Mr. Pointer, and when you try to tax wealth, will the wealthy and their assets stay in this country, or leave?
Not all wealth can be moved, of course. Council tax on steroids is possible. Or you could drive farmers into bankruptcy (the pre-election murmuring about imposing inheritance tax on farms might come true).
WRT farms, the budget might tweak a bit in order to deal with non-farmers usiing farms as tax planning; but there will be no major change to the exemption in ordinary 'family farm' cases.
What there should be (IHT currently only applies to 4% of estates) is a much wider net for IHT, incorporating lifetime gifts and many fewer exemptions, but a much lower rate - more like 5-10% than 40%. The current tweak for homes, which brings the threshold up to £1m for some households but not others, should also go by being incorporated into the current exempt sum.
Making most homes liable for inheritance tax would be hugely unpopular regardless of the rate, now only homes worth over £1 million pay inheritance tax the family home is otherwise exempt for a married couple
There are some egregious errors in this comment, but DYOR. If anyone believes that only houses worth over £1m are liable to IHT they might have a horrible shock.
They are for married couples
Only married couples with no other assets.
The vast majority of married couples, even home owning married couples, do not have non property assets of around £400,000 or more to take them over the threshold
That is an interesting point, because I anticipate that inherited pension funds which are excluded from IHT might be brought within IHT (it is a bit more complicated than that). It is an easy change to make and is not as big a headline item as most people are unaware of it anyway.
If that happens a large number of people who had modest non property assets will suddenly have non property assets of £400,000 or more.
If Kimi wins how long will it last? It could be to the next election or every couple of months we could have a leadership challenge. Revolving non stop challenge till people become oblivious to it.
New 1922 Committee chief Bob Blackman has advocated doubling the threshold needed to oust leaders.
Yes. But it’s akin to counting the threshold on one hand to being able to count it in two hands and half a foot. Jenrick and Cleverly each got MPs in the final vote around the new threshold. And One Nation Group are now sitting out the rest of the election. How to bring party all together, in cabinet and country is going to be extremely difficult to whoever wins. You notice Jenrick wants wet signatures to his policies to even be allowed to stand again as MP - that’s St Bart’s Day massacre of moderates part two no different than the damage Bonehead Boris done in part one.
Also concerning to me would be if by far the weakest candidate beats the stronger one again in members vote, as that would have a pattern of skin colour to the inexplicable decision.
Were Jenrick to go ahead with that plan I wonder how many One Nation Group MPs may decide that being the defacto Lib Dem candidate at the next election will be a good idea given the election result in their constituency.
If the Lib Dems were second in the constituency and Jenrick is seeking Reform voters it may be a safe bet for those MPs..
Yes. Or just decide it’s time to quit politics. We know what happened to the party when Boris did this, it starved the benches and cabinet of strong talent and alternative points of view, all adding to the weakness of the party and that awful election.
Lady Thatcher didn’t throw wets out the party, she realised how vital to put them in the cabinet and give them something to deliver.
So who were this 'strong talent' ?
And all the 'strong talent' had to do was to vote for the Conservatives policy.
The wets in Thatcher's cabinet didn't vote against the Conservative policies in parliament.
Because - in part - we have imported millions of people with kids who need schooling and sometimes special expensive schooling
One thing we should do immediately is copy Sweden and abolish cousin marriage to reduce the impact on the NHS of retarded/crippled children
It is insane we allow this
Well, yes, but how do you enforce this? Slightly odd that it even needs legislation - you'd have thought it would be basic common sense, and in most cases humans are hard wired not to marry their cousins. It's like passing a law to make it illegal to eat food with mold growing on it.
It's relatively easy to make it illegal to marry your cousin in the UK. We already have a list of people you can't marry because of your relationship with them (e.g. siblings), we just expand that list.
We can also make it illegal to have sex with a cousin (as it is already with a sibling), but we would have to have an exemption to accommodate those who are already (perfectly legally) married to their cousins.
The real problem is that we generally recognize marriages performed anywhere around the globe, even if we wouldn't permit those people to marry (so for example, AIUI, we will usually recognize a 14 year old as legally married, if they did so in a jurisdiction which permits this) - so I suspect we'd find people who really want to marry their cousins would go off to places like Pakistan and reappear married a short time later, which puts us in a rather difficult position.
Really? Some Middle Easter countries allow marriage aged 9. Are we really saying that we would allow a 10 year old girl from such a country to come here and remain married?
Sweden has banned cousin marriage. If they can do it, so should we. And we should make it unlawful for someone to go abroad to get around such a law or state that we will not recognise such a marriage. Matthew Syed wrote a good article in the Times a while back about why banning dousing marriage was worthwhile on multiple grounds.
Quite so. We are just morally feeble and doomed in the UK. At least until we elect a hard right government - or put one in coalition - as they did in Sweden
That both sides are still obsessed by McDonald, 48 hours later and to the exclusion of almost everything else, makes it one of the biggest single stories of the whole campaign.
Harris is getting out-reality-TV'ed. She needs some substance, she can't win on who's better at reality TV.
I hope Biden has been practicing his fake heart attack face, it's time to inaugurate her.
Imagine, the new American Reich got over the line by an Ed Davey style stunt.
I mean Ed Davey's stunts went pretty well for him and I'm sure if he'd had a chance to get sworn in as President of the United States of America during the campaign he'd have done that instead of / as well as the thing with the paddleboard.
Edit: Sorry, see what you mean. But it's not weird, Trump's whole thing is Reality TV.
"Central government tax receipts grew strongly (and cost of actually borrowing the money is down), but this was outweighed by higher expenditure, largely driven by benefits uprating and higher spending on public services due to increased running costs."
e.g
"Central government spending on providing public services and benefits continue to grow year-on-year, with this month’s combined costs being £4.0 bn more than in July last year. These increases were partially offset by a £1.0 bn year-on-year reduction in debt interest payable."
Or, in other words, wage increases.
The problem isn't wage increases, its wage increases without productivity increases.
Without productivity increases the wage increases feed through to price / tax / borrowing increases.
We are taking too much money off people who are working to give to people who are not working.
That is simply not sustainable.
The UK is becoming a nation that punishes work with tax and rewards idleness with sickness benefits. It started with Theresa May expanding the definition of what is allowable for sickness benefits but neither Boris nor Rishi undid that. Along with her idiotically broad definition of modern slavery Theresa May is responsible for a lot of the issues we have today, millions of additional people claiming to be sick because they can't be bothered to work and asylum seekers being coached by their representatives to claim they are caught up in modern slavery meaning they can't be deported. Truly a disaster.
Yep. I actually think TMay was the worst of them all. Worse than Truss. The worst PM since the 1970s
Feelgood legislation has terrible effects.
Governments pass laws that earn plaudits from pressure groups, while saddling local authorities with the cost of implementing them. Eventually, the authorities go bankrupt and services are devastated, in order to prioritise parasites.
"Central government tax receipts grew strongly (and cost of actually borrowing the money is down), but this was outweighed by higher expenditure, largely driven by benefits uprating and higher spending on public services due to increased running costs."
e.g
"Central government spending on providing public services and benefits continue to grow year-on-year, with this month’s combined costs being £4.0 bn more than in July last year. These increases were partially offset by a £1.0 bn year-on-year reduction in debt interest payable."
Or, in other words, wage increases.
The problem isn't wage increases, its wage increases without productivity increases.
Without productivity increases the wage increases feed through to price / tax / borrowing increases.
We are taking too much money off people who are working to give to people who are not working.
That is simply not sustainable.
The UK is becoming a nation that punishes work with tax and rewards idleness with sickness benefits. It started with Theresa May expanding the definition of what is allowable for sickness benefits but neither Boris nor Rishi undid that. Along with her idiotically broad definition of modern slavery Theresa May is responsible for a lot of the issues we have today, millions of additional people claiming to be sick because they can't be bothered to work and asylum seekers being coached by their representatives to claim they are caught up in modern slavery meaning they can't be deported. Truly a disaster.
Yep. I actually think TMay was the worst of them all. Worse than Truss. The worst PM since the 1970s
Feelgood legislation has terrible effects.
Governments pass laws that earn plaudits from pressure groups, while saddling local authorities with the cost of implementing them. Eventually, the authorities go bankrupt and services are devastated, in order to prioritise parasites.
I think the panoply of the Human Rights Act, Equality Act, and Modern Slavery Act - as well as others - needs to be reviewed.
We've set up over the last 25 years a very strong rights culture that's now cutting across common-sense and bankrupting us at the same time, and it needs to be circumscribed.
We can't have unlimited liability to solve all domestic and global ills.
My excitement this morning is hoping that I arrive at my destination 60+ minutes late, rather than 59 minutes late, thereby doubling my Delay Repay entitlement.
The British railway compensation scheme really should be a source of national pride. Our trains don't get you there on time, but because of this they end up startlingly cheap. This is a boon especially for business travellers for whom someone else is paying for the ticket, and can provide quite a decent little top-up income.
DYOR but I think there is a nice exam question here as to whether it could be a criminal offence to pocket the compensation when someone else has paid for the ticket. (Fine of course if the body paying is informed and gives consent).
As a civil servant I am supposed to return any delay repay to my employer
Not enough attention is being given to the very real possibility that this government simply runs out of money
The latest fiscal numbers are a bit better than expected thanks to slightly higher tax receipts, even while this year to date has been worse than forecast.
But we’ve already run out of money. The outgoing government tried to bribe the voters with two very expensive NI cuts which have used up the entire fiscal headroom. The new government refusing to reverse these leaves us in a pretty poor position. Not a precarious one - our government bond yields aren’t doing anything worrying and our deficit position is better than several peers, so much so that the pound has been rising.
But there’s not going to be money for a spending bonanza anytime soon. It’s another decade of austerity ahead. Chronic austerity.
Agree with that. And it is why the Government are running around saying “growth” all the time. Of course there is no easy lever to pull to increase productivity and growth. If there was I would like to hope that no government would leave it alone.
In some ways the pay off to train drivers kind of fits that narrative. We know that there is a cost to the economy from train strikes (and NHS strikes). If the pay off is less than the total cost to the economy isn’t it worth doing it?
There is a massive lever for growth available, free to be pulled any time. It is slashing regulations and bureaucracy. Nuke the equalities act, dump the modern slavery reporting requirements. Burn 90% of building regs and 70% of planning requirements. Get the tax code down to no more than 10 sides of A4 and burn the rest. Abolish requirements for companies to have risk assessments for everything down to the risk of paper cuts. Remove the absurd money laundering checks from the banking system. And whilst we're at it, lose those stupid GDPR cookie check boxes from all over the Internet.
There have been massive productivity gains amongst the productive over the last 30 years - but no increase in total productivity because we've just used those gains to fatten up layers of the unproductive, in the form of lawyers, HR departments, civil servants, compliance managers, diversity consultants. The fix is to get rid of all this rubbish, and return the people doing it to doing things in the productive part of the economy - and you'll get unbelievable levels of growth.
"Central government tax receipts grew strongly (and cost of actually borrowing the money is down), but this was outweighed by higher expenditure, largely driven by benefits uprating and higher spending on public services due to increased running costs."
e.g
"Central government spending on providing public services and benefits continue to grow year-on-year, with this month’s combined costs being £4.0 bn more than in July last year. These increases were partially offset by a £1.0 bn year-on-year reduction in debt interest payable."
Or, in other words, wage increases.
The problem isn't wage increases, its wage increases without productivity increases.
Without productivity increases the wage increases feed through to price / tax / borrowing increases.
One could argue that ending three years of industrial strife has its own productivity benefit. It is not easy to quantify upticks in productivity for doctors, nurses or even train drivers. Improved morale after a pay increase might put that spring in one's step as one clambers aboard the Flying Scotsman.
It might do.
So we'll look forward to productivity increases and restricted pay claims for the next few years on the railways and NHS.
It's hard to imagine how one might drive a train more productively. It's not as if the fella at the front is pedalling the thing himself.
I heard last night that a relative aged 59 has been diagnosed with a version of Parkinsons know as Multiple Systems Atrophy (MSA).
Does anyone have any experience of the particular condition? All the information I can find is quite woolly.
It took almost a year before they had a diagnosis, and unlike me have had a not brilliant experience with their NH; mine has been excellent throughout.
On the other side, I start on my insulin pump on Thursday, and I've had yet another invite to a checkup programme - this one for my liver.
That both sides are still obsessed by McDonald, 48 hours later and to the exclusion of almost everything else, makes it one of the biggest single stories of the whole campaign.
Harris is getting out-reality-TV'ed. She needs some substance, she can't win on who's better at reality TV.
I hope Biden has been practicing his fake heart attack face, it's time to inaugurate her.
Imagine, the new American Reich got over the line by an Ed Davey style stunt.
I mean Ed Davey's stunts went pretty well for him and I'm sure if he'd had a chance to get sworn in as President of the United States of America during the campaign he'd have done that instead of / as well as the thing with the paddleboard.
Edit: Sorry, see what you mean. But it's not weird, Trump's whole thing is Reality TV.
I think what made it was the tie. Perfect match for McDonalds' signature red.
Not enough attention is being given to the very real possibility that this government simply runs out of money
The latest fiscal numbers are a bit better than expected thanks to slightly higher tax receipts, even while this year to date has been worse than forecast.
But we’ve already run out of money. The outgoing government tried to bribe the voters with two very expensive NI cuts which have used up the entire fiscal headroom. The new government refusing to reverse these leaves us in a pretty poor position. Not a precarious one - our government bond yields aren’t doing anything worrying and our deficit position is better than several peers, so much so that the pound has been rising.
But there’s not going to be money for a spending bonanza anytime soon. It’s another decade of austerity ahead. Chronic austerity.
Problem is there are whole parts of the day to day running of the country where things have been cut to the bone already.
Court sitting days have reduced again while court cases are now being scheduled well into 2026...
There is a simple solution staring us all in the face: tax the £20tn of wealth in the country.
Unfortunately, no one seems celver enough to do it.
Haven't we covered this multiple times before - we always end up with a tax on property prices because it's the only thing that can't be quickly moved abroad.
Although that does remind me why I preferred the easier solution of just taxing based on estimated property value rather than land value based taxes...
Other way round, Mr Eek. If you go for taxing the vallue of the property, you have to make a valuation of each individual property, which would take a year and a day. If you look just at the value of the site, based on its development value, you could do that in a matter of minutes...... I have a feeling that the value of the site where I live is going to be exactly the same as that of the two properties on either side of me.
My house has no particular architectural value. However next door, and most of those around me are conservation grade. Does that increase or decrease to value of my site?
Neither, I think. It all depends on what you can do with your own site. If it is in a conservation area, and you are therefore restricted in what you can do with it, then its development value is obviously less.
What does your local plan say you can do with it? That determines its value.
If a house builder has been given planning permission, then the value of the land immediately increases, as if the house had already been built. There is nothing to be gained by the housebuilder by just sitting on a site without doing the building. The value of the land is not going to increase.
Thanks. That was my suspicion/expectation. I'm sure the local paneers would be opposed to me (or my heirs and assigns..... as they say) pulling down my current premises and rebuilding, although built in the 50's since all the surrounding premises were built in the mid 1800's or earlier.
Although, of course, it's wildly out of keeping compared to those around!
Mr. Pointer, and when you try to tax wealth, will the wealthy and their assets stay in this country, or leave?
Not all wealth can be moved, of course. Council tax on steroids is possible. Or you could drive farmers into bankruptcy (the pre-election murmuring about imposing inheritance tax on farms might come true).
WRT farms, the budget might tweak a bit in order to deal with non-farmers usiing farms as tax planning; but there will be no major change to the exemption in ordinary 'family farm' cases.
What there should be (IHT currently only applies to 4% of estates) is a much wider net for IHT, incorporating lifetime gifts and many fewer exemptions, but a much lower rate - more like 5-10% than 40%. The current tweak for homes, which brings the threshold up to £1m for some households but not others, should also go by being incorporated into the current exempt sum.
Making most homes liable for inheritance tax would be hugely unpopular regardless of the rate, now only homes worth over £1 million pay inheritance tax the family home is otherwise exempt for a married couple
There are some egregious errors in this comment, but DYOR. If anyone believes that only houses worth over £1m are liable to IHT they might have a horrible shock.
They are for married couples
If you give away your main residence to your children or grandchildren then the threshold above which you pay IHT is raised from £325K to £500K. So for married couples it is raised from £650K to £1000K.
If a married couple has total assets in excess of £1000K then their estate will pay 40% IHT on the excess. It's quite straightforward.
Not enough attention is being given to the very real possibility that this government simply runs out of money
The latest fiscal numbers are a bit better than expected thanks to slightly higher tax receipts, even while this year to date has been worse than forecast.
But we’ve already run out of money. The outgoing government tried to bribe the voters with two very expensive NI cuts which have used up the entire fiscal headroom. The new government refusing to reverse these leaves us in a pretty poor position. Not a precarious one - our government bond yields aren’t doing anything worrying and our deficit position is better than several peers, so much so that the pound has been rising.
But there’s not going to be money for a spending bonanza anytime soon. It’s another decade of austerity ahead. Chronic austerity.
Agree with that. And it is why the Government are running around saying “growth” all the time. Of course there is no easy lever to pull to increase productivity and growth. If there was I would like to hope that no government would leave it alone.
In some ways the pay off to train drivers kind of fits that narrative. We know that there is a cost to the economy from train strikes (and NHS strikes). If the pay off is less than the total cost to the economy isn’t it worth doing it?
There is a massive lever for growth available, free to be pulled any time. It is slashing regulations and bureaucracy. Nuke the equalities act, dump the modern slavery reporting requirements. Burn 90% of building regs and 70% of planning requirements. Get the tax code down to no more than 10 sides of A4 and burn the rest. Abolish requirements for companies to have risk assessments for everything down to the risk of paper cuts. Remove the absurd money laundering checks from the banking system. And whilst we're at it, lose those stupid GDPR cookie check boxes from all over the Internet.
There have been massive productivity gains amongst the productive over the last 30 years - but no increase in total productivity because we've just used those gains to fatten up layers of the unproductive, in the form of lawyers, HR departments, civil servants, compliance managers, diversity consultants. The fix is to get rid of all this rubbish, and return the people doing it to doing things in the productive part of the economy - and you'll get unbelievable levels of growth.
That both sides are still obsessed by McDonald, 48 hours later and to the exclusion of almost everything else, makes it one of the biggest single stories of the whole campaign.
Harris is getting out-reality-TV'ed. She needs some substance, she can't win on who's better at reality TV.
I hope Biden has been practicing his fake heart attack face, it's time to inaugurate her.
Imagine, the new American Reich got over the line by an Ed Davey style stunt.
I mean Ed Davey's stunts went pretty well for him and I'm sure if he'd had a chance to get sworn in as President of the United States of America during the campaign he'd have done that instead of / as well as the thing with the paddleboard.
Edit: Sorry, see what you mean. But it's not weird, Trump's whole thing is Reality TV.
Can someone get Chump to jump out of an aeroplane?
Mr. Pointer, and when you try to tax wealth, will the wealthy and their assets stay in this country, or leave?
Not all wealth can be moved, of course. Council tax on steroids is possible. Or you could drive farmers into bankruptcy (the pre-election murmuring about imposing inheritance tax on farms might come true).
WRT farms, the budget might tweak a bit in order to deal with non-farmers usiing farms as tax planning; but there will be no major change to the exemption in ordinary 'family farm' cases.
What there should be (IHT currently only applies to 4% of estates) is a much wider net for IHT, incorporating lifetime gifts and many fewer exemptions, but a much lower rate - more like 5-10% than 40%. The current tweak for homes, which brings the threshold up to £1m for some households but not others, should also go by being incorporated into the current exempt sum.
Making most homes liable for inheritance tax would be hugely unpopular regardless of the rate, now only homes worth over £1 million pay inheritance tax the family home is otherwise exempt for a married couple
There are some egregious errors in this comment, but DYOR. If anyone believes that only houses worth over £1m are liable to IHT they might have a horrible shock.
They are for married couples
If you give away your main residence to your children or grandchildren then the threshold above which you pay IHT is raised from £325K to £500K. So for married couples it is raised from £650K to £1000K.
If a married couple has total assets in excess of £1000K then their estate will pay 40% IHT on the excess. It's quite straightforward.
Includes civil partnership as well. Surviving partner inherits the remaining balance of the deceased partner's IHT allowance. This is why a relatively few % of estates pay IHT.
Not enough attention is being given to the very real possibility that this government simply runs out of money
The latest fiscal numbers are a bit better than expected thanks to slightly higher tax receipts, even while this year to date has been worse than forecast.
But we’ve already run out of money. The outgoing government tried to bribe the voters with two very expensive NI cuts which have used up the entire fiscal headroom. The new government refusing to reverse these leaves us in a pretty poor position. Not a precarious one - our government bond yields aren’t doing anything worrying and our deficit position is better than several peers, so much so that the pound has been rising.
But there’s not going to be money for a spending bonanza anytime soon. It’s another decade of austerity ahead. Chronic austerity.
Agree with that. And it is why the Government are running around saying “growth” all the time. Of course there is no easy lever to pull to increase productivity and growth. If there was I would like to hope that no government would leave it alone.
In some ways the pay off to train drivers kind of fits that narrative. We know that there is a cost to the economy from train strikes (and NHS strikes). If the pay off is less than the total cost to the economy isn’t it worth doing it?
There is a massive lever for growth available, free to be pulled any time. It is slashing regulations and bureaucracy. Nuke the equalities act, dump the modern slavery reporting requirements. Burn 90% of building regs and 70% of planning requirements. Get the tax code down to no more than 10 sides of A4 and burn the rest. Abolish requirements for companies to have risk assessments for everything down to the risk of paper cuts. Remove the absurd money laundering checks from the banking system. And whilst we're at it, lose those stupid GDPR cookie check boxes from all over the Internet.
There have been massive productivity gains amongst the productive over the last 30 years - but no increase in total productivity because we've just used those gains to fatten up layers of the unproductive, in the form of lawyers, HR departments, civil servants, compliance managers, diversity consultants. The fix is to get rid of all this rubbish, and return the people doing it to doing things in the productive part of the economy - and you'll get unbelievable levels of growth.
Waving from the top of Grenfell Tower!
I'm also struck by the way our right wingers on PB (in general - not necessarily tP) simultaneously complain about civil servants while bemoaning Labour's failure to introduce a massive bureaucracy to do means testing on the winter fuel allowance rather than using pension credit as a zero-cost rule of thumb.
The argument is very simple. Let me spell it out for you.
1. There are a large number of people in America who have lives that suck and they see no way out 2. Trump is offering them a simplistic solution that is very unlikely to work 3. That is appealing to them so they support him 4. In order to address this the Democrats need to offer proper effective solutions 5. They are not doing this, but instead are focusing on issues that have more of a cultural edge to them (“bigoted crap” is a value judgement so not helpful) 6. Therefore the Democrats will not win
The fact that Trump is offering a different flavour of bigoted crap doesn’t disprove @another_richard’s argument. Bigoted crap is not necessarily fungible
Here is the actual post:
'Perhaps if Harris and Walz stuck to the issues instead of spouting bigoted crap they would be more likely to win.'
My response was that if that was the case Trump, who does not (contrary to your post) ever address a single issue directly but instead spouts 'bigoted crap,' would have lost.
So your argument whether simple or not is irrelevant.
If the Dems do lose we have to look elsewhere for the causes.
Harris and Walz is the most left liberal Democrat ticket since Dukakis and Bentsen. In a normal year it would lose, certainly against a normal moderate Republican like Haley but Trump is not a normal or moderate Republican so they still have a chance as does he if he can win the rustbelt again as he did in 2016 Hillary but failed to in 2020 against Biden
Clinton and Gore were considerably further left. For one thing, Clinton campaigned on universal free healthcare, which he (or to be exact Hilary) buggered up with Congress when in office. Neither Harris nor Walz are advocating that.
Nope, Clinton and Gore never called Columbus Day 'indigenous peoples' day like Harris for starters and Clinton and Gore both opposed gay marriage at the time.
Clinton also wasn't proposing the tax rises Harris is either on capital gains tax and corporation tax and the wealth tax she wants, although both proposed rises in the top income tax rate.
On healthcare Harris is also proposing further healthcare subsidies to expand Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA)
Clinton also had a sensible compromise position on abortion (safe, legal, and rare), as opposed to the extremist rhetoric coming out of the Democrats now, which comes across to the average Christian as being all in favour of as many abortions as possible.
That’s before we get to the sex changes for illegal immigrant prisoners.
You do realise that latter was also a policy under the last Trump administration ?
It’s fucking terrible. It boils down to a personal whine that the Tories aren’t more depressed, and this is because Labour are so shit the Tories could easily bounce back into power in 2028
The argument is very simple. Let me spell it out for you.
1. There are a large number of people in America who have lives that suck and they see no way out 2. Trump is offering them a simplistic solution that is very unlikely to work 3. That is appealing to them so they support him 4. In order to address this the Democrats need to offer proper effective solutions 5. They are not doing this, but instead are focusing on issues that have more of a cultural edge to them (“bigoted crap” is a value judgement so not helpful) 6. Therefore the Democrats will not win
The fact that Trump is offering a different flavour of bigoted crap doesn’t disprove @another_richard’s argument. Bigoted crap is not necessarily fungible
Here is the actual post:
'Perhaps if Harris and Walz stuck to the issues instead of spouting bigoted crap they would be more likely to win.'
My response was that if that was the case Trump, who does not (contrary to your post) ever address a single issue directly but instead spouts 'bigoted crap,' would have lost.
So your argument whether simple or not is irrelevant.
If the Dems do lose we have to look elsewhere for the causes.
Harris and Walz purport to be the 'adults' and the 'nice' people.
By spouting bigoted crap they come across as little different to Trump.
Really ! Talk about false equivalence. Please give us an example of the “ bigoted crap “ .
Walz insinuating that Vance is some sort of sexual deviant - an old slur against hillbillies.
Harris proposing her 'opportunities for black men' including such things as forgivable loans and protected crypto investments.
Now lets say you're in some deprived Appalachian community, perhaps the part of Appalachia in Pennsylvania or North Carolina or Georgia - do either of these give an impression that the Dems are on your side ?
We're lucky that Harris and Walz haven't started complaining about 'deplorables' and 'low information voters'.
Vance is some sort of sexual deviant. He has a very unhealthy interest in the fertility status of every woman of childbearing age.
And appears to despise all women who are no longer fertile.
That would be socially deviancy or more likely a social flaw influenced by Vance's difficult upbringing.
Still its something that would be open to criticism.
Instead Walz thought it clever to spout insinuations that Vance is a sexual deviant.
That might have raised a laugh among the 'sophisticated' at the DNC but probably less so among Appalachian voters.
My excitement this morning is hoping that I arrive at my destination 60+ minutes late, rather than 59 minutes late, thereby doubling my Delay Repay entitlement.
The British railway compensation scheme really should be a source of national pride. Our trains don't get you there on time, but because of this they end up startlingly cheap. This is a boon especially for business travellers for whom someone else is paying for the ticket, and can provide quite a decent little top-up income.
DYOR but I think there is a nice exam question here as to whether it could be a criminal offence to pocket the compensation when someone else has paid for the ticket. (Fine of course if the body paying is informed and gives consent).
As a civil servant I am supposed to return any delay repay to my employer
Who loses if you're delayed? The misery is the traveller's, then depends whether you have to make up the time lost or the employer eats it. If you can work remotely from the train or have to make up the time then the compensation is for the misery only.
That both sides are still obsessed by McDonald, 48 hours later and to the exclusion of almost everything else, makes it one of the biggest single stories of the whole campaign.
"Central government tax receipts grew strongly (and cost of actually borrowing the money is down), but this was outweighed by higher expenditure, largely driven by benefits uprating and higher spending on public services due to increased running costs."
e.g
"Central government spending on providing public services and benefits continue to grow year-on-year, with this month’s combined costs being £4.0 bn more than in July last year. These increases were partially offset by a £1.0 bn year-on-year reduction in debt interest payable."
Or, in other words, wage increases.
The problem isn't wage increases, its wage increases without productivity increases.
Without productivity increases the wage increases feed through to price / tax / borrowing increases.
One could argue that ending three years of industrial strife has its own productivity benefit. It is not easy to quantify upticks in productivity for doctors, nurses or even train drivers. Improved morale after a pay increase might put that spring in one's step as one clambers aboard the Flying Scotsman.
It might do.
So we'll look forward to productivity increases and restricted pay claims for the next few years on the railways and NHS.
It's hard to imagine how one might drive a train more productively. It's not as if the fella at the front is pedalling the thing himself.
You increase the ticket prices. That increases productivity if total revenue increases.
"Central government tax receipts grew strongly (and cost of actually borrowing the money is down), but this was outweighed by higher expenditure, largely driven by benefits uprating and higher spending on public services due to increased running costs."
e.g
"Central government spending on providing public services and benefits continue to grow year-on-year, with this month’s combined costs being £4.0 bn more than in July last year. These increases were partially offset by a £1.0 bn year-on-year reduction in debt interest payable."
Or, in other words, wage increases.
The problem isn't wage increases, its wage increases without productivity increases.
Without productivity increases the wage increases feed through to price / tax / borrowing increases.
One could argue that ending three years of industrial strife has its own productivity benefit. It is not easy to quantify upticks in productivity for doctors, nurses or even train drivers. Improved morale after a pay increase might put that spring in one's step as one clambers aboard the Flying Scotsman.
It might do.
So we'll look forward to productivity increases and restricted pay claims for the next few years on the railways and NHS.
It's hard to imagine how one might drive a train more productively. It's not as if the fella at the front is pedalling the thing himself.
You increase the ticket prices. That increases productivity if total revenue increases.
But only if the market can bear it. Increased ticket prices could also drive down revenue. And ticket prices are not a function of how much we pay the drivers, but a function of how much it is decided the market can bear, and what (given the highly regulated nature of the rail industry) we consider the externalities are.
Flippant answer: On reflection, I think my way is better.
That both sides are still obsessed by McDonald, 48 hours later and to the exclusion of almost everything else, makes it one of the biggest single stories of the whole campaign.
It is the defining moment of the campaign. If he wins this will be credited as the best election publicity stunt in history.
Who knew moss could be beautiful? Not I. And yet today I went to a 12th century Zen temple whose garden is dedicated entirely to moss, and the memory of a beautiful dead dancing girl. And it was enchanting. The Noom of the Moss was Sad yet Bright
Not enough attention is being given to the very real possibility that this government simply runs out of money
The latest fiscal numbers are a bit better than expected thanks to slightly higher tax receipts, even while this year to date has been worse than forecast.
But we’ve already run out of money. The outgoing government tried to bribe the voters with two very expensive NI cuts which have used up the entire fiscal headroom. The new government refusing to reverse these leaves us in a pretty poor position. Not a precarious one - our government bond yields aren’t doing anything worrying and our deficit position is better than several peers, so much so that the pound has been rising.
But there’s not going to be money for a spending bonanza anytime soon. It’s another decade of austerity ahead. Chronic austerity.
Agree with that. And it is why the Government are running around saying “growth” all the time. Of course there is no easy lever to pull to increase productivity and growth. If there was I would like to hope that no government would leave it alone.
In some ways the pay off to train drivers kind of fits that narrative. We know that there is a cost to the economy from train strikes (and NHS strikes). If the pay off is less than the total cost to the economy isn’t it worth doing it?
There is a massive lever for growth available, free to be pulled any time. It is slashing regulations and bureaucracy. Nuke the equalities act, dump the modern slavery reporting requirements. Burn 90% of building regs and 70% of planning requirements. Get the tax code down to no more than 10 sides of A4 and burn the rest. Abolish requirements for companies to have risk assessments for everything down to the risk of paper cuts. Remove the absurd money laundering checks from the banking system. And whilst we're at it, lose those stupid GDPR cookie check boxes from all over the Internet.
There have been massive productivity gains amongst the productive over the last 30 years - but no increase in total productivity because we've just used those gains to fatten up layers of the unproductive, in the form of lawyers, HR departments, civil servants, compliance managers, diversity consultants. The fix is to get rid of all this rubbish, and return the people doing it to doing things in the productive part of the economy - and you'll get unbelievable levels of growth.
Waving from the top of Grenfell Tower!
Grenfell Tower had multiple metric tons of documentation describing how awesome the renovation was and how every part of it met every regulation. And was extra awesome in its awesomeness.
Its interesting how the 'Manichean' view of this election seems to make some people either oblivious to or in total denial of the mistakes Biden/Harris have made in government and Harris/Walz have made in the campaign.
Just because they are preferable to Trump or indeed that they may be better than expected does not mean that everything they've done is beyond criticism.
When you don't want to accept criticism and admit mistakes then you're heading towards greater difficulties.
The argument is very simple. Let me spell it out for you.
1. There are a large number of people in America who have lives that suck and they see no way out 2. Trump is offering them a simplistic solution that is very unlikely to work 3. That is appealing to them so they support him 4. In order to address this the Democrats need to offer proper effective solutions 5. They are not doing this, but instead are focusing on issues that have more of a cultural edge to them (“bigoted crap” is a value judgement so not helpful) 6. Therefore the Democrats will not win
The fact that Trump is offering a different flavour of bigoted crap doesn’t disprove @another_richard’s argument. Bigoted crap is not necessarily fungible
Here is the actual post:
'Perhaps if Harris and Walz stuck to the issues instead of spouting bigoted crap they would be more likely to win.'
My response was that if that was the case Trump, who does not (contrary to your post) ever address a single issue directly but instead spouts 'bigoted crap,' would have lost.
So your argument whether simple or not is irrelevant.
If the Dems do lose we have to look elsewhere for the causes.
Harris and Walz purport to be the 'adults' and the 'nice' people.
By spouting bigoted crap they come across as little different to Trump.
Really ! Talk about false equivalence. Please give us an example of the “ bigoted crap “ .
Walz insinuating that Vance is some sort of sexual deviant - an old slur against hillbillies.
Harris proposing her 'opportunities for black men' including such things as forgivable loans and protected crypto investments.
Now lets say you're in some deprived Appalachian community, perhaps the part of Appalachia in Pennsylvania or North Carolina or Georgia - do either of these give an impression that the Dems are on your side ?
We're lucky that Harris and Walz haven't started complaining about 'deplorables' and 'low information voters'.
Vance is some sort of sexual deviant. He has a very unhealthy interest in the fertility status of every woman of childbearing age.
And appears to despise all women who are no longer fertile.
That would be socially deviancy or more likely a social flaw influenced by Vance's difficult upbringing.
Still its something that would be open to criticism.
Instead Walz thought it clever to spout insinuations that Vance is a sexual deviant.
That might have raised a laugh among the 'sophisticated' at the DNC but probably less so among Appalachian voters.
Taking the piss out of Vance isn't sophisticated, and it isn't an attack on Appalachia. As ought to be obvious from a gazillion stories like these.
Interesting from the other day. AA support for graduated driving licences.
Drivers aged under 21 who have just passed their tests should be prevented from carrying passengers of a similar age for their first six months as drivers, the AA has said.
It suggested tougher rules that would also see them handed six penalty points for not wearing a seatbelt during the period - meaning they could lose their licence.
The motoring organisation says the proposal for a particular type of licence targeted at new, young drivers has the potential to prevent 934 serious injuries and save 58 lives on UK roads each year.
Similar measures - known as graduated driving licensing (GDL) - already exist in Northern Ireland. The Department for Transport (DfT) has said it is not currently considering the measures for elsewhere in the UK. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c361g6nz5j1o
DFT currently not thinking about it:
A Department for Transport spokesperson said it was not currently considering graduated driving licences and is looking for other ways of keeping young drivers safe. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7565nr19eko
Tipp is back to a tie this morning. It's bounced around quite a bit recently, swinging from a 4pt Harris lead, to a 2pt Trump lead, and now back to a tie in the space of a week!
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
Who knew moss could be beautiful? Not I. And yet today I went to a 12th century Zen temple whose garden is dedicated entirely to moss, and the memory of a beautiful dead dancing girl. And it was enchanting. The Noom of the Moss was Sad yet Bright
Yes. But those lumps under the moss are the still-conscious bodies of the moss victims as they are slowly digested. Make sure you wear your mask and if you feel suddenly sleepy report it to the local authorities.
Not enough attention is being given to the very real possibility that this government simply runs out of money
The latest fiscal numbers are a bit better than expected thanks to slightly higher tax receipts, even while this year to date has been worse than forecast.
But we’ve already run out of money. The outgoing government tried to bribe the voters with two very expensive NI cuts which have used up the entire fiscal headroom. The new government refusing to reverse these leaves us in a pretty poor position. Not a precarious one - our government bond yields aren’t doing anything worrying and our deficit position is better than several peers, so much so that the pound has been rising.
But there’s not going to be money for a spending bonanza anytime soon. It’s another decade of austerity ahead. Chronic austerity.
Agree with that. And it is why the Government are running around saying “growth” all the time. Of course there is no easy lever to pull to increase productivity and growth. If there was I would like to hope that no government would leave it alone.
In some ways the pay off to train drivers kind of fits that narrative. We know that there is a cost to the economy from train strikes (and NHS strikes). If the pay off is less than the total cost to the economy isn’t it worth doing it?
There is a massive lever for growth available, free to be pulled any time. It is slashing regulations and bureaucracy. Nuke the equalities act, dump the modern slavery reporting requirements. Burn 90% of building regs and 70% of planning requirements. Get the tax code down to no more than 10 sides of A4 and burn the rest. Abolish requirements for companies to have risk assessments for everything down to the risk of paper cuts. Remove the absurd money laundering checks from the banking system. And whilst we're at it, lose those stupid GDPR cookie check boxes from all over the Internet.
There have been massive productivity gains amongst the productive over the last 30 years - but no increase in total productivity because we've just used those gains to fatten up layers of the unproductive, in the form of lawyers, HR departments, civil servants, compliance managers, diversity consultants. The fix is to get rid of all this rubbish, and return the people doing it to doing things in the productive part of the economy - and you'll get unbelievable levels of growth.
Waving from the top of Grenfell Tower!
The problem with analysing the Grenfell tragedy is that the conclusions are not obvious. The world, and PB, will perhaps divide into two: Grenfell proves the need for more regulation; and for less regulation.
What is clear to me is that Grenfell proves the need for something which cannot be legislated for or regulated: a playing field which is so level as to allow for honest, competent, selfless, truthful and honourable conduct. Most people prefer that way of life if it is available to them. Despite its critics the NHS runs mostly on those values.
In the Grenfell case there was plenty of regulation, and plenty of oversight structures. They didn't work because of money, blame transfer, dishonesty and incompetence.
It is clear that this cannot be regulated away. Start from there.
Who knew moss could be beautiful? Not I. And yet today I went to a 12th century Zen temple whose garden is dedicated entirely to moss, and the memory of a beautiful dead dancing girl. And it was enchanting. The Noom of the Moss was Sad yet Bright
Who knew moss could be beautiful? Not I. And yet today I went to a 12th century Zen temple whose garden is dedicated entirely to moss, and the memory of a beautiful dead dancing girl. And it was enchanting. The Noom of the Moss was Sad yet Bright
“Kaba’s criminal record dated back to the age of 13, but by his late teens he had graduated from petty crime to serious violence with convictions for stabbings and grievous bodily harm.”
My excitement this morning is hoping that I arrive at my destination 60+ minutes late, rather than 59 minutes late, thereby doubling my Delay Repay entitlement.
The British railway compensation scheme really should be a source of national pride. Our trains don't get you there on time, but because of this they end up startlingly cheap. This is a boon especially for business travellers for whom someone else is paying for the ticket, and can provide quite a decent little top-up income.
Avanti have earnt me some again this morning with another 35 minute delay.
The fatality last night in the crash between the Aberystwyth to Shrewsbury and Shrewsbury to Machynlleth trains is quite scary as it seems they were on the single line section which really should not happen
Incidentally my wife and I travelled that route last week
Seems likely that a unit lost grip due to leaf-fall on the rails, slid through one of the passing loops and collided with the train it was meant to pass coming the other way. Looking at the press pictures, if the closing speed was about 25mph as reported, the units generally appear to have held up very well (although I hope the drivers had vacated their desks before impact)
Leaf-fall has become a massive problem for trains since they were changed over to disk brakes rather than brakes acting on running faces of the wheels - the old style brake blocks used to clean the leaf slime off the wheels fairly effectively, with disk brakes it can in the wrong situation build up on the wheels and make them extremely difficult to control. The incident where two trains collided at Salisbury tunnel junction a couple of years ago was with pretty much identical units to the two which ran into each other on the Cambrian last night.
Incidentally, losing two 158 sets from the Cambrian ETMRS fitted pool is going to be a fairly nasty experience for TfW - they are already desperately short of working units of virtually any flavor as the ROSCOS are taking back class 150s and scrapping them as they run out of hours (the ROSCOS don't want to pay for the necessary major corrosion repairs to give the 150s a life extension as there is no obvious future for them beyond the next 18 months) but the various new CAF and Stadler units which are meant to be replacing them are proving very delayed and/or unreliable.
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
It's weirdly controversial to say it, but George Floyd was no paragon of virtue. His killing was of course an example of a police system and culture of criminality which clearly doesn't work very well, but he was no ingenue.
Tipp is back to a tie this morning. It's bounced around quite a bit recently, swinging from a 4pt Harris lead, to a 2pt Trump lead, and now back to a tie in the space of a week!
The argument is very simple. Let me spell it out for you.
1. There are a large number of people in America who have lives that suck and they see no way out 2. Trump is offering them a simplistic solution that is very unlikely to work 3. That is appealing to them so they support him 4. In order to address this the Democrats need to offer proper effective solutions 5. They are not doing this, but instead are focusing on issues that have more of a cultural edge to them (“bigoted crap” is a value judgement so not helpful) 6. Therefore the Democrats will not win
The fact that Trump is offering a different flavour of bigoted crap doesn’t disprove @another_richard’s argument. Bigoted crap is not necessarily fungible
Here is the actual post:
'Perhaps if Harris and Walz stuck to the issues instead of spouting bigoted crap they would be more likely to win.'
My response was that if that was the case Trump, who does not (contrary to your post) ever address a single issue directly but instead spouts 'bigoted crap,' would have lost.
So your argument whether simple or not is irrelevant.
If the Dems do lose we have to look elsewhere for the causes.
Harris and Walz purport to be the 'adults' and the 'nice' people.
By spouting bigoted crap they come across as little different to Trump.
Really ! Talk about false equivalence. Please give us an example of the “ bigoted crap “ .
Walz insinuating that Vance is some sort of sexual deviant - an old slur against hillbillies.
Harris proposing her 'opportunities for black men' including such things as forgivable loans and protected crypto investments.
Now lets say you're in some deprived Appalachian community, perhaps the part of Appalachia in Pennsylvania or North Carolina or Georgia - do either of these give an impression that the Dems are on your side ?
We're lucky that Harris and Walz haven't started complaining about 'deplorables' and 'low information voters'.
Vance is some sort of sexual deviant. He has a very unhealthy interest in the fertility status of every woman of childbearing age.
And appears to despise all women who are no longer fertile.
That would be socially deviancy or more likely a social flaw influenced by Vance's difficult upbringing.
Still its something that would be open to criticism.
Instead Walz thought it clever to spout insinuations that Vance is a sexual deviant.
That might have raised a laugh among the 'sophisticated' at the DNC but probably less so among Appalachian voters.
Taking the piss out of Vance isn't sophisticated, and it isn't an attack on Appalachia. As ought to be obvious from a gazillion stories like these.
Does that suggest its more in line with Vance or your 'gazillion' liberals complaining about him ?
Now they may not like Vance and you may not like Vance but all those Appalachian counties, including the ones in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, will be running up big majorities for Trump/Vance in two weeks.
Who knew moss could be beautiful? Not I. And yet today I went to a 12th century Zen temple whose garden is dedicated entirely to moss, and the memory of a beautiful dead dancing girl. And it was enchanting. The Noom of the Moss was Sad yet Bright
Who knew moss could be beautiful?
Everyone?
It’s a fantastic temple. My guide promised me the best temple in Kyoto “and yet no one goes there” (these things may be linked) and he was right
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
There was a great interview with one of the firearms officers who was on the scene when Kaba was shot and one of the sensible things he said was that the media need to stop referring to Kaba as being “unarmed” - he pointed out that he was in control of a 2.5 tonne car and was prepared to use it as a weapon.
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
It parallels the 'Free The Letby One' campaign. There is so much they have to ignore, whatever points they can raise.
On a cultural note, reading a substantial but finite amount of the one dimensional 'Kaba was murdered' comments, they have all been taught by the same PR course: they all attack something called 'the system'. Not a single one I have seen mentions the word 'jury'. And not a single one analyses any detail of the case.
"Central government tax receipts grew strongly (and cost of actually borrowing the money is down), but this was outweighed by higher expenditure, largely driven by benefits uprating and higher spending on public services due to increased running costs."
e.g
"Central government spending on providing public services and benefits continue to grow year-on-year, with this month’s combined costs being £4.0 bn more than in July last year. These increases were partially offset by a £1.0 bn year-on-year reduction in debt interest payable."
Or, in other words, wage increases.
The problem isn't wage increases, its wage increases without productivity increases.
Without productivity increases the wage increases feed through to price / tax / borrowing increases.
One could argue that ending three years of industrial strife has its own productivity benefit. It is not easy to quantify upticks in productivity for doctors, nurses or even train drivers. Improved morale after a pay increase might put that spring in one's step as one clambers aboard the Flying Scotsman.
It might do.
So we'll look forward to productivity increases and restricted pay claims for the next few years on the railways and NHS.
It's hard to imagine how one might drive a train more productively. It's not as if the fella at the front is pedalling the thing himself.
Back in the day, if the driver was a total thrash merchant, he would be giving greater pleasure to the cranks hanging out of the windows. That deserved a pay rise.
Interesting from the other day. AA support for graduated driving licences.
Drivers aged under 21 who have just passed their tests should be prevented from carrying passengers of a similar age for their first six months as drivers, the AA has said.
It suggested tougher rules that would also see them handed six penalty points for not wearing a seatbelt during the period - meaning they could lose their licence.
The motoring organisation says the proposal for a particular type of licence targeted at new, young drivers has the potential to prevent 934 serious injuries and save 58 lives on UK roads each year.
Similar measures - known as graduated driving licensing (GDL) - already exist in Northern Ireland. The Department for Transport (DfT) has said it is not currently considering the measures for elsewhere in the UK. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c361g6nz5j1o
DFT currently not thinking about it:
A Department for Transport spokesperson said it was not currently considering graduated driving licences and is looking for other ways of keeping young drivers safe. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7565nr19eko
It would be interesting to challenge something like that on age discrimination grounds. Car drivers over the age of 86 are more likely to be KSIed than those aged 17-24. For women, the rate is almost double.
There a significant increase in KSI rate starting at age 70, so a SPA linked re-test would be effective, notwithstanding the inevitable howls of outrage from the Telegraph.
When staying in a £1500 a night 5 star Ryokan in central Kyoto, try not to nod off due to acute jet lag while holding a glass of red wine, which then spills all over their exclusive designer tatami mats
Acute jet lag is a new euphemism for your perpetual condition
When staying in a £1500 a night 5 star Ryokan in central Kyoto, try not to nod off due to acute jet lag while holding a glass of red wine, which then spills all over their exclusive designer tatami mats
Acute jet lag is a new euphemism for your perpetual condition
Yes dear
I’d had one gin martini
SPLOOSH
Quite mortifying. However they have yet to email me the bill so either it wasn’t actually that bad or it was SO bad they’ve had to call in architects
Do you have professional indemnity insurance to cover these sort of mishaps? I assume your premiums are massive…
The argument is very simple. Let me spell it out for you.
1. There are a large number of people in America who have lives that suck and they see no way out 2. Trump is offering them a simplistic solution that is very unlikely to work 3. That is appealing to them so they support him 4. In order to address this the Democrats need to offer proper effective solutions 5. They are not doing this, but instead are focusing on issues that have more of a cultural edge to them (“bigoted crap” is a value judgement so not helpful) 6. Therefore the Democrats will not win
The fact that Trump is offering a different flavour of bigoted crap doesn’t disprove @another_richard’s argument. Bigoted crap is not necessarily fungible
Here is the actual post:
'Perhaps if Harris and Walz stuck to the issues instead of spouting bigoted crap they would be more likely to win.'
My response was that if that was the case Trump, who does not (contrary to your post) ever address a single issue directly but instead spouts 'bigoted crap,' would have lost.
So your argument whether simple or not is irrelevant.
If the Dems do lose we have to look elsewhere for the causes.
Harris and Walz purport to be the 'adults' and the 'nice' people.
By spouting bigoted crap they come across as little different to Trump.
Really ! Talk about false equivalence. Please give us an example of the “ bigoted crap “ .
Walz insinuating that Vance is some sort of sexual deviant - an old slur against hillbillies.
Harris proposing her 'opportunities for black men' including such things as forgivable loans and protected crypto investments.
Now lets say you're in some deprived Appalachian community, perhaps the part of Appalachia in Pennsylvania or North Carolina or Georgia - do either of these give an impression that the Dems are on your side ?
We're lucky that Harris and Walz haven't started complaining about 'deplorables' and 'low information voters'.
Vance is some sort of sexual deviant. He has a very unhealthy interest in the fertility status of every woman of childbearing age.
And appears to despise all women who are no longer fertile.
That would be socially deviancy or more likely a social flaw influenced by Vance's difficult upbringing.
Still its something that would be open to criticism.
Instead Walz thought it clever to spout insinuations that Vance is a sexual deviant.
That might have raised a laugh among the 'sophisticated' at the DNC but probably less so among Appalachian voters.
Taking the piss out of Vance isn't sophisticated, and it isn't an attack on Appalachia. As ought to be obvious from a gazillion stories like these.
Does that suggest its more in line with Vance or your 'gazillion' liberals complaining about him ?
Now they may not like Vance and you may not like Vance but all those Appalachian counties, including the ones in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, will be running up big majorities for Trump/Vance in two weeks.
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
It's weirdly controversial to say it, but George Floyd was no paragon of virtue. His killing was of course an example of a police system and culture of criminality which clearly doesn't work very well, but he was no ingenue.
He was a violent drug addict and a truly nasty thug
The attempt to sanctify him is as nauseating and disturbing as the absurd violence of SOME American cops
Interesting from the other day. AA support for graduated driving licences.
Drivers aged under 21 who have just passed their tests should be prevented from carrying passengers of a similar age for their first six months as drivers, the AA has said.
It suggested tougher rules that would also see them handed six penalty points for not wearing a seatbelt during the period - meaning they could lose their licence.
The motoring organisation says the proposal for a particular type of licence targeted at new, young drivers has the potential to prevent 934 serious injuries and save 58 lives on UK roads each year.
Similar measures - known as graduated driving licensing (GDL) - already exist in Northern Ireland. The Department for Transport (DfT) has said it is not currently considering the measures for elsewhere in the UK. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c361g6nz5j1o
DFT currently not thinking about it:
A Department for Transport spokesperson said it was not currently considering graduated driving licences and is looking for other ways of keeping young drivers safe. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7565nr19eko
It would be interesting to challenge something like that on age discrimination grounds. Car drivers over the age of 86 are more likely to be KSIed than those aged 17-24. For women, the rate is almost double.
There a significant increase in KSI rate starting at age 70, so a SPA linked re-test would be effective, notwithstanding the inevitable howls of outrage from the Telegraph.
For you. On Bluesky, I get the impression it is at about Twitter Late 2007 stage. Early adopters digging themselves in, and anyone can create a decent community by follow + engage + do decent regular content.
Not yet buried under people with external platforms, or beyond that to the buried-by-trolls stage which I hope will not arrive.
Who knew moss could be beautiful? Not I. And yet today I went to a 12th century Zen temple whose garden is dedicated entirely to moss, and the memory of a beautiful dead dancing girl. And it was enchanting. The Noom of the Moss was Sad yet Bright
Lots of multi layered moss in Cumbria and Scottish island woodland. Beautiful, ancient and extremely difficult to traverse.
Mr. Pointer, and when you try to tax wealth, will the wealthy and their assets stay in this country, or leave?
Not all wealth can be moved, of course. Council tax on steroids is possible. Or you could drive farmers into bankruptcy (the pre-election murmuring about imposing inheritance tax on farms might come true).
WRT farms, the budget might tweak a bit in order to deal with non-farmers usiing farms as tax planning; but there will be no major change to the exemption in ordinary 'family farm' cases.
What there should be (IHT currently only applies to 4% of estates) is a much wider net for IHT, incorporating lifetime gifts and many fewer exemptions, but a much lower rate - more like 5-10% than 40%. The current tweak for homes, which brings the threshold up to £1m for some households but not others, should also go by being incorporated into the current exempt sum.
Isn’t IHT on estates 4% *a year* so ending up at 40% every 10 years (obviously with the benefit of time value of money)
I greened out on the presidential market over the weekend (which was painful at the time, but less so in retrospect - and I still make more on a Harris win than Trump) to free up cash for trading around the election.
Looking at random things in the meantime. Is N Carolina now value again at 3, on Betfair ?
“Kaba’s criminal record dated back to the age of 13, but by his late teens he had graduated from petty crime to serious violence with convictions for stabbings and grievous bodily harm.”
Not enough attention is being given to the very real possibility that this government simply runs out of money
The latest fiscal numbers are a bit better than expected thanks to slightly higher tax receipts, even while this year to date has been worse than forecast.
But we’ve already run out of money. The outgoing government tried to bribe the voters with two very expensive NI cuts which have used up the entire fiscal headroom. The new government refusing to reverse these leaves us in a pretty poor position. Not a precarious one - our government bond yields aren’t doing anything worrying and our deficit position is better than several peers, so much so that the pound has been rising.
But there’s not going to be money for a spending bonanza anytime soon. It’s another decade of austerity ahead. Chronic austerity.
Problem is there are whole parts of the day to day running of the country where things have been cut to the bone already.
Court sitting days have reduced again while court cases are now being scheduled well into 2026...
There is a simple solution staring us all in the face: tax the £20tn of wealth in the country.
Unfortunately, no one seems celver enough to do it.
Haven't we covered this multiple times before - we always end up with a tax on property prices because it's the only thing that can't be quickly moved abroad.
Although that does remind me why I preferred the easier solution of just taxing based on estimated property value rather than land value based taxes...
Personally, I'm intrigued by how a land value tax would work. We have a large garden (for suburbia, at least). If the house we live in was built nowadays then the land of our house and the adjacent five houses would no doubt be a cul-de-sac with 10-12 houses, maybe more, rather than six in a line with long gardens. Looked at that way, the land is worth a fortune, but in reality there's no building on it (not without purchasing the set of houses and knocking them down, anyway - there's no access). So the actual value of the land is pretty low. How is that valued for land tax purposes?
Bought well before Covid, the garden didn't seem to attract a premium in price - we looked at other comparably priced similar houses with smaller gardens (1/3-1/2 the size) and the people we bought from said we were the first to comment on the garden as a plus or even show much interest in the garden.
"Badenoch certainly represents a change of pace, but it is important that Tories see her style and personality as the means to an end, not the end itself. Nor can it be a distraction from the grindingly hard work opposition requires. If they choose her, it should not simply because of who she is, but because of the job she will do. And they will have to be patient."
The argument is very simple. Let me spell it out for you.
1. There are a large number of people in America who have lives that suck and they see no way out 2. Trump is offering them a simplistic solution that is very unlikely to work 3. That is appealing to them so they support him 4. In order to address this the Democrats need to offer proper effective solutions 5. They are not doing this, but instead are focusing on issues that have more of a cultural edge to them (“bigoted crap” is a value judgement so not helpful) 6. Therefore the Democrats will not win
The fact that Trump is offering a different flavour of bigoted crap doesn’t disprove @another_richard’s argument. Bigoted crap is not necessarily fungible
Has anyone (eg Mr Chump) explored the practicalities of Mr Chump deporting 20 million people, yet? I think that number is about what he is proposing.
What happens if targeted countries don't want to accept them? Does he just leave them in concentration camps?
I thought it was 12 million. But that’s a distinction not a difference.
I’d assume that the targeted countries can’t refuse to take their citizens back
Mr. Pointer, and when you try to tax wealth, will the wealthy and their assets stay in this country, or leave?
Not all wealth can be moved, of course. Council tax on steroids is possible. Or you could drive farmers into bankruptcy (the pre-election murmuring about imposing inheritance tax on farms might come true).
WRT farms, the budget might tweak a bit in order to deal with non-farmers usiing farms as tax planning; but there will be no major change to the exemption in ordinary 'family farm' cases.
What there should be (IHT currently only applies to 4% of estates) is a much wider net for IHT, incorporating lifetime gifts and many fewer exemptions, but a much lower rate - more like 5-10% than 40%. The current tweak for homes, which brings the threshold up to £1m for some households but not others, should also go by being incorporated into the current exempt sum.
Isn’t IHT on estates 4% *a year* so ending up at 40% every 10 years (obviously with the benefit of time value of money)
No. It applies to about 28,000 estates per year. That's about 280,000 in 10 years. In 10 years there are about 6,500,000 deaths. Just over 4% of deaths involve estates that pay IHT. Each person just dies the once.
Not enough attention is being given to the very real possibility that this government simply runs out of money
The latest fiscal numbers are a bit better than expected thanks to slightly higher tax receipts, even while this year to date has been worse than forecast.
But we’ve already run out of money. The outgoing government tried to bribe the voters with two very expensive NI cuts which have used up the entire fiscal headroom. The new government refusing to reverse these leaves us in a pretty poor position. Not a precarious one - our government bond yields aren’t doing anything worrying and our deficit position is better than several peers, so much so that the pound has been rising.
But there’s not going to be money for a spending bonanza anytime soon. It’s another decade of austerity ahead. Chronic austerity.
Problem is there are whole parts of the day to day running of the country where things have been cut to the bone already.
Court sitting days have reduced again while court cases are now being scheduled well into 2026...
There is a simple solution staring us all in the face: tax the £20tn of wealth in the country.
Unfortunately, no one seems celver enough to do it.
Haven't we covered this multiple times before - we always end up with a tax on property prices because it's the only thing that can't be quickly moved abroad.
Although that does remind me why I preferred the easier solution of just taxing based on estimated property value rather than land value based taxes...
Other way round, Mr Eek. If you go for taxing the vallue of the property, you have to make a valuation of each individual property, which would take a year and a day. If you look just at the value of the site, based on its development value, you could do that in a matter of minutes...... I have a feeling that the value of the site where I live is going to be exactly the same as that of the two properties on either side of me.
Nah you just do it on last sale value plus a certain amount for inflation each year
Interesting from the other day. AA support for graduated driving licences.
Drivers aged under 21 who have just passed their tests should be prevented from carrying passengers of a similar age for their first six months as drivers, the AA has said.
It suggested tougher rules that would also see them handed six penalty points for not wearing a seatbelt during the period - meaning they could lose their licence.
The motoring organisation says the proposal for a particular type of licence targeted at new, young drivers has the potential to prevent 934 serious injuries and save 58 lives on UK roads each year.
Similar measures - known as graduated driving licensing (GDL) - already exist in Northern Ireland. The Department for Transport (DfT) has said it is not currently considering the measures for elsewhere in the UK. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c361g6nz5j1o
DFT currently not thinking about it:
A Department for Transport spokesperson said it was not currently considering graduated driving licences and is looking for other ways of keeping young drivers safe. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7565nr19eko
It would be interesting to challenge something like that on age discrimination grounds. Car drivers over the age of 86 are more likely to be KSIed than those aged 17-24. For women, the rate is almost double.
There a significant increase in KSI rate starting at age 70, so a SPA linked re-test would be effective, notwithstanding the inevitable howls of outrage from the Telegraph.
I think the numbers are different enough and distinct enough that it would fly. There are already major differences by attributes - such as medical licences, plus the age restriction itself for getting a licence. The number afaics say restrict males more than females, but that is problematic - see what happened with insurance. Plus a version of Graduated Licences has been in place in NI since ~2016.
I think they are perhaps worried about the extra workload on the DVLA, plus the police. Both also need addressing.
The argument is very simple. Let me spell it out for you.
1. There are a large number of people in America who have lives that suck and they see no way out 2. Trump is offering them a simplistic solution that is very unlikely to work 3. That is appealing to them so they support him 4. In order to address this the Democrats need to offer proper effective solutions 5. They are not doing this, but instead are focusing on issues that have more of a cultural edge to them (“bigoted crap” is a value judgement so not helpful) 6. Therefore the Democrats will not win
The fact that Trump is offering a different flavour of bigoted crap doesn’t disprove @another_richard’s argument. Bigoted crap is not necessarily fungible
Has anyone (eg Mr Chump) explored the practicalities of Mr Chump deporting 20 million people, yet? I think that number is about what he is proposing.
What happens if targeted countries don't want to accept them? Does he just leave them in concentration camps?
I thought it was 12 million. But that’s a distinction not a difference.
I’d assume that the targeted countries can’t refuse to take their citizens back
Here don't we have a problem knowing where they came from?
"Central government tax receipts grew strongly (and cost of actually borrowing the money is down), but this was outweighed by higher expenditure, largely driven by benefits uprating and higher spending on public services due to increased running costs."
e.g
"Central government spending on providing public services and benefits continue to grow year-on-year, with this month’s combined costs being £4.0 bn more than in July last year. These increases were partially offset by a £1.0 bn year-on-year reduction in debt interest payable."
Or, in other words, wage increases.
The problem isn't wage increases, its wage increases without productivity increases.
Without productivity increases the wage increases feed through to price / tax / borrowing increases.
We are taking too much money off people who are working to give to people who are not working.
That is simply not sustainable.
The UK is becoming a nation that punishes work with tax and rewards idleness with sickness benefits. It started with Theresa May expanding the definition of what is allowable for sickness benefits but neither Boris nor Rishi undid that. Along with her idiotically broad definition of modern slavery Theresa May is responsible for a lot of the issues we have today, millions of additional people claiming to be sick because they can't be bothered to work and asylum seekers being coached by their representatives to claim they are caught up in modern slavery meaning they can't be deported. Truly a disaster.
Yep. I actually think TMay was the worst of them all. Worse than Truss. The worst PM since the 1970s
No, May actually did the hard work to get the Brexit deal which formed 90% of what Boris agreed with the EU.
May also never crashed the markets like Truss leading to Tory poll collapse.
Yes she was a little woke on things like modern slavery but then for those actually in modern slavery she made a difference to their lives as she did on her work for domestic violence victims. May had a moral compass.
May also won a general election, even if by less than expected and without a majority and after her dementia tax dissaster proprosals she still had enough MPs to do a deal with the DUP which is more than Rishi ever did
How the sodding heck can you call tackling modern slavery 'woke' ?
Well MaxPB clearly thinks doing that is woke as in his words it has led to '...asylum seekers being coached by their representatives to claim they are caught up in modern slavery meaning they can't be deported.'
I didn't call it woke, I called it stupid. Her definition has made it possible for illegal immigrants to claim they've been enslaved by other illegal immigrants which means the purported slavers end up in the justice system and don't get deported while the self-identified victims are no longer easy to deport. It's the most stupid situation to be in when a sensible way forwards would be to deport all of them.
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
It's weirdly controversial to say it, but George Floyd was no paragon of virtue. His killing was of course an example of a police system and culture of criminality which clearly doesn't work very well, but he was no ingenue.
Neither is particularly relevant to whether a police homicide is justified. That depends far more on the situation they were reacting to, and the actions they took in response - police are not judge or executioner,
There was no self defence element in the Floyd case; there clearly was in the Kaba case.
Not enough attention is being given to the very real possibility that this government simply runs out of money
The latest fiscal numbers are a bit better than expected thanks to slightly higher tax receipts, even while this year to date has been worse than forecast.
But we’ve already run out of money. The outgoing government tried to bribe the voters with two very expensive NI cuts which have used up the entire fiscal headroom. The new government refusing to reverse these leaves us in a pretty poor position. Not a precarious one - our government bond yields aren’t doing anything worrying and our deficit position is better than several peers, so much so that the pound has been rising.
But there’s not going to be money for a spending bonanza anytime soon. It’s another decade of austerity ahead. Chronic austerity.
Agree with that. And it is why the Government are running around saying “growth” all the time. Of course there is no easy lever to pull to increase productivity and growth. If there was I would like to hope that no government would leave it alone.
In some ways the pay off to train drivers kind of fits that narrative. We know that there is a cost to the economy from train strikes (and NHS strikes). If the pay off is less than the total cost to the economy isn’t it worth doing it?
There is a massive lever for growth available, free to be pulled any time. It is slashing regulations and bureaucracy. Nuke the equalities act, dump the modern slavery reporting requirements. Burn 90% of building regs and 70% of planning requirements. Get the tax code down to no more than 10 sides of A4 and burn the rest. Abolish requirements for companies to have risk assessments for everything down to the risk of paper cuts. Remove the absurd money laundering checks from the banking system. And whilst we're at it, lose those stupid GDPR cookie check boxes from all over the Internet.
There have been massive productivity gains amongst the productive over the last 30 years - but no increase in total productivity because we've just used those gains to fatten up layers of the unproductive, in the form of lawyers, HR departments, civil servants, compliance managers, diversity consultants. The fix is to get rid of all this rubbish, and return the people doing it to doing things in the productive part of the economy - and you'll get unbelievable levels of growth.
Waving from the top of Grenfell Tower!
I'm also struck by the way our right wingers on PB (in general - not necessarily tP) simultaneously complain about civil servants while bemoaning Labour's failure to introduce a massive bureaucracy to do means testing on the winter fuel allowance rather than using pension credit as a zero-cost rule of thumb.
IMHO what Labour have done on the WFA is fine, although I did note that they have jumped enthusiastically into a bear trap which Gordon Brown manufactured purely in the hope that the Tories would walk into it.
I seem to recall posting not long after the cut was announced that the Tory leadership hopefuls were foolish to jump up and down about it too much, given that a) it was obviously the right thing to do and b) what on earth will they say if they are asked if "will they reinstate it" in the run up to the next election - if they say yes, they've just agreed to spend a load of money they haven't got, and if they say no, they will get clips played back to them, of them raging against freezing granny by cutting it.
“Kaba’s criminal record dated back to the age of 13, but by his late teens he had graduated from petty crime to serious violence with convictions for stabbings and grievous bodily harm.”
Wonder if the Mayor of London might wish to revise his statement from yesterday, in light of new information released by the court..?
Interesting from the other day. AA support for graduated driving licences.
Drivers aged under 21 who have just passed their tests should be prevented from carrying passengers of a similar age for their first six months as drivers, the AA has said.
It suggested tougher rules that would also see them handed six penalty points for not wearing a seatbelt during the period - meaning they could lose their licence.
The motoring organisation says the proposal for a particular type of licence targeted at new, young drivers has the potential to prevent 934 serious injuries and save 58 lives on UK roads each year.
Similar measures - known as graduated driving licensing (GDL) - already exist in Northern Ireland. The Department for Transport (DfT) has said it is not currently considering the measures for elsewhere in the UK. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c361g6nz5j1o
DFT currently not thinking about it:
A Department for Transport spokesperson said it was not currently considering graduated driving licences and is looking for other ways of keeping young drivers safe. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7565nr19eko
It would be interesting to challenge something like that on age discrimination grounds. Car drivers over the age of 86 are more likely to be KSIed than those aged 17-24. For women, the rate is almost double.
There a significant increase in KSI rate starting at age 70, so a SPA linked re-test would be effective, notwithstanding the inevitable howls of outrage from the Telegraph.
For you. On Bluesky, I get the impression it is at about Twitter Late 2007 stage. Early adopters digging themselves in, and anyone can create a decent community by follow + engage + do decent regular content.
Not yet buried under people with external platforms, or beyond that to the buried-by-trolls stage which I hope will not arrive.
I am enjoying Bluesky so far. Most of the more interesting accounts I follow on twitter are now crossposting there, and people are linking to Bluesky accounts from other forums/newsletter which suggests a snowball effect.
Long way to go though. I'm only on 2% of my twitter followers.
Interesting from the other day. AA support for graduated driving licences.
Drivers aged under 21 who have just passed their tests should be prevented from carrying passengers of a similar age for their first six months as drivers, the AA has said.
It suggested tougher rules that would also see them handed six penalty points for not wearing a seatbelt during the period - meaning they could lose their licence.
The motoring organisation says the proposal for a particular type of licence targeted at new, young drivers has the potential to prevent 934 serious injuries and save 58 lives on UK roads each year.
Similar measures - known as graduated driving licensing (GDL) - already exist in Northern Ireland. The Department for Transport (DfT) has said it is not currently considering the measures for elsewhere in the UK. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c361g6nz5j1o
DFT currently not thinking about it:
A Department for Transport spokesperson said it was not currently considering graduated driving licences and is looking for other ways of keeping young drivers safe. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7565nr19eko
It would be interesting to challenge something like that on age discrimination grounds. Car drivers over the age of 86 are more likely to be KSIed than those aged 17-24. For women, the rate is almost double.
There a significant increase in KSI rate starting at age 70, so a SPA linked re-test would be effective, notwithstanding the inevitable howls of outrage from the Telegraph.
I think the numbers are different enough and distinct enough that it would fly. There are already major differences by attributes - such as medical licences, plus the age restriction itself for getting a licence. The number afaics say restrict males more than females, but that is problematic - see what happened with insurance. Plus a version of Graduated Licences has been in place in NI since ~2016.
I think they are perhaps worried about the extra workload on the DVLA, plus the police. Both also need addressing.
Oh I don't doubt that at all. It's just curious that the same risk-based approach is not applied to older drivers too.
Interesting from the other day. AA support for graduated driving licences.
Drivers aged under 21 who have just passed their tests should be prevented from carrying passengers of a similar age for their first six months as drivers, the AA has said.
It suggested tougher rules that would also see them handed six penalty points for not wearing a seatbelt during the period - meaning they could lose their licence.
The motoring organisation says the proposal for a particular type of licence targeted at new, young drivers has the potential to prevent 934 serious injuries and save 58 lives on UK roads each year.
Similar measures - known as graduated driving licensing (GDL) - already exist in Northern Ireland. The Department for Transport (DfT) has said it is not currently considering the measures for elsewhere in the UK. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c361g6nz5j1o
DFT currently not thinking about it:
A Department for Transport spokesperson said it was not currently considering graduated driving licences and is looking for other ways of keeping young drivers safe. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7565nr19eko
It would be interesting to challenge something like that on age discrimination grounds. Car drivers over the age of 86 are more likely to be KSIed than those aged 17-24. For women, the rate is almost double.
There a significant increase in KSI rate starting at age 70, so a SPA linked re-test would be effective, notwithstanding the inevitable howls of outrage from the Telegraph.
For you. On Bluesky, I get the impression it is at about Twitter Late 2007 stage. Early adopters digging themselves in, and anyone can create a decent community by follow + engage + do decent regular content.
Not yet buried under people with external platforms, or beyond that to the buried-by-trolls stage which I hope will not arrive.
I am enjoying Bluesky so far. Most of the more interesting accounts I follow on twitter are now crossposting there, and people are linking to Bluesky accounts from other forums/newsletter which suggests a snowball effect.
Long way to go though. I'm only on 2% of my twitter followers.
Heh. I'm currently at slightly under 1%. Since one of my things is the Belbin Resource Investigator role I need a cross-cutting following.
If Kimi wins how long will it last? It could be to the next election or every couple of months we could have a leadership challenge. Revolving non stop challenge till people become oblivious to it.
New 1922 Committee chief Bob Blackman has advocated doubling the threshold needed to oust leaders.
Yes. But it’s akin to counting the threshold on one hand to being able to count it in two hands and half a foot. Jenrick and Cleverly each got MPs in the final vote around the new threshold. And One Nation Group are now sitting out the rest of the election. How to bring party all together, in cabinet and country is going to be extremely difficult to whoever wins. You notice Jenrick wants wet signatures to his policies to even be allowed to stand again as MP - that’s St Bart’s Day massacre of moderates part two no different than the damage Bonehead Boris done in part one.
Also concerning to me would be if by far the weakest candidate beats the stronger one again in members vote, as that would have a pattern of skin colour to the inexplicable decision.
On the polling evidence Badenoch is the weaker candidate.
Electoral Calculus already has a poll saying a Jenrick led Tory party would get a hung parliament and deprive Starmer of his majority.
Oh Stop it will you. 🙄. That’s complete fantasy polling.
In the real world elections are won on lost on leader v leader, chancellor v shadow, manifesto v manifesto, economic policy v economic policy - what you are polling doesn’t have any of that. And not to ignore the millstone the Conservatives carry into the coming General Elections, how awful they have been in government the last 4 years. once you shred reputations for economic competence and governmental competence, what a long road back it is from there. The actual question is, what brings the Lib Dem held seats the Conservatives need to form a government, what brings the voters Conservatives have lost to Reform, but need in order to form a government, back into the fold, that’s something polling at this point of the electoral cycle does not have built in.
Kemi Badenoch subtly won this at conference week. Maternity pay remarks a mistake? She is doubling down now by adding minimum wage to the burdens on existing business and preventing start ups. The trillion pound a year bill and government burdens on business is already here after 13 years of Conservative government - politicians buying favourable front pages and votes with generous offers paid not by them, but by businesses and future taxpayers - but Starmer’s woke government is only going to make the problems worse and even more obvious, which is why Badenoch is spot on with her pro business, pro productivity platform. The Party needs to move on sharpish from Boris Eff business era.
Meanwhile Jendrick’s One Dimensional platform is all in on Johnny Foreigner being a freeloading terror risk, pull up the drawbridge now before they swamp our housing and public services, take our jobs and turn England into a foreign land.
Jenrick is promising more affordable homes and slashed immigraton, something Rishi notably failed to deliver on.
In voteshare terms Electoral Calculus' poll has a Jenrick led Tories on 23% with Labour on 28% and Reform on 20% and the LDs on 12% and Greens on 11% and a Badenoch led Tories on 22% with Labour on 29% and Reform on 21% and the LDs on 12% and Greens on 10%
So Badenoch gets a slightly lower Tory vote than Jenrick while Labour and Reform do better against Badenoch than Jenrick too with the LD voteshare unchanged regardless of which of them becomes Tory leader
Interesting from the other day. AA support for graduated driving licences.
Drivers aged under 21 who have just passed their tests should be prevented from carrying passengers of a similar age for their first six months as drivers, the AA has said.
It suggested tougher rules that would also see them handed six penalty points for not wearing a seatbelt during the period - meaning they could lose their licence.
The motoring organisation says the proposal for a particular type of licence targeted at new, young drivers has the potential to prevent 934 serious injuries and save 58 lives on UK roads each year.
Similar measures - known as graduated driving licensing (GDL) - already exist in Northern Ireland. The Department for Transport (DfT) has said it is not currently considering the measures for elsewhere in the UK. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c361g6nz5j1o
DFT currently not thinking about it:
A Department for Transport spokesperson said it was not currently considering graduated driving licences and is looking for other ways of keeping young drivers safe. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7565nr19eko
It would be interesting to challenge something like that on age discrimination grounds. Car drivers over the age of 86 are more likely to be KSIed than those aged 17-24. For women, the rate is almost double.
There a significant increase in KSI rate starting at age 70, so a SPA linked re-test would be effective, notwithstanding the inevitable howls of outrage from the Telegraph.
For you. On Bluesky, I get the impression it is at about Twitter Late 2007 stage. Early adopters digging themselves in, and anyone can create a decent community by follow + engage + do decent regular content.
Not yet buried under people with external platforms, or beyond that to the buried-by-trolls stage which I hope will not arrive.
I am enjoying Bluesky so far. Most of the more interesting accounts I follow on twitter are now crossposting there, and people are linking to Bluesky accounts from other forums/newsletter which suggests a snowball effect.
Long way to go though. I'm only on 2% of my twitter followers.
Not enough attention is being given to the very real possibility that this government simply runs out of money
The latest fiscal numbers are a bit better than expected thanks to slightly higher tax receipts, even while this year to date has been worse than forecast.
But we’ve already run out of money. The outgoing government tried to bribe the voters with two very expensive NI cuts which have used up the entire fiscal headroom. The new government refusing to reverse these leaves us in a pretty poor position. Not a precarious one - our government bond yields aren’t doing anything worrying and our deficit position is better than several peers, so much so that the pound has been rising.
But there’s not going to be money for a spending bonanza anytime soon. It’s another decade of austerity ahead. Chronic austerity.
Agree with that. And it is why the Government are running around saying “growth” all the time. Of course there is no easy lever to pull to increase productivity and growth. If there was I would like to hope that no government would leave it alone.
In some ways the pay off to train drivers kind of fits that narrative. We know that there is a cost to the economy from train strikes (and NHS strikes). If the pay off is less than the total cost to the economy isn’t it worth doing it?
There is a massive lever for growth available, free to be pulled any time. It is slashing regulations and bureaucracy. Nuke the equalities act, dump the modern slavery reporting requirements. Burn 90% of building regs and 70% of planning requirements. Get the tax code down to no more than 10 sides of A4 and burn the rest. Abolish requirements for companies to have risk assessments for everything down to the risk of paper cuts. Remove the absurd money laundering checks from the banking system. And whilst we're at it, lose those stupid GDPR cookie check boxes from all over the Internet.
There have been massive productivity gains amongst the productive over the last 30 years - but no increase in total productivity because we've just used those gains to fatten up layers of the unproductive, in the form of lawyers, HR departments, civil servants, compliance managers, diversity consultants. The fix is to get rid of all this rubbish, and return the people doing it to doing things in the productive part of the economy - and you'll get unbelievable levels of growth.
Waving from the top of Grenfell Tower!
Which burnt despite rooms full of compliance paperwork, the people putting up the insulation being suitably diverse, and the contractors concerned doubtless having their modern slavery policy in order.
It’s fucking terrible. It boils down to a personal whine that the Tories aren’t more depressed, and this is because Labour are so shit the Tories could easily bounce back into power in 2028
And you can understand why the Tories aren't more depressed when Lab are averaging 28% in the polls after 3 months compared to 50% for Blair after the same time period.
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
Istr there was a concerted attempt in certain quarters to depict Floyd as a druggy stain on society who somehow 'deserved' to be choked to death, and no great loss in any case.*
Is there a particular type of person that deserves to be shot and killed while unarmed?
If Kimi wins how long will it last? It could be to the next election or every couple of months we could have a leadership challenge. Revolving non stop challenge till people become oblivious to it.
New 1922 Committee chief Bob Blackman has advocated doubling the threshold needed to oust leaders.
Yes. But it’s akin to counting the threshold on one hand to being able to count it in two hands and half a foot. Jenrick and Cleverly each got MPs in the final vote around the new threshold. And One Nation Group are now sitting out the rest of the election. How to bring party all together, in cabinet and country is going to be extremely difficult to whoever wins. You notice Jenrick wants wet signatures to his policies to even be allowed to stand again as MP - that’s St Bart’s Day massacre of moderates part two no different than the damage Bonehead Boris done in part one.
Also concerning to me would be if by far the weakest candidate beats the stronger one again in members vote, as that would have a pattern of skin colour to the inexplicable decision.
On the polling evidence Badenoch is the weaker candidate.
Electoral Calculus already has a poll saying a Jenrick led Tory party would get a hung parliament and deprive Starmer of his majority.
Oh Stop it will you. 🙄. That’s complete fantasy polling.
In the real world elections are won on lost on leader v leader, chancellor v shadow, manifesto v manifesto, economic policy v economic policy - what you are polling doesn’t have any of that. And not to ignore the millstone the Conservatives carry into the coming General Elections, how awful they have been in government the last 4 years. once you shred reputations for economic competence and governmental competence, what a long road back it is from there. The actual question is, what brings the Lib Dem held seats the Conservatives need to form a government, what brings the voters Conservatives have lost to Reform, but need in order to form a government, back into the fold, that’s something polling at this point of the electoral cycle does not have built in.
Kemi Badenoch subtly won this at conference week. Maternity pay remarks a mistake? She is doubling down now by adding minimum wage to the burdens on existing business and preventing start ups. The trillion pound a year bill and government burdens on business is already here after 13 years of Conservative government - politicians buying favourable front pages and votes with generous offers paid not by them, but by businesses and future taxpayers - but Starmer’s woke government is only going to make the problems worse and even more obvious, which is why Badenoch is spot on with her pro business, pro productivity platform. The Party needs to move on sharpish from Boris Eff business era.
Meanwhile Jendrick’s One Dimensional platform is all in on Johnny Foreigner being a freeloading terror risk, pull up the drawbridge now before they swamp our housing and public services, take our jobs and turn England into a foreign land.
Jenrick is promising more affordable homes and slashed immigraton, something Rishi notably failed to deliver on.
In voteshare terms Electoral Calculus' poll has a Jenrick led Tories on 23% with Labour on 28% and Reform on 20% and the LDs on 12% and Greens on 11% and a Badenoch led Tories on 22% with Labour on 29% and Reform on 21% and the LDs on 12% and Greens on 10%
So Badenoch gets a slightly lower Tory vote than Jenrick while Labour and Reform do better against Badenoch than Jenrick too with the LD voteshare unchanged regardless of which of them becomes Tory leader
HYUFD, you're very good on polling, but I think sometimes you read too much into them: there are polls and polls, and a poll three months out from a general election showing VI between parties with established leaders and definitive offers is meaningful: a poll of whether one of two relatively unknown leaders might entice as-yet-uninterested voters to vote Tory is less so. I'd argue you'd be better off using your judgement than placing any credibility in this poll. I know you personally rate Jenrick over Badenoch and know more than most poll respondees about each of them: I'd say this is far more meaningful and interesting than a poll of how the electorate who have seen very little of either of them might view them.
I still think on balance Badenoch is the better bet for the Tories - she might be a game changer, although granted she may also crash and burn. (And I can understand that you as a Tory party member might be more unwilling to go with the higher risk candidate). But for me, your positive assessment of Jenrick is a mark in his favour. Whereas this poll is not, really.
Not enough attention is being given to the very real possibility that this government simply runs out of money
The latest fiscal numbers are a bit better than expected thanks to slightly higher tax receipts, even while this year to date has been worse than forecast.
But we’ve already run out of money. The outgoing government tried to bribe the voters with two very expensive NI cuts which have used up the entire fiscal headroom. The new government refusing to reverse these leaves us in a pretty poor position. Not a precarious one - our government bond yields aren’t doing anything worrying and our deficit position is better than several peers, so much so that the pound has been rising.
But there’s not going to be money for a spending bonanza anytime soon. It’s another decade of austerity ahead. Chronic austerity.
Agree with that. And it is why the Government are running around saying “growth” all the time. Of course there is no easy lever to pull to increase productivity and growth. If there was I would like to hope that no government would leave it alone.
In some ways the pay off to train drivers kind of fits that narrative. We know that there is a cost to the economy from train strikes (and NHS strikes). If the pay off is less than the total cost to the economy isn’t it worth doing it?
There is a massive lever for growth available, free to be pulled any time. It is slashing regulations and bureaucracy. Nuke the equalities act, dump the modern slavery reporting requirements. Burn 90% of building regs and 70% of planning requirements. Get the tax code down to no more than 10 sides of A4 and burn the rest. Abolish requirements for companies to have risk assessments for everything down to the risk of paper cuts. Remove the absurd money laundering checks from the banking system. And whilst we're at it, lose those stupid GDPR cookie check boxes from all over the Internet.
There have been massive productivity gains amongst the productive over the last 30 years - but no increase in total productivity because we've just used those gains to fatten up layers of the unproductive, in the form of lawyers, HR departments, civil servants, compliance managers, diversity consultants. The fix is to get rid of all this rubbish, and return the people doing it to doing things in the productive part of the economy - and you'll get unbelievable levels of growth.
Waving from the top of Grenfell Tower!
The problem with analysing the Grenfell tragedy is that the conclusions are not obvious. The world, and PB, will perhaps divide into two: Grenfell proves the need for more regulation; and for less regulation.
What is clear to me is that Grenfell proves the need for something which cannot be legislated for or regulated: a playing field which is so level as to allow for honest, competent, selfless, truthful and honourable conduct. Most people prefer that way of life if it is available to them. Despite its critics the NHS runs mostly on those values.
In the Grenfell case there was plenty of regulation, and plenty of oversight structures. They didn't work because of money, blame transfer, dishonesty and incompetence.
It is clear that this cannot be regulated away. Start from there.
Yes, my comment was a little flippant. A quick one-off. Dishonesty and incompetence cannot be 'regulated away', as you say. Dishonesty can be dealt by prosecution, and, effectively, by public shaming. Incompetence can be dealt with by education, both of the incompetent and of those who appoint them.
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
Istr there was a concerted attempt in certain quarters to depict Floyd as a druggy stain on society who somehow 'deserved' to be choked to death, and no great loss in any case.*
Is there a particular type of person that deserves to be shot and killed while unarmed?
*I see that meme is still alive and well.
The "unarmed" man was using a big car as a weapon against the armed police
Should armed police accept being run over by criminals who don't have guns?
Not enough attention is being given to the very real possibility that this government simply runs out of money
The latest fiscal numbers are a bit better than expected thanks to slightly higher tax receipts, even while this year to date has been worse than forecast.
But we’ve already run out of money. The outgoing government tried to bribe the voters with two very expensive NI cuts which have used up the entire fiscal headroom. The new government refusing to reverse these leaves us in a pretty poor position. Not a precarious one - our government bond yields aren’t doing anything worrying and our deficit position is better than several peers, so much so that the pound has been rising.
But there’s not going to be money for a spending bonanza anytime soon. It’s another decade of austerity ahead. Chronic austerity.
Agree with that. And it is why the Government are running around saying “growth” all the time. Of course there is no easy lever to pull to increase productivity and growth. If there was I would like to hope that no government would leave it alone.
In some ways the pay off to train drivers kind of fits that narrative. We know that there is a cost to the economy from train strikes (and NHS strikes). If the pay off is less than the total cost to the economy isn’t it worth doing it?
There is a massive lever for growth available, free to be pulled any time. It is slashing regulations and bureaucracy. Nuke the equalities act, dump the modern slavery reporting requirements. Burn 90% of building regs and 70% of planning requirements. Get the tax code down to no more than 10 sides of A4 and burn the rest. Abolish requirements for companies to have risk assessments for everything down to the risk of paper cuts. Remove the absurd money laundering checks from the banking system. And whilst we're at it, lose those stupid GDPR cookie check boxes from all over the Internet.
There have been massive productivity gains amongst the productive over the last 30 years - but no increase in total productivity because we've just used those gains to fatten up layers of the unproductive, in the form of lawyers, HR departments, civil servants, compliance managers, diversity consultants. The fix is to get rid of all this rubbish, and return the people doing it to doing things in the productive part of the economy - and you'll get unbelievable levels of growth.
Waving from the top of Grenfell Tower!
The problem with analysing the Grenfell tragedy is that the conclusions are not obvious. The world, and PB, will perhaps divide into two: Grenfell proves the need for more regulation; and for less regulation.
What is clear to me is that Grenfell proves the need for something which cannot be legislated for or regulated: a playing field which is so level as to allow for honest, competent, selfless, truthful and honourable conduct. Most people prefer that way of life if it is available to them. Despite its critics the NHS runs mostly on those values.
In the Grenfell case there was plenty of regulation, and plenty of oversight structures. They didn't work because of money, blame transfer, dishonesty and incompetence.
It is clear that this cannot be regulated away. Start from there.
What you need is
1) clear, simple, short regulations. Written in plain English. 2) enforcement of (1). Strong fucking enforcement. 3) strict legal liability. As in, a senior person is defined as legally personably responsible. In banking, with SOX, a senior manager knows that he has two choices (a) enforce the rules and prove that he has enforced them, (b) make himself liable to prison.
Complex regulations and laws provide a hiding place for the criminal and incompetent.
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
Istr there was a concerted attempt in certain quarters to depict Floyd as a druggy stain on society who somehow 'deserved' to be choked to death, and no great loss in any case.*
Is there a particular type of person that deserves to be shot and killed while unarmed?
*I see that meme is still alive and well.
The "unarmed" man was using a big car as a weapon against the armed police
Should armed police accept being run over by criminals who don't have guns?
How far did the car move and at what speed before the police shot Kaba?
If Kimi wins how long will it last? It could be to the next election or every couple of months we could have a leadership challenge. Revolving non stop challenge till people become oblivious to it.
New 1922 Committee chief Bob Blackman has advocated doubling the threshold needed to oust leaders.
Yes. But it’s akin to counting the threshold on one hand to being able to count it in two hands and half a foot. Jenrick and Cleverly each got MPs in the final vote around the new threshold. And One Nation Group are now sitting out the rest of the election. How to bring party all together, in cabinet and country is going to be extremely difficult to whoever wins. You notice Jenrick wants wet signatures to his policies to even be allowed to stand again as MP - that’s St Bart’s Day massacre of moderates part two no different than the damage Bonehead Boris done in part one.
Also concerning to me would be if by far the weakest candidate beats the stronger one again in members vote, as that would have a pattern of skin colour to the inexplicable decision.
On the polling evidence Badenoch is the weaker candidate.
Electoral Calculus already has a poll saying a Jenrick led Tory party would get a hung parliament and deprive Starmer of his majority.
Oh Stop it will you. 🙄. That’s complete fantasy polling.
In the real world elections are won on lost on leader v leader, chancellor v shadow, manifesto v manifesto, economic policy v economic policy - what you are polling doesn’t have any of that. And not to ignore the millstone the Conservatives carry into the coming General Elections, how awful they have been in government the last 4 years. once you shred reputations for economic competence and governmental competence, what a long road back it is from there. The actual question is, what brings the Lib Dem held seats the Conservatives need to form a government, what brings the voters Conservatives have lost to Reform, but need in order to form a government, back into the fold, that’s something polling at this point of the electoral cycle does not have built in.
Kemi Badenoch subtly won this at conference week. Maternity pay remarks a mistake? She is doubling down now by adding minimum wage to the burdens on existing business and preventing start ups. The trillion pound a year bill and government burdens on business is already here after 13 years of Conservative government - politicians buying favourable front pages and votes with generous offers paid not by them, but by businesses and future taxpayers - but Starmer’s woke government is only going to make the problems worse and even more obvious, which is why Badenoch is spot on with her pro business, pro productivity platform. The Party needs to move on sharpish from Boris Eff business era.
Meanwhile Jendrick’s One Dimensional platform is all in on Johnny Foreigner being a freeloading terror risk, pull up the drawbridge now before they swamp our housing and public services, take our jobs and turn England into a foreign land.
Jenrick is promising more affordable homes and slashed immigraton, something Rishi notably failed to deliver on.
In voteshare terms Electoral Calculus' poll has a Jenrick led Tories on 23% with Labour on 28% and Reform on 20% and the LDs on 12% and Greens on 11% and a Badenoch led Tories on 22% with Labour on 29% and Reform on 21% and the LDs on 12% and Greens on 10%
So Badenoch gets a slightly lower Tory vote than Jenrick while Labour and Reform do better against Badenoch than Jenrick too with the LD voteshare unchanged regardless of which of them becomes Tory leader
HYUFD, you're very good on polling, but I think sometimes you read too much into them: there are polls and polls, and a poll three months out from a general election showing VI between parties with established leaders and definitive offers is meaningful: a poll of whether one of two relatively unknown leaders might entice as-yet-uninterested voters to vote Tory is less so. I'd argue you'd be better off using your judgement than placing any credibility in this poll. I know you personally rate Jenrick over Badenoch and know more than most poll respondees about each of them: I'd say this is far more meaningful and interesting than a poll of how the electorate who have seen very little of either of them might view them.
I still think on balance Badenoch is the better bet for the Tories - she might be a game changer, although granted she may also crash and burn. (And I can understand that you as a Tory party member might be more unwilling to go with the higher risk candidate). But for me, your positive assessment of Jenrick is a mark in his favour. Whereas this poll is not, really.
Jack Maidment @jrmaidment · 1h Suella Braverman endorses Robert Jenrick in the Tory leadership race.
Former home sec said Jenrick's tough stance on immigration and leaving the ECHR are the reasons why she has chosen him over Kemi Badenoch.
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
Istr there was a concerted attempt in certain quarters to depict Floyd as a druggy stain on society who somehow 'deserved' to be choked to death, and no great loss in any case.*
Is there a particular type of person that deserves to be shot and killed while unarmed?
*I see that meme is still alive and well.
I'd be a little more concerned that someone who is 23 and already done a 3 year stretch for possession of an imitation firearm and subsequently less than 2 years after coming out is charged and BAILED for attempted murder.
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
Istr there was a concerted attempt in certain quarters to depict Floyd as a druggy stain on society who somehow 'deserved' to be choked to death, and no great loss in any case.*
Is there a particular type of person that deserves to be shot and killed while unarmed?
*I see that meme is still alive and well.
The "unarmed" man was using a big car as a weapon against the armed police
Should armed police accept being run over by criminals who don't have guns?
How far did the car move and at what speed before the police shot Kaba?
I thought the car had been shunting back and forth into cars before he was shot.
The US betting market has widened back out such that I can cash out for a loss of 38 pence. So essentially at my average odds.
Harris strikes me as value at 38% probability. To double down or simply hold fire is the question?
I may wait to see if it widens further and I can improve my average level.
Value I think. My view has been that in recent days it has moved from “tossup but Harris win more likely” to pure tossup. I wouldn’t favour Trump just yet until I see more data.
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
Istr there was a concerted attempt in certain quarters to depict Floyd as a druggy stain on society who somehow 'deserved' to be choked to death, and no great loss in any case.*
Is there a particular type of person that deserves to be shot and killed while unarmed?
*I see that meme is still alive and well.
The "unarmed" man was using a big car as a weapon against the armed police
Should armed police accept being run over by criminals who don't have guns?
How far did the car move and at what speed before the police shot Kaba?
It was no more than 12 mph.
Probably not enough to kill you if you are on a zebra crossing and the driver braking.
Possibly enough to kill you if the car is ramming another vehicle, not slowing down and weighs more than 2 tonne.
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
Istr there was a concerted attempt in certain quarters to depict Floyd as a druggy stain on society who somehow 'deserved' to be choked to death, and no great loss in any case.*
Is there a particular type of person that deserves to be shot and killed while unarmed?
*I see that meme is still alive and well.
The "unarmed" man was using a big car as a weapon against the armed police
Should armed police accept being run over by criminals who don't have guns?
How far did the car move and at what speed before the police shot Kaba?
Are you expecting police marksmen to carry stopwatches and tape measures as well as their guns?
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
It's weirdly controversial to say it, but George Floyd was no paragon of virtue. His killing was of course an example of a police system and culture of criminality which clearly doesn't work very well, but he was no ingenue.
He was a violent drug addict and a truly nasty thug
The attempt to sanctify him is as nauseating and disturbing as the absurd violence of SOME American cops
I don't feel especially at risk from the police, being a boring middle-class law-abiding type. But I do think that they on average relax their standards when dealing with people in a criminal environment. It's clearly more difficult, but we shouldn't shrug off the fatal mistakes when they happen, just because the victims are not paragons of virtue. At most that counts as mitigation.
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
Istr there was a concerted attempt in certain quarters to depict Floyd as a druggy stain on society who somehow 'deserved' to be choked to death, and no great loss in any case.*
Is there a particular type of person that deserves to be shot and killed while unarmed?
*I see that meme is still alive and well.
The "unarmed" man was using a big car as a weapon against the armed police
Should armed police accept being run over by criminals who don't have guns?
How far did the car move and at what speed before the police shot Kaba?
Are you expecting police marksmen to carry stopwatches and tape measures as well as their guns?
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
Istr there was a concerted attempt in certain quarters to depict Floyd as a druggy stain on society who somehow 'deserved' to be choked to death, and no great loss in any case.*
Is there a particular type of person that deserves to be shot and killed while unarmed?
*I see that meme is still alive and well.
The "unarmed" man was using a big car as a weapon against the armed police
Should armed police accept being run over by criminals who don't have guns?
How far did the car move and at what speed before the police shot Kaba?
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
Istr there was a concerted attempt in certain quarters to depict Floyd as a druggy stain on society who somehow 'deserved' to be choked to death, and no great loss in any case.*
Is there a particular type of person that deserves to be shot and killed while unarmed?
*I see that meme is still alive and well.
I'd be a little more concerned that someone who is 23 and already done a 3 year stretch for possession of an imitation firearm and subsequently less than 2 years after coming out is charged and BAILED for attempted murder.
If he can’t get bail, how can he work as a criminal? Prison is severely restricting for a busy man.
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
It's weirdly controversial to say it, but George Floyd was no paragon of virtue. His killing was of course an example of a police system and culture of criminality which clearly doesn't work very well, but he was no ingenue.
He was a violent drug addict and a truly nasty thug
The attempt to sanctify him is as nauseating and disturbing as the absurd violence of SOME American cops
If you'd said that at the time you would have been crucified, lost your job and maybe even prosecuted.
I saw the video, and it was horrific- Floyd was slowly murdered - but then the world went mad.
I remember being asked to attend compulsory calls on this subject where we were lectured at in a performatively angry way by leadership and activist reps where as White people we were made to feel culpable and told precisely what books to read to "educate ourselves".
Absolute nadir of Wokery - I'll never forget the mad and divisive months of 2020.
Who knew moss could be beautiful? Not I. And yet today I went to a 12th century Zen temple whose garden is dedicated entirely to moss, and the memory of a beautiful dead dancing girl. And it was enchanting. The Noom of the Moss was Sad yet Bright
Lots of multi layered moss in Cumbria and Scottish island woodland. Beautiful, ancient and extremely difficult to traverse.
There was lots of moss here in the Flatlands too before it ended up in grow bags. Different to the temperate rainforest and more akin to Estonian bogs but with some species in common.
We are currently growing some on for habitat restoration.
There is even a commercial company providing it for such purposes (although I have some problems with their terms and conditions and they are quite expensive): https://beadamoss.com/
Comments
If that happens a large number of people who had modest non property assets will suddenly have non property assets of £400,000 or more.
And all the 'strong talent' had to do was to vote for the Conservatives policy.
The wets in Thatcher's cabinet didn't vote against the Conservative policies in parliament.
Edit: Sorry, see what you mean. But it's not weird, Trump's whole thing is Reality TV.
We've set up over the last 25 years a very strong rights culture that's now cutting across common-sense and bankrupting us at the same time, and it needs to be circumscribed.
We can't have unlimited liability to solve all domestic and global ills.
There have been massive productivity gains amongst the productive over the last 30 years - but no increase in total productivity because we've just used those gains to fatten up layers of the unproductive, in the form of lawyers, HR departments, civil servants, compliance managers, diversity consultants.
The fix is to get rid of all this rubbish, and return the people doing it to doing things in the productive part of the economy - and you'll get unbelievable levels of growth.
It's hard to imagine how one might drive a train more productively. It's not as if the fella at the front is pedalling the thing himself.
I heard last night that a relative aged 59 has been diagnosed with a version of Parkinsons know as Multiple Systems Atrophy (MSA).
Does anyone have any experience of the particular condition? All the information I can find is quite woolly.
It took almost a year before they had a diagnosis, and unlike me have had a not brilliant experience with their NH; mine has been excellent throughout.
On the other side, I start on my insulin pump on Thursday, and I've had yet another invite to a checkup programme - this one for my liver.
Although, of course, it's wildly out of keeping compared to those around!
If you give away your main residence to your children or grandchildren then the threshold above which you pay IHT is raised from £325K to £500K. So for married couples it is raised from £650K to £1000K.
If a married couple has total assets in excess of £1000K then their estate will pay 40% IHT on the excess. It's quite straightforward.
(Post-bowdlerised)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/22/tories-defeat-conservatives-british-values
Surviving partner inherits the remaining balance of the deceased partner's IHT allowance. This is why a relatively few % of estates pay IHT.
Still its something that would be open to criticism.
Instead Walz thought it clever to spout insinuations that Vance is a sexual deviant.
That might have raised a laugh among the 'sophisticated' at the DNC but probably less so among Appalachian voters.
The misery is the traveller's, then depends whether you have to make up the time lost or the employer eats it. If you can work remotely from the train or have to make up the time then the compensation is for the misery only.
Flippant answer:
On reflection, I think my way is better.
Yes. MOSS
Who knew moss could be beautiful? Not I. And yet today I went to a 12th century Zen temple whose garden is dedicated entirely to moss, and the memory of a beautiful dead dancing girl. And it was enchanting. The Noom of the Moss was Sad yet Bright
There was a small flaw, though.
Just because they are preferable to Trump or indeed that they may be better than expected does not mean that everything they've done is beyond criticism.
When you don't want to accept criticism and admit mistakes then you're heading towards greater difficulties.
I share JD Vance’s life story — but not how he sees the Appalachian people
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/article290191684.html
JD Vance's Appalachia controversy explained
https://eu.cincinnati.com/story/news/2024/07/17/jd-vance-appalachia-controversy/74439135007/
I’m from Appalachia. JD Vance doesn’t represent us – he only represents himself
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/16/jd-vance-hillbilly-elegy-appalachia
Why JD Vance’s world ain’t my Appalachia, either
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4803398-jdvance-hillbilly-elegy-appalachia/
Drivers aged under 21 who have just passed their tests should be prevented from carrying passengers of a similar age for their first six months as drivers, the AA has said.
It suggested tougher rules that would also see them handed six penalty points for not wearing a seatbelt during the period - meaning they could lose their licence.
The motoring organisation says the proposal for a particular type of licence targeted at new, young drivers has the potential to prevent 934 serious injuries and save 58 lives on UK roads each year.
Similar measures - known as graduated driving licensing (GDL) - already exist in Northern Ireland. The Department for Transport (DfT) has said it is not currently considering the measures for elsewhere in the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c361g6nz5j1o
DFT currently not thinking about it:
A Department for Transport spokesperson said it was not currently considering graduated driving licences and is looking for other ways of keeping young drivers safe.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7565nr19eko
https://tippinsights.com/tipp-tracking-poll-day-9-trump-and-harris-tied-at-48/
“Chris Kaba was a violent gangster who shot rival in nightclub
Convicted criminal was one of key players in London’s most feared and dangerous gangs”
“The man shot dead by police in south London two years ago was a violent, armed gangster who gunned down a rival in a packed nightclub just days before he was killed, it can now be disclosed.”
Telegraph
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/22/chris-kaba-gunned-down-rival-oval-space-nightclub/
The guardian’s attempt to kick off a George Floyd narrative now looks a little… awkward
What is clear to me is that Grenfell proves the need for something which cannot be legislated for or regulated: a playing field which is so level as to allow for honest, competent, selfless, truthful and honourable conduct. Most people prefer that way of life if it is available to them. Despite its critics the NHS runs mostly on those values.
In the Grenfell case there was plenty of regulation, and plenty of oversight structures. They didn't work because of money, blame transfer, dishonesty and incompetence.
It is clear that this cannot be regulated away. Start from there.
Everyone?
You're from the south west; you ought to know this.
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/habitats/temperate-rainforest/
But you're right, the Japanese do this sort of stuff very well indeed.
Reality:
“Kaba’s criminal record dated back to the age of 13, but by his late teens he had graduated from petty crime to serious violence with convictions for stabbings and grievous bodily harm.”
Leaf-fall has become a massive problem for trains since they were changed over to disk brakes rather than brakes acting on running faces of the wheels - the old style brake blocks used to clean the leaf slime off the wheels fairly effectively, with disk brakes it can in the wrong situation build up on the wheels and make them extremely difficult to control. The incident where two trains collided at Salisbury tunnel junction a couple of years ago was with pretty much identical units to the two which ran into each other on the Cambrian last night.
Incidentally, losing two 158 sets from the Cambrian ETMRS fitted pool is going to be a fairly nasty experience for TfW - they are already desperately short of working units of virtually any flavor as the ROSCOS are taking back class 150s and scrapping them as they run out of hours (the ROSCOS don't want to pay for the necessary major corrosion repairs to give the 150s a life extension as there is no obvious future for them beyond the next 18 months) but the various new CAF and Stadler units which are meant to be replacing them are proving very delayed and/or unreliable.
Does that suggest its more in line with Vance or your 'gazillion' liberals complaining about him ?
Now they may not like Vance and you may not like Vance but all those Appalachian counties, including the ones in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, will be running up big majorities for Trump/Vance in two weeks.
https://www.japan-experience.com/all-about-japan/kyoto/temples-shrines/gioji
On a cultural note, reading a substantial but finite amount of the one dimensional 'Kaba was murdered' comments, they have all been taught by the same PR course: they all attack something called 'the system'. Not a single one I have seen mentions the word 'jury'. And not a single one analyses any detail of the case.
Remember these interfaces?
There a significant increase in KSI rate starting at age 70, so a SPA linked re-test would be effective, notwithstanding the inevitable howls of outrage from the Telegraph.
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-us-swing-states-voting-intention-16-18-october-2024/
The attempt to sanctify him is as nauseating and disturbing as the absurd violence of SOME American cops
Not yet buried under people with external platforms, or beyond that to the buried-by-trolls stage which I hope will not arrive.
'Chris Kaba was one of London's most feared gangsters who 'shot rival at nightclub' and had a history of violence - while officer who shot him dead has £10,000 bounty on his head'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13986529/Chris-Kaba-gangster-verdict-Martyn-Blake.html
https://slate.com/life/2024/10/donald-trump-kamala-harris-election-project-2025-ad.html
HT https://bsky.app/profile/glitterninja.bsky.social/post/3l73r7o46m42t
Looking at random things in the meantime.
Is N Carolina now value again at 3, on Betfair ?
Bought well before Covid, the garden didn't seem to attract a premium in price - we looked at other comparably priced similar houses with smaller gardens (1/3-1/2 the size) and the people we bought from said we were the first to comment on the garden as a plus or even show much interest in the garden.
https://conservativehome.com/2024/10/22/lord-ashcroft-the-conservatives-need-a-leader-of-rare-quality-for-me-thats-kemi/
"Badenoch certainly represents a change of pace, but it is important that Tories see her style and personality as the means to an end, not the end itself. Nor can it be a distraction from the grindingly hard work opposition requires. If they choose her, it should not simply because of who she is, but because of the job she will do. And they will have to be patient."
I’d assume that the targeted countries can’t refuse to take their citizens back
I think they are perhaps worried about the extra workload on the DVLA, plus the police. Both also need addressing.
That depends far more on the situation they were reacting to, and the actions they took in response - police are not judge or executioner,
There was no self defence element in the Floyd case; there clearly was in the Kaba case.
Should these be made tax return declarable?
I seem to recall posting not long after the cut was announced that the Tory leadership hopefuls were foolish to jump up and down about it too much, given that a) it was obviously the right thing to do and b) what on earth will they say if they are asked if "will they reinstate it" in the run up to the next election - if they say yes, they've just agreed to spend a load of money they haven't got, and if they say no, they will get clips played back to them, of them raging against freezing granny by cutting it.
Long way to go though. I'm only on 2% of my twitter followers.
Harris strikes me as value at 38% probability. To double down or simply hold fire is the question?
I may wait to see if it widens further and I can improve my average level.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y0yg7m8meo
In voteshare terms Electoral Calculus' poll has a Jenrick led Tories on 23% with Labour on 28% and Reform on 20% and the LDs on 12% and Greens on 11% and a Badenoch led Tories on 22% with Labour on 29% and Reform on 21% and the LDs on 12% and Greens on 10%
So Badenoch gets a slightly lower Tory vote than Jenrick while Labour and Reform do better against Badenoch than Jenrick too with the LD voteshare unchanged regardless of which of them becomes Tory leader
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_hypopoll_20241017.html
https://bsky.app/profile/goat.navy/lists/3l2347tg6fd2r
Is there a particular type of person that deserves to be shot and killed while unarmed?
*I see that meme is still alive and well.
I know you personally rate Jenrick over Badenoch and know more than most poll respondees about each of them: I'd say this is far more meaningful and interesting than a poll of how the electorate who have seen very little of either of them might view them.
I still think on balance Badenoch is the better bet for the Tories - she might be a game changer, although granted she may also crash and burn. (And I can understand that you as a Tory party member might be more unwilling to go with the higher risk candidate). But for me, your positive assessment of Jenrick is a mark in his favour. Whereas this poll is not, really.
Dishonesty and incompetence cannot be 'regulated away', as you say. Dishonesty can be dealt by prosecution, and, effectively, by public shaming. Incompetence can be dealt with by education, both of the incompetent and of those who appoint them.
Should armed police accept being run over by criminals who don't have guns?
1) clear, simple, short regulations. Written in plain English.
2) enforcement of (1). Strong fucking enforcement.
3) strict legal liability. As in, a senior person is defined as legally personably responsible. In banking, with SOX, a senior manager knows that he has two choices (a) enforce the rules and prove that he has enforced them, (b) make himself liable to prison.
Complex regulations and laws provide a hiding place for the criminal and incompetent.
Jack Maidment
@jrmaidment
·
1h
Suella Braverman endorses Robert Jenrick in the Tory leadership race.
Former home sec said Jenrick's tough stance on immigration and leaving the ECHR are the reasons why she has chosen him over Kemi Badenoch.
Probably not enough to kill you if you are on a zebra crossing and the driver braking.
Possibly enough to kill you if the car is ramming another vehicle, not slowing down and weighs more than 2 tonne.
A large car is a lethal weapon. Come to think of it, there are probably more *murders* committed using a car than a gun, in the U.K.
I saw the video, and it was horrific- Floyd was slowly murdered - but then the world went mad.
I remember being asked to attend compulsory calls on this subject where we were lectured at in a performatively angry way by leadership and activist reps where as White people we were made to feel culpable and told precisely what books to read to "educate ourselves".
Absolute nadir of Wokery - I'll never forget the mad and divisive months of 2020.
We are currently growing some on for habitat restoration.
There is even a commercial company providing it for such purposes (although I have some problems with their terms and conditions and they are quite expensive):
https://beadamoss.com/