive disparity in Scotland however

    45k births, 65k deaths

    Almost one and a half times as many deaths as births
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,694
    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Scotland a) has been struggling with birth rates for some time, and b) has been struggling with earlier deaths for some time (so the tipping point into natural shrinkage comes earlier).

    ISTR a few years ago England's birth rate was being propped up by immigrants with more children, though I don't know if this is still true.
    So without immigration the country's population would be falling/

    Has anyone told Farage?
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 23,143
    Cookie said:

    FPT:

    noneoftheabove said:

    TOPPING said:

    noneoftheabove said:

    TOPPING said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    This is the catastrophe looming for the UK under Labour

    “One Fifth of All Millionaires To Leave Britain by 2028”

    https://x.com/guidofawkes/status/1843554081672954112?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/07/britain-suffer-biggest-millionaires-exodus-globally-non-dom/

    Labour are chasing away the rich 1%, who pay 30% of our entire tax take. The world has changed and people can work remotely

    Labour are going to run out of money, they will have to tax more and more, driving away MORE rich people - meanwhile poor people keep arriving. We’re in a doom loop

    While there is definitely an exodus of millionaires - I know one or two who have already gone - the big risk is the brain drain of the young and ambitious.

    What's left in broken britain for people other than to be pay pigs for unproductive spongers and boat people? If you're in your 20s, bright, ambitious, you can stay in broken britain and be taxed to the eyeballs while being unable to ever save money to get on the property ladder (and be cheated at every turn if you finally do), or you can bugger off to Dubai, pay 0% tax and like as not avoid the graduate tax aka student loan while you're at it.

    It's not just the millionaires we'll lose over the next five years. It's the young and ambitious who can make more and pay less tax elsewhere.
    It probably won't be long before Rachel Thieves puts in place exchange controls. The basic problem is that Labour does not understand wealth creation. It is a party for the public sector, hence the reason why NHS consultants and senior managers will retire with tax-free pension pots of £2.5M, while wealth generators will have any sale of a business that they have built up taxed, taxed and more taxed!
    If she does anything like the IFS recommendation of setting CGT at income tax rates, the amount of capital flight will be catastrophic, as will the collapse in FDI. There would be no incentive whatsoever to invest in a UK business, and no incentive for anyone of serious means to stay in the country, when there are so many other countries doing their best to encourage capital.
    Unlike @kjh who wants us to know (or is it believe) that he is in the "£3M to £10M range" (lol), I do know people who are leaving or giving it serious consideration. This is the difference between the current public sector obsessed Labour Party and Blair's New Labour, the latter of which understood and encouraged wealth creation. Lord Mandelson needs to advise them to get a grip quick before the economy becomes more and more fucked.
    From my vantage point, in a small country well-known for having no personal income tax nor capital gains tax, with VAT at 5% and Corporation Tax 7%, rents are up around 30% year on year as the place is importing people faster than the many builders can keep up with demand.
    Hi Sandpit. Cut and paste from my other post:

    I did not say people won't leave for better jobs or a better life. However people who are rich who haven't left already (as per the topic) aren't now going to leave because of tax now.
    They really really will
    Why? What will they gain? I note @MarqueeMark liked, but he hasn't left.

    This might be a misunderstanding. I am not saying the aspiring won't leave, and that is an issue. I'm not saying people won't leave for quality of life issues.

    I'm particularly saying those who are well off who haven't left won't now because of tax. If they were they would have already done it. They might for a job or quality of life, but that would happen anyway.
    As I said, taxes, schmaxes. But many rich people might get the feeling that this govt is coming for them and this is just the start.
    Top tip - they could just cancel their Telegraph and Speccie subscriptions and this feeling would miraculously disappear. Much cheaper than leaving the country too.
    The two most notable totemic issues for Lab over the past decade or two have been private school VAT and foxhunting.

    Neither amount to a hill of beans economics (or indeed animal welfare-)wise but are red meat to the rank and file. And both are designed to make a point against a certain demographic who Lab believes are to be made to alter their beliefs with laws to back them up.

    That doesn't come from the pages of the Speccie or the Telegraph.
    That is such a warped view. The main concerns of the left are the NHS and education. Housing should have equal weight but doesn't. Fox hunting isn't in the top 20.

    Your warped view comes from places like the Speccie and Telegraph, it is simply not real.
    Pretty much the only policy announced by Labour prior to the election was the VAT on private schools. Which was not done to improve education - because even the densest can see that it won't benefit state school pupils - it was done to punish people using private schools. Because it is an issue which the left cares deeply about.
    Now arguably it is a suboptimal situation to have a two-tier education system. But of all the pressing needs to address in education, this doesn't seem to be anywhere close to the top of the list. It is there because it is important to the activists.

    Ditto foxhunting in 1997 (replace animal welfare for education). Though Lab came in in 1997 with rather more of a plan than Lab in 2024.

    This is nonsense. Here is the Labour manifesto:

    https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Labour-MANIFESTO-UK-2024.pdf

    There are 19 pages with dozens of policies, including a page on education.

    VAT on Private schools is not even mentioned. How can you believe it was their only policy? The answer is simply that it is the obsession of the right wing media, not the obsession of Labour.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,496
    OldKingCole said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Scotland a) has been struggling with birth rates for some time, and b) has been struggling with earlier deaths for some time (so the tipping point into natural shrinkage comes earlier).

    ISTR a few years ago England's birth rate was being propped up by immigrants with more children, though I don't know if this is still true.
    So without immigration the country's population would be falling/

    Has anyone told Farage?
    A falling population is what we need. Trouble is we also need it to be younger. Which is quite hard to achieve

    We should have let Covid take out all the wrinklies and avoided any lockdown
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,895
    Nigelb said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    The record of national, state and special elections since 2020 has been that the Democrats do significantly better than the polling. I will not be at all surprised if that is again the case by November 6th.

    Of course pollsters might have adjusted for that.
    No one really knows - though some are still doing the stupid, and weighting by recalled 2019 vote.
    2019?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,895
    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    The young move to London. And have their families in England.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,934
    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Wales has an an older population profile so should see more deaths than England. Not sure about Scotland. Norn has the youngest population iirc so should see the highest birth rate.
    England has a slightly more immigrant heavy population so should have slightly higher birth rates for the same age profile as the other nations, but it's not quite enough to outweigh Norn's slightly younger population *I think !
    That’s a massive disparity in Scotland however

    45k births, 65k deaths

    Almost one and a half times as many deaths as births
    Drugs?
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,069
    edited October 8
    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Wales has an an older population profile so should see more deaths than England. Not sure about Scotland. Norn has the youngest population iirc so should see the highest birth rate.
    England has a slightly more immigrant heavy population so should have slightly higher birth rates for the same age profile as the other nations, but it's not quite enough to outweigh Norn's slightly younger population *I think !
    That’s a massive disparity in Scotland however

    45k births, 65k deaths

    Almost one and a half times as many deaths as births
    That's demographics, it would appear. You can go for ages with birth rates far under 2 without it having any massive impact on the population, because the growth of a previous generation is working through. But the growth of a previous generation has worked through now - so suddenly, your population starts to drop.

    EDIT: look at this: the population of Scotland has been static for years while England has grown. So once your growth of the baby boom years has worked through - which it now has - a birth rate of 1.3 leads to pretty rapid decline.

  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,832
    Cookie said:

    kjh said:

    @Selebian Missed your joke on the last thread. Feel an idiot .

    It took me three or four reads to get!
    I always find the best jokes are the ones that need explaining and still meet with a puzzled look for a few seconds after the explanation :wink:
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,350
    Casino_Royale said:

    Cookie said:

    FPT:

    noneoftheabove said:

    TOPPING said:

    noneoftheabove said:

    TOPPING said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    This is the catastrophe looming for the UK under Labour

    “One Fifth of All Millionaires To Leave Britain by 2028”

    https://x.com/guidofawkes/status/1843554081672954112?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/07/britain-suffer-biggest-millionaires-exodus-globally-non-dom/

    Labour are chasing away the rich 1%, who pay 30% of our entire tax take. The world has changed and people can work remotely

    Labour are going to run out of money, they will have to tax more and more, driving away MORE rich people - meanwhile poor people keep arriving. We’re in a doom loop

    While there is definitely an exodus of millionaires - I know one or two who have already gone - the big risk is the brain drain of the young and ambitious.

    What's left in broken britain for people other than to be pay pigs for unproductive spongers and boat people? If you're in your 20s, bright, ambitious, you can stay in broken britain and be taxed to the eyeballs while being unable to ever save money to get on the property ladder (and be cheated at every turn if you finally do), or you can bugger off to Dubai, pay 0% tax and like as not avoid the graduate tax aka student loan while you're at it.

    It's not just the millionaires we'll lose over the next five years. It's the young and ambitious who can make more and pay less tax elsewhere.
    It probably won't be long before Rachel Thieves puts in place exchange controls. The basic problem is that Labour does not understand wealth creation. It is a party for the public sector, hence the reason why NHS consultants and senior managers will retire with tax-free pension pots of £2.5M, while wealth generators will have any sale of a business that they have built up taxed, taxed and more taxed!
    If she does anything like the IFS recommendation of setting CGT at income tax rates, the amount of capital flight will be catastrophic, as will the collapse in FDI. There would be no incentive whatsoever to invest in a UK business, and no incentive for anyone of serious means to stay in the country, when there are so many other countries doing their best to encourage capital.
    Unlike @kjh who wants us to know (or is it believe) that he is in the "£3M to £10M range" (lol), I do know people who are leaving or giving it serious consideration. This is the difference between the current public sector obsessed Labour Party and Blair's New Labour, the latter of which understood and encouraged wealth creation. Lord Mandelson needs to advise them to get a grip quick before the economy becomes more and more fucked.
    From my vantage point, in a small country well-known for having no personal income tax nor capital gains tax, with VAT at 5% and Corporation Tax 7%, rents are up around 30% year on year as the place is importing people faster than the many builders can keep up with demand.
    Hi Sandpit. Cut and paste from my other post:

    I did not say people won't leave for better jobs or a better life. However people who are rich who haven't left already (as per the topic) aren't now going to leave because of tax now.
    They really really will
    Why? What will they gain? I note @MarqueeMark liked, but he hasn't left.

    This might be a misunderstanding. I am not saying the aspiring won't leave, and that is an issue. I'm not saying people won't leave for quality of life issues.

    I'm particularly saying those who are well off who haven't left won't now because of tax. If they were they would have already done it. They might for a job or quality of life, but that would happen anyway.
    As I said, taxes, schmaxes. But many rich people might get the feeling that this govt is coming for them and this is just the start.
    Top tip - they could just cancel their Telegraph and Speccie subscriptions and this feeling would miraculously disappear. Much cheaper than leaving the country too.
    The two most notable totemic issues for Lab over the past decade or two have been private school VAT and foxhunting.

    Neither amount to a hill of beans economics (or indeed animal welfare-)wise but are red meat to the rank and file. And both are designed to make a point against a certain demographic who Lab believes are to be made to alter their beliefs with laws to back them up.

    That doesn't come from the pages of the Speccie or the Telegraph.
    That is such a warped view. The main concerns of the left are the NHS and education. Housing should have equal weight but doesn't. Fox hunting isn't in the top 20.

    Your warped view comes from places like the Speccie and Telegraph, it is simply not real.
    Pretty much the only policy announced by Labour prior to the election was the VAT on private schools. Which was not done to improve education - because even the densest can see that it won't benefit state school pupils - it was done to punish people using private schools. Because it is an issue which the left cares deeply about.
    Now arguably it is a suboptimal situation to have a two-tier education system. But of all the pressing needs to address in education, this doesn't seem to be anywhere close to the top of the list. It is there because it is important to the activists.

    Ditto foxhunting in 1997 (replace animal welfare for education). Though Lab came in in 1997 with rather more of a plan than Lab in 2024.

    They want to have a go at trail hunting this time too.
    Another small minded petty vendetta. Typical Labour.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,496
    Selebian said:

    Cookie said:

    kjh said:

    @Selebian Missed your joke on the last thread. Feel an idiot .

    It took me three or four reads to get!
    I always find the best jokes are the ones that need explaining and still meet with a puzzled look for a few seconds after the explanation :wink:
    Can you share the joke again? Do like a joke
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,268
    OldKingCole said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Scotland a) has been struggling with birth rates for some time, and b) has been struggling with earlier deaths for some time (so the tipping point into natural shrinkage comes earlier).

    ISTR a few years ago England's birth rate was being propped up by immigrants with more children, though I don't know if this is still true.
    So without immigration the country's population would be falling/

    Has anyone told Farage?
    Why is that a gotcha?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,082
    williamglenn said:

    OldKingCole said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Scotland a) has been struggling with birth rates for some time, and b) has been struggling with earlier deaths for some time (so the tipping point into natural shrinkage comes earlier).

    ISTR a few years ago England's birth rate was being propped up by immigrants with more children, though I don't know if this is still true.
    So without immigration the country's population would be falling/

    Has anyone told Farage?
    Why is that a gotcha?
    You are supposed to want an increasing population. And also no building anything, anywhere. Plus economic growth.

    This is the orthodoxy.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,172
    LostPassword said:

    Nigelb said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    The record of national, state and special elections since 2020 has been that the Democrats do significantly better than the polling. I will not be at all surprised if that is again the case by November 6th.

    Of course pollsters might have adjusted for that.
    No one really knows - though some are still doing the stupid, and weighting by recalled 2019 vote.
    2019?
    Did I do that ? :smile:

    "Multitasking"....
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,945
    Mr. Leon, a younger, small population is eminently achievable. Logan's Run explains the basics.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,609
    OldKingCole said:

    Leon said:

    OldKingCole said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Scotland a) has been struggling with birth rates for some time, and b) has been struggling with earlier deaths for some time (so the tipping point into natural shrinkage comes earlier).

    ISTR a few years ago England's birth rate was being propped up by immigrants with more children, though I don't know if this is still true.
    So without immigration the country's population would be falling/

    Has anyone told Farage?
    A falling population is what we need. Trouble is we also need it to be younger. Which is quite hard to achieve

    We should have let Covid take out all the wrinklies and avoided any lockdown
    Thanks. I'm not enjoying life as much as I would like, but I still like the sight and feel of sunlight, a gentle wind in the trees and a glass of good red wine!
    Good Morning

    Presently at Shrewsbury on our train to Aberystwyth and this is the first post I have read

    Just want to send you my best wishes as a fellow 'creaky' octogenarian and that at times we just need to enjoy the simple things in life and let the intensity of politics and the disaster of wars rest from our mind for a wee bit
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,932
    Nigelb said:

    LostPassword said:

    Nigelb said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    The record of national, state and special elections since 2020 has been that the Democrats do significantly better than the polling. I will not be at all surprised if that is again the case by November 6th.

    Of course pollsters might have adjusted for that.
    No one really knows - though some are still doing the stupid, and weighting by recalled 2019 vote.
    2019?
    Did I do that ? :smile:

    "Multitasking"....
    Excellent, we can move from autocorrect to multitasking for excuses now and that covers a whole lot of extra cockups. I'm going to find it very useful.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,069
    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Cookie said:

    kjh said:

    @Selebian Missed your joke on the last thread. Feel an idiot .

    It took me three or four reads to get!
    I always find the best jokes are the ones that need explaining and still meet with a puzzled look for a few seconds after the explanation :wink:
    Can you share the joke again? Do like a joke
    This was it. Kudos to @noneoftheabove for explaining the joke in a way which didn't kill it stone dead.
    noneoftheabove said:

    Selebian said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    This is the catastrophe looming for the UK under Labour

    “One Fifth of All Millionaires To Leave Britain by 2028”

    https://x.com/guidofawkes/status/1843554081672954112?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/07/britain-suffer-biggest-millionaires-exodus-globally-non-dom/

    Labour are chasing away the rich 1%, who pay 30% of our entire tax take. The world has changed and people can work remotely

    Labour are going to run out of money, they will have to tax more and more, driving away MORE rich people - meanwhile poor people keep arriving. We’re in a doom loop

    While there is definitely an exodus of millionaires - I know one or two who have already gone - the big risk is the brain drain of the young and ambitious.

    What's left in broken britain for people other than to be pay pigs for unproductive spongers and boat people? If you're in your 20s, bright, ambitious, you can stay in broken britain and be taxed to the eyeballs while being unable to ever save money to get on the property ladder (and be cheated at every turn if you finally do), or you can bugger off to Dubai, pay 0% tax and like as not avoid the graduate tax aka student loan while you're at it.

    It's not just the millionaires we'll lose over the next five years. It's the young and ambitious who can make more and pay less tax elsewhere.
    It probably won't be long before Rachel Thieves puts in place exchange controls. The basic problem is that Labour does not understand wealth creation. It is a party for the public sector, hence the reason why NHS consultants and senior managers will retire with tax-free pension pots of £2.5M, while wealth generators will have any sale of a business that they have built up taxed, taxed and more taxed!
    If she does anything like the IFS recommendation of setting CGT at income tax rates, the amount of capital flight will be catastrophic, as will the collapse in FDI. There would be no incentive whatsoever to invest in a UK business, and no incentive for anyone of serious means to stay in the country, when there are so many other countries doing their best to encourage capital.
    Unlike @kjh who wants us to know (or is it believe) that he is in the "£3M to £10M range" (lol), I do know people who are leaving or giving it serious consideration. This is the difference between the current public sector obsessed Labour Party and Blair's New Labour, the latter of which understood and encouraged wealth creation. Lord Mandelson needs to advise them to get a grip quick before the economy becomes more and more fucked.
    Actually, kjh said "£3 - £10 million". I also know a lot of people (and am myself) in that range. After all, £3 is not a great deal of net worth :wink:

    £3! thats still a fortune to many. When I was a lad we used to have to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick the road clean with tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,694
    Big_G_NorthWales said:

    OldKingCole said:

    Leon said:

    OldKingCole said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Scotland a) has been struggling with birth rates for some time, and b) has been struggling with earlier deaths for some time (so the tipping point into natural shrinkage comes earlier).

    ISTR a few years ago England's birth rate was being propped up by immigrants with more children, though I don't know if this is still true.
    So without immigration the country's population would be falling/

    Has anyone told Farage?
    A falling population is what we need. Trouble is we also need it to be younger. Which is quite hard to achieve

    We should have let Covid take out all the wrinklies and avoided any lockdown
    Thanks. I'm not enjoying life as much as I would like, but I still like the sight and feel of sunlight, a gentle wind in the trees and a glass of good red wine!
    Good Morning

    Presently at Shrewsbury on our train to Aberystwyth and this is the first post I have read

    Just want to send you my best wishes as a fellow 'creaky' octogenarian and that at times we just need to enjoy the simple things in life and let the intensity of politics and the disaster of wars rest from our mind for a wee bit
    Appreciated.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,405
    Some "tired" fielding going on from England here.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,394
    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Cookie said:

    kjh said:

    @Selebian Missed your joke on the last thread. Feel an idiot .

    It took me three or four reads to get!
    I always find the best jokes are the ones that need explaining and still meet with a puzzled look for a few seconds after the explanation :wink:
    Can you share the joke again? Do like a joke
    This was it. Kudos to @noneoftheabove for explaining the joke in a way which didn't kill it stone dead.
    noneoftheabove said:

    Selebian said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    This is the catastrophe looming for the UK under Labour

    “One Fifth of All Millionaires To Leave Britain by 2028”

    https://x.com/guidofawkes/status/1843554081672954112?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/07/britain-suffer-biggest-millionaires-exodus-globally-non-dom/

    Labour are chasing away the rich 1%, who pay 30% of our entire tax take. The world has changed and people can work remotely

    Labour are going to run out of money, they will have to tax more and more, driving away MORE rich people - meanwhile poor people keep arriving. We’re in a doom loop

    While there is definitely an exodus of millionaires - I know one or two who have already gone - the big risk is the brain drain of the young and ambitious.

    What's left in broken britain for people other than to be pay pigs for unproductive spongers and boat people? If you're in your 20s, bright, ambitious, you can stay in broken britain and be taxed to the eyeballs while being unable to ever save money to get on the property ladder (and be cheated at every turn if you finally do), or you can bugger off to Dubai, pay 0% tax and like as not avoid the graduate tax aka student loan while you're at it.

    It's not just the millionaires we'll lose over the next five years. It's the young and ambitious who can make more and pay less tax elsewhere.
    It probably won't be long before Rachel Thieves puts in place exchange controls. The basic problem is that Labour does not understand wealth creation. It is a party for the public sector, hence the reason why NHS consultants and senior managers will retire with tax-free pension pots of £2.5M, while wealth generators will have any sale of a business that they have built up taxed, taxed and more taxed!
    If she does anything like the IFS recommendation of setting CGT at income tax rates, the amount of capital flight will be catastrophic, as will the collapse in FDI. There would be no incentive whatsoever to invest in a UK business, and no incentive for anyone of serious means to stay in the country, when there are so many other countries doing their best to encourage capital.
    Unlike @kjh who wants us to know (or is it believe) that he is in the "£3M to £10M range" (lol), I do know people who are leaving or giving it serious consideration. This is the difference between the current public sector obsessed Labour Party and Blair's New Labour, the latter of which understood and encouraged wealth creation. Lord Mandelson needs to advise them to get a grip quick before the economy becomes more and more fucked.
    Actually, kjh said "£3 - £10 million". I also know a lot of people (and am myself) in that range. After all, £3 is not a great deal of net worth :wink:

    £3! thats still a fortune to many. When I was a lad we used to have to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick the road clean with tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
    There was a boy at school whose dad threw a knife at him. These days someone would probably call the police, or at least social services.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,069
    kjh said:

    Nigelb said:

    LostPassword said:

    Nigelb said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    The record of national, state and special elections since 2020 has been that the Democrats do significantly better than the polling. I will not be at all surprised if that is again the case by November 6th.

    Of course pollsters might have adjusted for that.
    No one really knows - though some are still doing the stupid, and weighting by recalled 2019 vote.
    2019?
    Did I do that ? :smile:

    "Multitasking"....
    Excellent, we can move from autocorrect to multitasking for excuses now and that covers a whole lot of extra cockups. I'm going to find it very useful.
    I was amused once online meetings started in earnest that the term 'sorry, I was multitasking' was a perfectly acceptable excuse for 'I had tuned out and was amusing myself in some unspecified way'.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,895
    A seven month delay to make a decision?

    I think of myself as quite indecisive, but I think I'd blush at that timescale.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/08/lower-thames-crossing-decision-delayed-tunnel
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,956
    Pulpstar said:

    Some "tired" fielding going on from England here.

    So long as it isn’t tired and emotional fielding.

    Still think the third umpire’s decision on the Woakes catch was a shocker.
  • kenObikenObi Posts: 211
    Leon said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Wales has an an older population profile so should see more deaths than England. Not sure about Scotland. Norn has the youngest population iirc so should see the highest birth rate.
    England has a slightly more immigrant heavy population so should have slightly higher birth rates for the same age profile as the other nations, but it's not quite enough to outweigh Norn's slightly younger population *I think !
    That’s a massive disparity in Scotland however

    45k births, 65k deaths

    Almost one and a half times as many deaths as births
    Births falling in Scotland for 60 years...

    And its been remarkably consistent.
    104k births in 1964

    Deaths have been broadly level for last 50 years.
    50 - 65k per year.

    This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has been to Scotlands main belt.
    Poor people, born in poor housing, who smoke, drink and have a poor diet without much exercise die earlier.
    Who'd a thought.
  • Clutch_BromptonClutch_Brompton Posts: 737
    On topic - The key Nebraska poll with Osborn ahead was I believe linked to his campaign. No suggestion it was voodoo but I'd want to see it backed up by others. Sadly there is very little polling going on there. Dems are probably looking more at Florida because Osborn would not caucus with the Dems and is socially conservative. Think of Machin on steroids. So better than the incumbent but only to a certain degree.

    The movements of the last couple of weeks in the US are minimal. The national lead stretched for Harris last week but contracted this. Trump made a tiny amount of ground in state polls last week but lost that and more this week. The earliest signs for the coming week suggest a continuing edge towards Harris. That could change though and its all very much within the margin of error
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,694
    Pulpstar said:

    Some "tired" fielding going on from England here.

    Understandable, but I hope Crawley and Duckett keep it going quietly for a while. Let everyone else recover.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,069
    OldKingCole said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Scotland a) has been struggling with birth rates for some time, and b) has been struggling with earlier deaths for some time (so the tipping point into natural shrinkage comes earlier).

    ISTR a few years ago England's birth rate was being propped up by immigrants with more children, though I don't know if this is still true.
    So without immigration the country's population would be falling/

    Has anyone told Farage?
    Well yes. But there is a happy middle ground between a falling population due to no immigration and a population increasing at its fastest rate on record - despite a sub-2 and falling birth rate - due to massive immigration. Both extremes come with considerable problems, but we're so far away from being able to control immigration that the former isn't really a problem we have to consider.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,972
    556 for Pakistan, about where we thought they’d be this morning.

    England’s first job now, avoiding the follow-on whilst keeping up the run rate.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,832
    Cookie said:

    kjh said:

    Nigelb said:

    LostPassword said:

    Nigelb said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    The record of national, state and special elections since 2020 has been that the Democrats do significantly better than the polling. I will not be at all surprised if that is again the case by November 6th.

    Of course pollsters might have adjusted for that.
    No one really knows - though some are still doing the stupid, and weighting by recalled 2019 vote.
    2019?
    Did I do that ? :smile:

    "Multitasking"....
    Excellent, we can move from autocorrect to multitasking for excuses now and that covers a whole lot of extra cockups. I'm going to find it very useful.
    I was amused once online meetings started in earnest that the term 'sorry, I was multitasking' was a perfectly acceptable excuse for 'I had tuned out and was amusing myself in some unspecified way'.
    If some sources are to be believed then in a few years we'll be able to say, in the follow-up meeting, "I didn't commit to doing that! The AI avatar that I sent to that meeting may have done."
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585
    edited October 8
    LostPassword said:

    A seven month delay to make a decision?

    I think of myself as quite indecisive, but I think I'd blush at that timescale.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/08/lower-thames-crossing-decision-delayed-tunnel

    I think it ties in with when the spending review finishes - which is supposedly Spring 2025
    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fixing-the-foundations-public-spending-audit-2024-25/fixing-the-foundations-public-spending-audit-2024-25-html

    So we now have a date of early May for when the spending review will be finished..
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,972
    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Cookie said:

    kjh said:

    @Selebian Missed your joke on the last thread. Feel an idiot .

    It took me three or four reads to get!
    I always find the best jokes are the ones that need explaining and still meet with a puzzled look for a few seconds after the explanation :wink:
    Can you share the joke again? Do like a joke
    This was it. Kudos to @noneoftheabove for explaining the joke in a way which didn't kill it stone dead.
    noneoftheabove said:

    Selebian said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    This is the catastrophe looming for the UK under Labour

    “One Fifth of All Millionaires To Leave Britain by 2028”

    https://x.com/guidofawkes/status/1843554081672954112?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/07/britain-suffer-biggest-millionaires-exodus-globally-non-dom/

    Labour are chasing away the rich 1%, who pay 30% of our entire tax take. The world has changed and people can work remotely

    Labour are going to run out of money, they will have to tax more and more, driving away MORE rich people - meanwhile poor people keep arriving. We’re in a doom loop

    While there is definitely an exodus of millionaires - I know one or two who have already gone - the big risk is the brain drain of the young and ambitious.

    What's left in broken britain for people other than to be pay pigs for unproductive spongers and boat people? If you're in your 20s, bright, ambitious, you can stay in broken britain and be taxed to the eyeballs while being unable to ever save money to get on the property ladder (and be cheated at every turn if you finally do), or you can bugger off to Dubai, pay 0% tax and like as not avoid the graduate tax aka student loan while you're at it.

    It's not just the millionaires we'll lose over the next five years. It's the young and ambitious who can make more and pay less tax elsewhere.
    It probably won't be long before Rachel Thieves puts in place exchange controls. The basic problem is that Labour does not understand wealth creation. It is a party for the public sector, hence the reason why NHS consultants and senior managers will retire with tax-free pension pots of £2.5M, while wealth generators will have any sale of a business that they have built up taxed, taxed and more taxed!
    If she does anything like the IFS recommendation of setting CGT at income tax rates, the amount of capital flight will be catastrophic, as will the collapse in FDI. There would be no incentive whatsoever to invest in a UK business, and no incentive for anyone of serious means to stay in the country, when there are so many other countries doing their best to encourage capital.
    Unlike @kjh who wants us to know (or is it believe) that he is in the "£3M to £10M range" (lol), I do know people who are leaving or giving it serious consideration. This is the difference between the current public sector obsessed Labour Party and Blair's New Labour, the latter of which understood and encouraged wealth creation. Lord Mandelson needs to advise them to get a grip quick before the economy becomes more and more fucked.
    Actually, kjh said "£3 - £10 million". I also know a lot of people (and am myself) in that range. After all, £3 is not a great deal of net worth :wink:

    £3! thats still a fortune to many. When I was a lad we used to have to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick the road clean with tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
    £3! is only £6, that’s still pretty poor.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,069
    Selebian said:

    Cookie said:

    kjh said:

    Nigelb said:

    LostPassword said:

    Nigelb said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    The record of national, state and special elections since 2020 has been that the Democrats do significantly better than the polling. I will not be at all surprised if that is again the case by November 6th.

    Of course pollsters might have adjusted for that.
    No one really knows - though some are still doing the stupid, and weighting by recalled 2019 vote.
    2019?
    Did I do that ? :smile:

    "Multitasking"....
    Excellent, we can move from autocorrect to multitasking for excuses now and that covers a whole lot of extra cockups. I'm going to find it very useful.
    I was amused once online meetings started in earnest that the term 'sorry, I was multitasking' was a perfectly acceptable excuse for 'I had tuned out and was amusing myself in some unspecified way'.
    If some sources are to be believed then in a few years we'll be able to say, in the follow-up meeting, "I didn't commit to doing that! The AI avatar that I sent to that meeting may have done."
    Humans jobs will no longer be about actually doing anything, but about making vague excuses for what the AI did.
    Arguably we are halfway there already.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,832
    So anyway my kids' school is running a trip for one of the years to a local mosque (they've been studying Islam in RE recently; it's a CofE school). The year in question is still in the free school meals age group, so the school is offering pack-ups, with sandwiches of cheese, tuna or ham.

    I assume these will not be eaten on the mosque's premises, but still strikes me as a bit of an 'interesting' choice for the day trip!
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,832
    Sandpit said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Cookie said:

    kjh said:

    @Selebian Missed your joke on the last thread. Feel an idiot .

    It took me three or four reads to get!
    I always find the best jokes are the ones that need explaining and still meet with a puzzled look for a few seconds after the explanation :wink:
    Can you share the joke again? Do like a joke
    This was it. Kudos to @noneoftheabove for explaining the joke in a way which didn't kill it stone dead.
    noneoftheabove said:

    Selebian said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    This is the catastrophe looming for the UK under Labour

    “One Fifth of All Millionaires To Leave Britain by 2028”

    https://x.com/guidofawkes/status/1843554081672954112?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/07/britain-suffer-biggest-millionaires-exodus-globally-non-dom/

    Labour are chasing away the rich 1%, who pay 30% of our entire tax take. The world has changed and people can work remotely

    Labour are going to run out of money, they will have to tax more and more, driving away MORE rich people - meanwhile poor people keep arriving. We’re in a doom loop

    While there is definitely an exodus of millionaires - I know one or two who have already gone - the big risk is the brain drain of the young and ambitious.

    What's left in broken britain for people other than to be pay pigs for unproductive spongers and boat people? If you're in your 20s, bright, ambitious, you can stay in broken britain and be taxed to the eyeballs while being unable to ever save money to get on the property ladder (and be cheated at every turn if you finally do), or you can bugger off to Dubai, pay 0% tax and like as not avoid the graduate tax aka student loan while you're at it.

    It's not just the millionaires we'll lose over the next five years. It's the young and ambitious who can make more and pay less tax elsewhere.
    It probably won't be long before Rachel Thieves puts in place exchange controls. The basic problem is that Labour does not understand wealth creation. It is a party for the public sector, hence the reason why NHS consultants and senior managers will retire with tax-free pension pots of £2.5M, while wealth generators will have any sale of a business that they have built up taxed, taxed and more taxed!
    If she does anything like the IFS recommendation of setting CGT at income tax rates, the amount of capital flight will be catastrophic, as will the collapse in FDI. There would be no incentive whatsoever to invest in a UK business, and no incentive for anyone of serious means to stay in the country, when there are so many other countries doing their best to encourage capital.
    Unlike @kjh who wants us to know (or is it believe) that he is in the "£3M to £10M range" (lol), I do know people who are leaving or giving it serious consideration. This is the difference between the current public sector obsessed Labour Party and Blair's New Labour, the latter of which understood and encouraged wealth creation. Lord Mandelson needs to advise them to get a grip quick before the economy becomes more and more fucked.
    Actually, kjh said "£3 - £10 million". I also know a lot of people (and am myself) in that range. After all, £3 is not a great deal of net worth :wink:

    £3! thats still a fortune to many. When I was a lad we used to have to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick the road clean with tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
    £3! is only £6, that’s still pretty poor.
    Yeah, I'd take the 300p! :wink:
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,394
    Boris Johnson claims he had to refurbish Downing Street flat because it looked like a ‘crack den’
    The former PM oversaw a luxury makeover of the apartment which he took over from Theresa May and her husband Phillip
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/08/boris-johnson-downing-street-crack-den-refurbishment/ (£££)

    Apparently Theresa May was coked off her tits when she ran through that wheatfield.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 43,433
    Selebian said:

    So anyway my kids' school is running a trip for one of the years to a local mosque (they've been studying Islam in RE recently; it's a CofE school). The year in question is still in the free school meals age group, so the school is offering pack-ups, with sandwiches of cheese, tuna or ham.

    I assume these will not be eaten on the mosque's premises, but still strikes me as a bit of an 'interesting' choice for the day trip!

    A couple of years ago my son went on a school trip to Bhaktivedanta Manor. We had to provide a packed lunch, and it was made clear that this would be eaten on the bus.

    He really enjoyed the trip; his first significant contact with Hinduism.

    i think such trips should be encouraged, to all religions.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,420
    Cookie said:

    OldKingCole said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Scotland a) has been struggling with birth rates for some time, and b) has been struggling with earlier deaths for some time (so the tipping point into natural shrinkage comes earlier).

    ISTR a few years ago England's birth rate was being propped up by immigrants with more children, though I don't know if this is still true.
    So without immigration the country's population would be falling/

    Has anyone told Farage?
    Well yes. But there is a happy middle ground between a falling population due to no immigration and a population increasing at its fastest rate on record - despite a sub-2 and falling birth rate - due to massive immigration. Both extremes come with considerable problems, but we're so far away from being able to control immigration that the former isn't really a problem we have to consider.
    I don’t think we’re “far away from being able to control immigration”. Immigration was high under the Conservatives because they chose for it to be high. Immigration under Labour is expected to drop from the last Tory figures.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,405
    TheScreamingEagles said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Some "tired" fielding going on from England here.

    So long as it isn’t tired and emotional fielding.

    Still think the third umpire’s decision on the Woakes catch was a shocker.
    The camera showed his foot in contact with the ground when the ball was very very close to his hands, my guess is he hadn't completed the catch at that point. Essentially Pakistan were saved there by lack of high frame rate and ultra high def.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,394
    JosiasJessop said:

    Selebian said:

    So anyway my kids' school is running a trip for one of the years to a local mosque (they've been studying Islam in RE recently; it's a CofE school). The year in question is still in the free school meals age group, so the school is offering pack-ups, with sandwiches of cheese, tuna or ham.

    I assume these will not be eaten on the mosque's premises, but still strikes me as a bit of an 'interesting' choice for the day trip!

    A couple of years ago my son went on a school trip to Bhaktivedanta Manor. We had to provide a packed lunch, and it was made clear that this would be eaten on the bus.

    He really enjoyed the trip; his first significant contact with Hinduism.

    i think such trips should be encouraged, to all religions.
    A few years (decades?) back there was a television documentary following some divinity students as they toured the religions of the Middle East. There was an Imam who spoke approvingly of this group and the practice, before adding that as a Muslim, he of course had no personal need to see other religions.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 23,143
    bondegezou said:

    Cookie said:

    OldKingCole said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Scotland a) has been struggling with birth rates for some time, and b) has been struggling with earlier deaths for some time (so the tipping point into natural shrinkage comes earlier).

    ISTR a few years ago England's birth rate was being propped up by immigrants with more children, though I don't know if this is still true.
    So without immigration the country's population would be falling/

    Has anyone told Farage?
    Well yes. But there is a happy middle ground between a falling population due to no immigration and a population increasing at its fastest rate on record - despite a sub-2 and falling birth rate - due to massive immigration. Both extremes come with considerable problems, but we're so far away from being able to control immigration that the former isn't really a problem we have to consider.
    I don’t think we’re “far away from being able to control immigration”. Immigration was high under the Conservatives because they chose for it to be high. Immigration under Labour is expected to drop from the last Tory figures.
    The big increases were:

    Ukraine
    Hong Kong
    Students

    Each widely supported by the right and the government at the time until they added up the numbers.

    The non controlled part is a small but very visible fraction.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,496
    Big Dom on Chagos


    “All credit to Starmer, finally an appointment that makes sense - if the goal is *give away British territory because your human rights lawyer mates say 'there's no alternative'*, then makes sense to hire the expert on surrendering to the IRA.

    This came to my desk in No10. I said: tell the FO and Cabinet Office lawyers to fuck off, no way, no discussion.

    Boris in 2021 like on everything backtracked and started this surrender. Cleverley took dictation like the perfect NPC-minister...

    *The system is working as intended* - and the logical thing for the system to do is put Powell in as NSA, institutionalise *surrender to international lawyers* & bring clarity across the deep state.”

    https://x.com/dominic2306/status/1843601671701598403?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,972
    TheScreamingEagles said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Some "tired" fielding going on from England here.

    So long as it isn’t tired and emotional fielding.

    Still think the third umpire’s decision on the Woakes catch was a shocker.
    Harsh, but the right decision.



    Ball in hand, foot on ground.
  • Pro_RataPro_Rata Posts: 5,352
    Selebian said:

    So anyway my kids' school is running a trip for one of the years to a local mosque (they've been studying Islam in RE recently; it's a CofE school). The year in question is still in the free school meals age group, so the school is offering pack-ups, with sandwiches of cheese, tuna or ham.

    I assume these will not be eaten on the mosque's premises, but still strikes me as a
    bit of an 'interesting' choice for the day trip!

    Not quite the same, but the standard
    reminder of no sweets, chocolates, unhealthy foods etc in lunch boxes tickled me a few years ago when one of our kids went on a school trip to Cadbury's world.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,632
    Leon said:

    Big Dom on Chagos

    “All credit to Starmer, finally an appointment that makes sense - if the goal is *give away British territory because your human rights lawyer mates say 'there's no alternative'*, then makes sense to hire the expert on surrendering to the IRA.

    This came to my desk in No10. I said: tell the FO and Cabinet Office lawyers to fuck off, no way, no discussion.

    Boris in 2021 like on everything backtracked and started this surrender. Cleverley took dictation like the perfect NPC-minister...

    *The system is working as intended* - and the logical thing for the system to do is put Powell in as NSA, institutionalise *surrender to international lawyers* & bring clarity across the deep state.”

    https://x.com/dominic2306/status/1843601671701598403?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    He sounds deranged.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,378
    CaspianReport on the endgame for Israel in Gaza. TLDR: criss-cross Gaza with walled IDF corridors (100m-1000m wide), enabling rapid transit of armed forces to any point and reduce detection and response time to rocket attack to minutes. Basically containment and control.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZhD4G7ENSY (16mins)
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,082
    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Cookie said:

    kjh said:

    @Selebian Missed your joke on the last thread. Feel an idiot .

    It took me three or four reads to get!
    I always find the best jokes are the ones that need explaining and still meet with a puzzled look for a few seconds after the explanation :wink:
    Can you share the joke again? Do like a joke
    This was it. Kudos to @noneoftheabove for explaining the joke in a way which didn't kill it stone dead.
    noneoftheabove said:

    Selebian said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    Sandpit said:

    Nigel_Foremain said:

    kyf_100 said:

    Leon said:

    This is the catastrophe looming for the UK under Labour

    “One Fifth of All Millionaires To Leave Britain by 2028”

    https://x.com/guidofawkes/status/1843554081672954112?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/07/britain-suffer-biggest-millionaires-exodus-globally-non-dom/

    Labour are chasing away the rich 1%, who pay 30% of our entire tax take. The world has changed and people can work remotely

    Labour are going to run out of money, they will have to tax more and more, driving away MORE rich people - meanwhile poor people keep arriving. We’re in a doom loop

    While there is definitely an exodus of millionaires - I know one or two who have already gone - the big risk is the brain drain of the young and ambitious.

    What's left in broken britain for people other than to be pay pigs for unproductive spongers and boat people? If you're in your 20s, bright, ambitious, you can stay in broken britain and be taxed to the eyeballs while being unable to ever save money to get on the property ladder (and be cheated at every turn if you finally do), or you can bugger off to Dubai, pay 0% tax and like as not avoid the graduate tax aka student loan while you're at it.

    It's not just the millionaires we'll lose over the next five years. It's the young and ambitious who can make more and pay less tax elsewhere.
    It probably won't be long before Rachel Thieves puts in place exchange controls. The basic problem is that Labour does not understand wealth creation. It is a party for the public sector, hence the reason why NHS consultants and senior managers will retire with tax-free pension pots of £2.5M, while wealth generators will have any sale of a business that they have built up taxed, taxed and more taxed!
    If she does anything like the IFS recommendation of setting CGT at income tax rates, the amount of capital flight will be catastrophic, as will the collapse in FDI. There would be no incentive whatsoever to invest in a UK business, and no incentive for anyone of serious means to stay in the country, when there are so many other countries doing their best to encourage capital.
    Unlike @kjh who wants us to know (or is it believe) that he is in the "£3M to £10M range" (lol), I do know people who are leaving or giving it serious consideration. This is the difference between the current public sector obsessed Labour Party and Blair's New Labour, the latter of which understood and encouraged wealth creation. Lord Mandelson needs to advise them to get a grip quick before the economy becomes more and more fucked.
    Actually, kjh said "£3 - £10 million". I also know a lot of people (and am myself) in that range. After all, £3 is not a great deal of net worth :wink:

    £3! thats still a fortune to many. When I was a lad we used to have to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick the road clean with tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
    You ‘ad shoebox? Lucky for some. We dreamed of ‘aving shoebox….
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,708
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Big Dom on Chagos

    “All credit to Starmer, finally an appointment that makes sense - if the goal is *give away British territory because your human rights lawyer mates say 'there's no alternative'*, then makes sense to hire the expert on surrendering to the IRA.

    This came to my desk in No10. I said: tell the FO and Cabinet Office lawyers to fuck off, no way, no discussion.

    Boris in 2021 like on everything backtracked and started this surrender. Cleverley took dictation like the perfect NPC-minister...

    *The system is working as intended* - and the logical thing for the system to do is put Powell in as NSA, institutionalise *surrender to international lawyers* & bring clarity across the deep state.”

    https://x.com/dominic2306/status/1843601671701598403?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    He sounds deranged.
    I suspect he's trying to get everyone to remember who he is after barely featuring in Boris's memoirs.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,945
    Pulpstar said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Wales has an an older population profile so should see more deaths than England. Not sure about Scotland. Norn has the youngest population iirc so should see the highest birth rate.
    England has a slightly more immigrant heavy population so should have slightly higher birth rates for the same age profile as the other nations, but it's not quite enough to outweigh Norn's slightly younger population *I think !
    Scotland and Wales both have older populations than England, mainly because of less migration.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,554
    I wonder if there could soon be a point where Man City have pissed off the big clubs with global followings to the point where Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal etc push to just have Man City thrown out or they will split off.

    They must be getting fed up with City’s legal bollocks and the Premier League know that their product without Man City would be fine but without the big names would be largely worthless.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,832
    JosiasJessop said:

    Selebian said:

    So anyway my kids' school is running a trip for one of the years to a local mosque (they've been studying Islam in RE recently; it's a CofE school). The year in question is still in the free school meals age group, so the school is offering pack-ups, with sandwiches of cheese, tuna or ham.

    I assume these will not be eaten on the mosque's premises, but still strikes me as a bit of an 'interesting' choice for the day trip!

    A couple of years ago my son went on a school trip to Bhaktivedanta Manor. We had to provide a packed lunch, and it was made clear that this would be eaten on the bus.

    He really enjoyed the trip; his first significant contact with Hinduism.

    i think such trips should be encouraged, to all religions.
    Yeah, my kid's been really engaged with this and last year when they studied Hinduism and did some things for Diwali. I'd not have gone for a CofE school particularly*, but I'm happy that this one is giving well rounded education and not pushing the Christianity bit excessively (I mean, if you do, how do you do it - Muslims believe this and they're wrong! :lol:)

    *The two nearest ones we liked both happened to be CofE

  • FossFoss Posts: 1,030
    eek said:

    LostPassword said:

    A seven month delay to make a decision?

    I think of myself as quite indecisive, but I think I'd blush at that timescale.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/08/lower-thames-crossing-decision-delayed-tunnel

    I think it ties in with when the spending review finishes - which is supposedly Spring 2025
    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fixing-the-foundations-public-spending-audit-2024-25/fixing-the-foundations-public-spending-audit-2024-25-html

    So we now have a date of early May for when the spending review will be finished..
    Nicely timed for just after the locals...
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,945
    OldKingCole said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Scotland a) has been struggling with birth rates for some time, and b) has been struggling with earlier deaths for some time (so the tipping point into natural shrinkage comes earlier).

    ISTR a few years ago England's birth rate was being propped up by immigrants with more children, though I don't know if this is still true.
    So without immigration the country's population would be falling/

    Has anyone told Farage?
    Encourage British people to have more children.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,792
    Cookie said:

    Selebian said:

    Cookie said:

    kjh said:

    Nigelb said:

    LostPassword said:

    Nigelb said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    The record of national, state and special elections since 2020 has been that the Democrats do significantly better than the polling. I will not be at all surprised if that is again the case by November 6th.

    Of course pollsters might have adjusted for that.
    No one really knows - though some are still doing the stupid, and weighting by recalled 2019 vote.
    2019?
    Did I do that ? :smile:

    "Multitasking"....
    Excellent, we can move from autocorrect to multitasking for excuses now and that covers a whole lot of extra cockups. I'm going to find it very useful.
    I was amused once online meetings started in earnest that the term 'sorry, I was multitasking' was a perfectly acceptable excuse for 'I had tuned out and was amusing myself in some unspecified way'.
    If some sources are to be believed then in a few years we'll be able to say, in the follow-up meeting, "I didn't commit to doing that! The AI avatar that I sent to that meeting may have done."
    Humans jobs will no longer be about actually doing anything, but about making vague excuses for what the AI did.
    Arguably we are halfway there already.
    And nursemaiding the manifold hallucinations errors AIs make daily. There is some evidence now that their accuracy might not get better, and may even get worse – as AIs increasingly use the (error-ridden) output of other AIs as their corpus of information.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,632
    Snippet from the Atlantic in a piece about the phony populism of the right:

    "Trump and those like him make a deal with the most resentful citizens in society: Keep us up in the penthouses, and we’ll harass your enemies on your behalf. We’ll punish the people you want punished. In the end, however, the joke is always on the voters."

    I like that.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,956
    What is it with Labour and dodgy dossiers?

    Report used by Labour to support private school VAT raid written by minister’s friend

    Matthew Pennycook was best man at wedding of Luke Sibieta - who authored IFS report on plans

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/07/report-used-laboursupport-private-school-vat-close-friend/
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,632
    Stark_Dawning said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Big Dom on Chagos

    “All credit to Starmer, finally an appointment that makes sense - if the goal is *give away British territory because your human rights lawyer mates say 'there's no alternative'*, then makes sense to hire the expert on surrendering to the IRA.

    This came to my desk in No10. I said: tell the FO and Cabinet Office lawyers to fuck off, no way, no discussion.

    Boris in 2021 like on everything backtracked and started this surrender. Cleverley took dictation like the perfect NPC-minister...

    *The system is working as intended* - and the logical thing for the system to do is put Powell in as NSA, institutionalise *surrender to international lawyers* & bring clarity across the deep state.”

    https://x.com/dominic2306/status/1843601671701598403?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    He sounds deranged.
    I suspect he's trying to get everyone to remember who he is after barely featuring in Boris's memoirs.
    Did he not? Ouch.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,082
    Stark_Dawning said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Big Dom on Chagos

    “All credit to Starmer, finally an appointment that makes sense - if the goal is *give away British territory because your human rights lawyer mates say 'there's no alternative'*, then makes sense to hire the expert on surrendering to the IRA.

    This came to my desk in No10. I said: tell the FO and Cabinet Office lawyers to fuck off, no way, no discussion.

    Boris in 2021 like on everything backtracked and started this surrender. Cleverley took dictation like the perfect NPC-minister...

    *The system is working as intended* - and the logical thing for the system to do is put Powell in as NSA, institutionalise *surrender to international lawyers* & bring clarity across the deep state.”

    https://x.com/dominic2306/status/1843601671701598403?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    He sounds deranged.
    I suspect he's trying to get everyone to remember who he is after barely featuring in Boris's memoirs.
    Who is he? I vaguely recall something about an eye test - is he an optician?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,956
    Reeves urged to scrap free prescriptions for 60- to 65-year-olds

    Move could raise the Treasury more than £6bn in lead up to Budget

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/reeves-urged-scrap-free-prescriptions-60-65-year-olds/
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,069
    bondegezou said:

    Cookie said:

    OldKingCole said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    rottenborough said:

    Torsten Bell‬ ‪@torstenbell.bsky.social‬
    ·
    1h
    The UK is seeing more deaths than births (ie natural population shrinkage) for the first time since the 1970s (pandemic aside obviously) www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

    https://bsky.app/profile/torstenbell.bsky.social/post/3l5ygm6sy452f

    Something very odd about those figures. England saw very slightly more births than deaths. But Wales and Scotland see vastly more (in proportion) deaths than births?

    Eg in Scotland that’s 45,000 births and 65,000 deaths

    Is Scotland dying out? Or is this a data glitch
    Scotland a) has been struggling with birth rates for some time, and b) has been struggling with earlier deaths for some time (so the tipping point into natural shrinkage comes earlier).

    ISTR a few years ago England's birth rate was being propped up by immigrants with more children, though I don't know if this is still true.
    So without immigration the country's population would be falling/

    Has anyone told Farage?
    Well yes. But there is a happy middle ground between a falling population due to no immigration and a population increasing at its fastest rate on record - despite a sub-2 and falling birth rate - due to massive immigration. Both extremes come with considerable problems, but we're so far away from being able to control immigration that the former isn't really a problem we have to consider.
    I don’t think we’re “far away from being able to control immigration”. Immigration was high under the Conservatives because they chose for it to be high. Immigration under Labour is expected to drop from the last Tory figures.
    Expected by whom? It would seem out of character for the Labour Party to bring down immigration.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,082
    TheScreamingEagles said:

    What is it with Labour and dodgy dossiers?

    Report used by Labour to support private school VAT raid written by minister’s friend

    Matthew Pennycook was best man at wedding of Luke Sibieta - who authored IFS report on plans

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/07/report-used-laboursupport-private-school-vat-close-friend/

    They tried a search for PhDs to rip off, but hadn’t got a subscription to the academic databases…
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,172
    Cookie said:

    Selebian said:

    Cookie said:

    kjh said:

    Nigelb said:

    LostPassword said:

    Nigelb said:

    MarqueeMark said:

    The record of national, state and special elections since 2020 has been that the Democrats do significantly better than the polling. I will not be at all surprised if that is again the case by November 6th.

    Of course pollsters might have adjusted for that.
    No one really knows - though some are still doing the stupid, and weighting by recalled 2019 vote.
    2019?
    Did I do that ? :smile:

    "Multitasking"....
    Excellent, we can move from autocorrect to multitasking for excuses now and that covers a whole lot of extra cockups. I'm going to find it very useful.
    I was amused once online meetings started in earnest that the term 'sorry, I was multitasking' was a perfectly acceptable excuse for 'I had tuned out and was amusing myself in some unspecified way'.
    If some sources are to be believed then in a few years we'll be able to say, in the follow-up meeting, "I didn't commit to doing that! The AI avatar that I sent to that meeting may have done."
    Humans jobs will no longer be about actually doing anything, but about making vague excuses for what the AI did.
    Arguably we are halfway there already.
    Numerous stories along these lines suggest so.
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,394
    TheScreamingEagles said:

    Reeves urged to scrap free prescriptions for 60- to 65-year-olds

    Move could raise the Treasury more than £6bn in lead up to Budget

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/reeves-urged-scrap-free-prescriptions-60-65-year-olds/

    Scrap free contraceptives and kill two PB birds with one stone.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,668
    TheScreamingEagles said:

    Reeves urged to scrap free prescriptions for 60- to 65-year-olds

    Move could raise the Treasury more than £6bn in lead up to Budget

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/reeves-urged-scrap-free-prescriptions-60-65-year-olds/

    I didn't know they were getting them free already anyway?

    Align it to State pension age.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,172
    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    Boris Johnson claims he had to refurbish Downing Street flat because it looked like a ‘crack den’..

    And he would know how ?
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,972
    Selebian said:

    So anyway my kids' school is running a trip for one of the years to a local mosque (they've been studying Islam in RE recently; it's a CofE school). The year in question is still in the free school meals age group, so the school is offering pack-ups, with sandwiches of cheese, tuna or ham.

    I assume these will not be eaten on the mosque's premises, but still strikes me as a bit of an 'interesting' choice for the day trip!

    Could it be Turkey ham ?

    I had Turkey bacon when on holiday in Dubai and it was ace.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,082
    DecrepiterJohnL said:

    TheScreamingEagles said:

    Reeves urged to scrap free prescriptions for 60- to 65-year-olds

    Move could raise the Treasury more than £6bn in lead up to Budget

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/reeves-urged-scrap-free-prescriptions-60-65-year-olds/

    Scrap free contraceptives and kill two PB birds with one stone.
    Isn’t that Project 2025?
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,268
    kinabalu said:

    Snippet from the Atlantic in a piece about the phony populism of the right:

    "Trump and those like him make a deal with the most resentful citizens in society: Keep us up in the penthouses, and we’ll harass your enemies on your behalf. We’ll punish the people you want punished. In the end, however, the joke is always on the voters."

    I like that.

    Why is this deal necessary? Without Trump in power, the rich will be evicted from their penthouses?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,972
    Taz said:

    Selebian said:

    So anyway my kids' school is running a trip for one of the years to a local mosque (they've been studying Islam in RE recently; it's a CofE school). The year in question is still in the free school meals age group, so the school is offering pack-ups, with sandwiches of cheese, tuna or ham.

    I assume these will not be eaten on the mosque's premises, but still strikes me as a bit of an 'interesting' choice for the day trip!

    Could it be Turkey ham ?

    I had Turkey bacon when on holiday in Dubai and it was ace.
    You need to know where to look, if you want to find the bacon bacon.

    The turkey ham might be a nice novelty when you’re on holiday, but you quickly get sick of it.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,694
    Selebian said:

    JosiasJessop said:

    Selebian said:

    So anyway my kids' school is running a trip for one of the years to a local mosque (they've been studying Islam in RE recently; it's a CofE school). The year in question is still in the free school meals age group, so the school is offering pack-ups, with sandwiches of cheese, tuna or ham.

    I assume these will not be eaten on the mosque's premises, but still strikes me as a bit of an 'interesting' choice for the day trip!

    A couple of years ago my son went on a school trip to Bhaktivedanta Manor. We had to provide a packed lunch, and it was made clear that this would be eaten on the bus.

    He really enjoyed the trip; his first significant contact with Hinduism.

    i think such trips should be encouraged, to all religions.
    Yeah, my kid's been really engaged with this and last year when they studied Hinduism and did some things for Diwali. I'd not have gone for a CofE school particularly*, but I'm happy that this one is giving well rounded education and not pushing the Christianity bit excessively (I mean, if you do, how do you do it - Muslims believe this and they're wrong! :lol:)

    *The two nearest ones we liked both happened to be CofE

    Our local WEA organised a series of talks on Islam. Very informative, given by someone who'd fought in Bosnia etc.
    One of the elderly lady members was told by her husband not to attend!. She did, though!
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,268
    Taz said:

    Selebian said:

    So anyway my kids' school is running a trip for one of the years to a local mosque (they've been studying Islam in RE recently; it's a CofE school). The year in question is still in the free school meals age group, so the school is offering pack-ups, with sandwiches of cheese, tuna or ham.

    I assume these will not be eaten on the mosque's premises, but still strikes me as a bit of an 'interesting' choice for the day trip!

    Could it be Turkey ham ?

    I had Turkey bacon when on holiday in Dubai and it was ace.
    "They are eating the Turks."
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585
    Casino_Royale said:

    TheScreamingEagles said:

    Reeves urged to scrap free prescriptions for 60- to 65-year-olds

    Move could raise the Treasury more than £6bn in lead up to Budget

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/reeves-urged-scrap-free-prescriptions-60-65-year-olds/

    I didn't know they were getting them free already anyway?

    Align it to State pension age.
    That's why it was set at 60 - because that was State pension age and equal opportunity legislation meant that men had to get it at the same age that women did.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,972
    JosiasJessop said:

    Selebian said:

    So anyway my kids' school is running a trip for one of the years to a local mosque (they've been studying Islam in RE recently; it's a CofE school). The year in question is still in the free school meals age group, so the school is offering pack-ups, with sandwiches of cheese, tuna or ham.

    I assume these will not be eaten on the mosque's premises, but still strikes me as a bit of an 'interesting' choice for the day trip!

    A couple of years ago my son went on a school trip to Bhaktivedanta Manor. We had to provide a packed lunch, and it was made clear that this would be eaten on the bus.

    He really enjoyed the trip; his first significant contact with Hinduism.

    i think such trips should be encouraged, to all religions.
    So do I. We are a multi-ethnic, multi-faith society. It is better people engage with this and learn about it.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,972
    Sandpit said:

    Taz said:

    Selebian said:

    So anyway my kids' school is running a trip for one of the years to a local mosque (they've been studying Islam in RE recently; it's a CofE school). The year in question is still in the free school meals age group, so the school is offering pack-ups, with sandwiches of cheese, tuna or ham.

    I assume these will not be eaten on the mosque's premises, but still strikes me as a bit of an 'interesting' choice for the day trip!

    Could it be Turkey ham ?

    I had Turkey bacon when on holiday in Dubai and it was ace.
    You need to know where to look, if you want to find the bacon bacon.

    The turkey ham might be a nice novelty when you’re on holiday, but you quickly get sick of it.
    I've not been tempted to get it from my local Sainsburys, which has had a Halal section for a couple of years.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,972
    It is 67 at the moment and moves to 68 in 2028.
This discussion has been closed.