Harris continues to sink with punters on Betfair, the polling indicates this election is a coin toss so that makes Harris a bit of value but if the race turns out to be tie then Trump wins.
Recent years have witnessed a global uptick in populist candidates and sentiment. Populist communication and campaign styles are well-studied, but whom in the U.S. mass public is attracted to populist ideas and why is still subject to debate. Using unique survey data, we employ latent profile analysis to estimate constellations of characteristics and orientations that relate to support for populist ideas in the United States. Instead of a single, linear path, there are several routes to populist support composed of many combinations of social, psychological, and political characteristics. Whereas some turn to populism because they feel like victims of the political system, others do so to create exclusive sovereignty for their preferred identity group(s). We also find that populist support is more connected to psychological and political orientations than socioeconomic circumstances or even political predispositions, such as partisanship. While populism, itself, is not anti-democratic, some forms of populist support appear to be exclusionary on the grounds of race, religion, and political identity.
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
It makes employment for them almost impossible. To have that much after tax you need to earn something like £50k a year. People with a poor employment record and uncertain attendance are just unemployable at that kind of level, no matter what their qualifications. How on earth do you make work pay in such a scenario?
So there's a conversation about incentives there.
I don't see any reason why she should get more than the basic Universal Credit, and live with friends or relatives or with other people in a similar position.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
"Harris spent Sunday in Pennsylvania, which may be the election’s biggest prize. Harris is next scheduled to go to Michigan. And after Tuesday’s closing argument in Washington, she plans to visit North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on Wednesday alone. She heads to Nevada and Arizona on Thursday.
What do we know about Trump’s schedule? He’s booked to host at least one rally every day next week: Monday in Georgia, Tuesday in Pennsylvania, Wednesday in Wisconsin, Thursday in Nevada, Friday in Wisconsin again, and Saturday in Virginia.
But as a reminder, these schedules are likely to change based on the campaigns’ intelligence on the ground."
Harris still hoping for NC, Trump presumably thinks it is safe, for now. Michigan was supposed to be safe for the Dems but the Arab vote there seems to have thrown it into the melting pot. Does Trump think he has better prospects in Wisconsin?
I expect we’ll see an apology of sorts by Trump at his rally in Allentown today. Yes rare as hens teeth but he’ll have to say something .
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
"Harris spent Sunday in Pennsylvania, which may be the election’s biggest prize. Harris is next scheduled to go to Michigan. And after Tuesday’s closing argument in Washington, she plans to visit North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on Wednesday alone. She heads to Nevada and Arizona on Thursday.
What do we know about Trump’s schedule? He’s booked to host at least one rally every day next week: Monday in Georgia, Tuesday in Pennsylvania, Wednesday in Wisconsin, Thursday in Nevada, Friday in Wisconsin again, and Saturday in Virginia.
But as a reminder, these schedules are likely to change based on the campaigns’ intelligence on the ground."
Harris still hoping for NC, Trump presumably thinks it is safe, for now. Michigan was supposed to be safe for the Dems but the Arab vote there seems to have thrown it into the melting pot. Does Trump think he has better prospects in Wisconsin?
Also, how good is his actual intelligence? He doesn't seem to have many campaign staffers so I'm assuming a lot of it is based on Twitter hits?
"Harris spent Sunday in Pennsylvania, which may be the election’s biggest prize. Harris is next scheduled to go to Michigan. And after Tuesday’s closing argument in Washington, she plans to visit North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on Wednesday alone. She heads to Nevada and Arizona on Thursday.
What do we know about Trump’s schedule? He’s booked to host at least one rally every day next week: Monday in Georgia, Tuesday in Pennsylvania, Wednesday in Wisconsin, Thursday in Nevada, Friday in Wisconsin again, and Saturday in Virginia.
But as a reminder, these schedules are likely to change based on the campaigns’ intelligence on the ground."
Harris still hoping for NC, Trump presumably thinks it is safe, for now. Michigan was supposed to be safe for the Dems but the Arab vote there seems to have thrown it into the melting pot. Does Trump think he has better prospects in Wisconsin?
Also, how good is his actual intelligence? He doesn't seem to have many campaign staffers so I'm assuming a lot of it is based on Twitter hits?
I'm assuming they have internal polling guiding them. But it doesn't take much to see that Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan are the centre of the battlefield with Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and NC in the nice to have category.
I don't do spread betting but if I did I think the value is on Harris right now.
"Harris spent Sunday in Pennsylvania, which may be the election’s biggest prize. Harris is next scheduled to go to Michigan. And after Tuesday’s closing argument in Washington, she plans to visit North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on Wednesday alone. She heads to Nevada and Arizona on Thursday.
What do we know about Trump’s schedule? He’s booked to host at least one rally every day next week: Monday in Georgia, Tuesday in Pennsylvania, Wednesday in Wisconsin, Thursday in Nevada, Friday in Wisconsin again, and Saturday in Virginia.
But as a reminder, these schedules are likely to change based on the campaigns’ intelligence on the ground."
Harris still hoping for NC, Trump presumably thinks it is safe, for now. Michigan was supposed to be safe for the Dems but the Arab vote there seems to have thrown it into the melting pot. Does Trump think he has better prospects in Wisconsin?
Those schedules are totally bonkers for the candidates, they’ll likely be taking three flights a day. The veep candidates have their own schedules, which will be similarly bonkers. They’re all determined to visit anywhere that might be still in play, as well as supporting Gubbernatorial and US Senate candidates in their own close races.
I expect we’ll see an apology of sorts by Trump at his rally in Allentown today. Yes rare as hens teeth but he’ll have to say something .
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
The "joke" was vetted in advance - and cleared.
We know this because a joke about "c***" Kamala Harris - specifically using that c-word - was removed.
So the Republicans are just getting tied in more knots....
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
She was in digital marketing in the civil service so hardly working down the mines.
Whilst I have sympathy for anyone who's not feeling OK those benefits are excessive. I doubt she's fundamentally disabled and unable to do any work.
We all feel awful and struggle from time to time. It doesn't mean we expect everyone else to pay for us.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
I'm afraid I would do exactly that: reduce it to a room rent or flatshare allowance of £600pcm max and a meal allowance. They can then choose whether to live with friends or family or with others in a similar position. That might not be living in clover but, tough.
These are the choices ordinary working people have to make, who are often under immense pressure themselves, and their taxes shouldn't go to pay for this.
Yes, I can entirely understand that sentiment in the current system - especially in the context of a budget that is going to push taxes up.
I don't think it will help, without a much wider societal shift away from looking after the vulnerable and towards a more brutal/Stoic approach.
(I often find myself personally harking for a more stoic approach - you get out and work regardless - but I have come to reflect that I probably feel this way only because I have never had to work with a significant disability.)
Anecdote alert: one of my colleagues left teaching just this half term. She has worked with me for 8 years whilst having rheumatoid arthritis. She takes a day or two off every six weeks to have blood infusions, without which she cannot move her joints. She worked all through COVID teaching full time remotely despite having to shield. For context, she meets a group of six or seven other people with RA each time she has an infusion and none of them work at all, let alone full time in a school - she is a machine.
But she has finally quit largely because as the school takes on more sixth form students to try to keep itself afloat, she no longer has her own classroom and has to move around the school more, meaning that her joints flared up too much between infusions.
Part of the answer to this problem is to try to ensure employers can better accommodate individuals with disabilities. Telling this person she should now move house and live with family/friends would be deeply offensive and wrong headed on an individual level. Not to say that's the wrong policy because of an anecdote, but it's worth hearing the edge cases on the other side of the coin.
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
It makes employment for them almost impossible. To have that much after tax you need to earn something like £50k a year. People with a poor employment record and uncertain attendance are just unemployable at that kind of level, no matter what their qualifications. How on earth do you make work pay in such a scenario?
So there's a conversation about incentives there.
I don't see any reason why she should get more than the basic Universal Credit, and live with friends or relatives or with other people in a similar position.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
They don't need to earn that much, Pip is not means tested and will continued to be paid whatever you earn.
Also, that indicates they are receiving the LCWRA element of UC, and if they are indeed getting Housing Benefit (and not the housing element of UC) will be in supported housing of some sort.
So someone who probably counts as "disabled" and unable to work.
I see the IDF are upping the slaughter in Gaza whilst attention is on the US election .
It’s extraordinary how de-sensitized western media has become . The IDF tell people to move to safe zones then slaughter them in that alleged safe zone .
The banning of UNRWA essentially means the west will be looking on as thousands starve to death .
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
She was in digital marketing in the civil service so hardly working down the mines.
Whilst I have sympathy for anyone who's not feeling OK those benefits are excessive. I doubt she's fundamentally disabled and unable to do any work.
We all feel awful and struggle from time to time. It doesn't mean we expect everyone else to pay for us.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
I'm afraid I would do exactly that: reduce it to a room rent or flatshare allowance of £600pcm max and a meal allowance. They can then choose whether to live with friends or family or with others in a similar position. That might not be living in clover but, tough.
These are the choices ordinary working people have to make, who are often under immense pressure themselves, and their taxes shouldn't go to pay for this.
Yes, I can entirely understand that sentiment in the current system - especially in the context of a budget that is going to push taxes up.
I don't think it will help, without a much wider societal shift away from looking after the vulnerable and towards a more brutal/Stoic approach.
(I often find myself personally harking for a more stoic approach - you get out and work regardless - but I have come to reflect that I probably feel this way only because I have never had to work with a significant disability.)
Anecdote alert: one of my colleagues left teaching just this half term. She has worked with me for 8 years whilst having rheumatoid arthritis. She takes a day or two off every six weeks to have blood infusions, without which she cannot move her joints. She worked all through COVID teaching full time remotely despite having to shield. For context, she meets a group of six or seven other people with RA each time she has an infusion and none of them work at all, let alone full time in a school - she is a machine.
But she has finally quit largely because as the school takes on more sixth form students to try to keep itself afloat, she no longer has her own classroom and has to move around the school more, meaning that her joints flared up too much between infusions.
Part of the answer to this problem is to try to ensure employers can better accommodate individuals with disabilities. Telling this person she should now move house and live with family/friends would be deeply offensive and wrong headed on an individual level. Not to say that's the wrong policy because of an anecdote, but it's worth hearing the edge cases on the other side of the coin.
Losing a teacher that dedicated because of poor timetabling strikes me as a pretty bad bargain.
Could an adjustment not have been made? Was one not even attempted?
I expect we’ll see an apology of sorts by Trump at his rally in Allentown today. Yes rare as hens teeth but he’ll have to say something .
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
The "joke" was vetted in advance - and cleared.
We know this because a joke about "c***" Kamala Harris - specifically using that c-word - was removed.
So the Republicans are just getting tied in more knots....
The Republicans say the joke was improvised and was not vetted.
I expect we’ll see an apology of sorts by Trump at his rally in Allentown today. Yes rare as hens teeth but he’ll have to say something .
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
The "joke" was vetted in advance - and cleared.
We know this because a joke about "c***" Kamala Harris - specifically using that c-word - was removed.
So the Republicans are just getting tied in more knots....
The Republicans say the joke was improvised and was not vetted.
What is with the Republicans at the moment that they can't even lie convincingly?
He said we spent more on ending slavery in the early 19th century as a % GDP than we're spending on foreign aid now.
Seems a perfectly reasonable point to make. His "crime" is that he's attacking Left-Liberal shibboleths.
No doubt he'll be accusing of stoking a culture war next.
That part of what he wrote was quite fair.
But, nobody owes us a “debt of gratitude” for our ancestors’ beneficial deeds, any more than we carry a debt of guilt for their harmful ones.
Indeed. The best argument against reparations is clearly that we are not responsible for the actions of previous generations, at least those outside of living memory, so there is no calculation of debt to be made.
Jenrick is clearly suggesting that there is calculation to be made and he thinks it is in our favour. That is a far weaker position which would unravel with scrutiny.
I expect we’ll see an apology of sorts by Trump at his rally in Allentown today. Yes rare as hens teeth but he’ll have to say something .
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
The "joke" was vetted in advance - and cleared.
We know this because a joke about "c***" Kamala Harris - specifically using that c-word - was removed.
So the Republicans are just getting tied in more knots....
The Republicans say the joke was improvised and was not vetted.
I see the IDF are upping the slaughter in Gaza whilst attention is on the US election .
It’s extraordinary how de-sensitized western media has become . The IDF tell people to move to safe zones then slaughter them in that alleged safe zone .
The banning of UNRWA essentially means the west will be looking on as thousands starve to death .
Does anyone care anymore ?
The grim and depressing truth is, almost nobody has ever cared about the ordinary people of Gaza.
I expect we’ll see an apology of sorts by Trump at his rally in Allentown today. Yes rare as hens teeth but he’ll have to say something .
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
The "joke" was vetted in advance - and cleared.
We know this because a joke about "c***" Kamala Harris - specifically using that c-word - was removed.
So the Republicans are just getting tied in more knots....
The Republicans say the joke was improvised and was not vetted.
I know. That is a lie.
It will get worse before it gets better on this one.
The East London Gymnastic Centre was built with lottery funding in 1997 to provide affordable coaching in a deprived part of the capital. The charity that leases the building has been told it must be out by Christmas after it was sold to a housing developer in a deal reportedly worth more than £2m. The East London School of Gymnastics, Movement and Dance signed a 14-year lease on the venue in 2020 and says the freeholder, East London Gymnastics Centre, sold the building to Linea Homes during lockdown.
Why is a public asset, still being used for its original purpose, sold off? Who are the "East London Gymnastics Centre" who had ownership of the building, and why did they sell it off to developers?
He said we spent more on ending slavery in the early 19th century as a % GDP than we're spending on foreign aid now.
Seems a perfectly reasonable point to make. His "crime" is that he's attacking Left-Liberal shibboleths.
No doubt he'll be accusing of stoking a culture war next.
The money was spent compensating the slave owners, not the slaves.
Whilst that is true, slavery would almost certainly have endured longer, without compensation for the masters. From the POV of the slave, what’s better? Quicker emancipation, with the masters being bought out, or delaying it for a generation or two, when public opinion has shifted against their being bought out?
Only a handful of radicals like William Corbett or Thaddeus Stevens thought that masters should compensate slaves.
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
She was in digital marketing in the civil service so hardly working down the mines.
Whilst I have sympathy for anyone who's not feeling OK those benefits are excessive. I doubt she's fundamentally disabled and unable to do any work.
We all feel awful and struggle from time to time. It doesn't mean we expect everyone else to pay for us.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
I'm afraid I would do exactly that: reduce it to a room rent or flatshare allowance of £600pcm max and a meal allowance. They can then choose whether to live with friends or family or with others in a similar position. That might not be living in clover but, tough.
These are the choices ordinary working people have to make, who are often under immense pressure themselves, and their taxes shouldn't go to pay for this.
Yes, I can entirely understand that sentiment in the current system - especially in the context of a budget that is going to push taxes up.
I don't think it will help, without a much wider societal shift away from looking after the vulnerable and towards a more brutal/Stoic approach.
(I often find myself personally harking for a more stoic approach - you get out and work regardless - but I have come to reflect that I probably feel this way only because I have never had to work with a significant disability.)
Anecdote alert: one of my colleagues left teaching just this half term. She has worked with me for 8 years whilst having rheumatoid arthritis. She takes a day or two off every six weeks to have blood infusions, without which she cannot move her joints. She worked all through COVID teaching full time remotely despite having to shield. For context, she meets a group of six or seven other people with RA each time she has an infusion and none of them work at all, let alone full time in a school - she is a machine.
But she has finally quit largely because as the school takes on more sixth form students to try to keep itself afloat, she no longer has her own classroom and has to move around the school more, meaning that her joints flared up too much between infusions.
Part of the answer to this problem is to try to ensure employers can better accommodate individuals with disabilities. Telling this person she should now move house and live with family/friends would be deeply offensive and wrong headed on an individual level. Not to say that's the wrong policy because of an anecdote, but it's worth hearing the edge cases on the other side of the coin.
Losing a teacher that dedicated because of poor timetabling strikes me as a pretty bad bargain.
Could an adjustment not have been made? Was one not even attempted?
It was attempted successfully for the last 5 years or so (but was increasingly skewing the timetable and became more and more difficult each year). It stopped working because in some periods we now have zero free rooms, and many of our classrooms are not full-sized as we have converted offices, breakout rooms etc to accommodate more classes.
It doesn't help that we have a lot of NQTs this year and understandably HoDs have been more reluctant to boot them out of consistent, full-sized, fully functioning rooms in favour of the crap ones us experienced teachers use.
All the same, I agree it's a very poor bargain, especially as she was a brilliant maths teacher who the kids loved to bits.
He said we spent more on ending slavery in the early 19th century as a % GDP than we're spending on foreign aid now.
Seems a perfectly reasonable point to make. His "crime" is that he's attacking Left-Liberal shibboleths.
No doubt he'll be accusing of stoking a culture war next.
Sorry, it's not reasonable, it's completely bonkers. Show us the figures on the how much 'we spent on ending slavery' - I bet most of it was compensation paid to slave owners.
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
She was in digital marketing in the civil service so hardly working down the mines.
Whilst I have sympathy for anyone who's not feeling OK those benefits are excessive. I doubt she's fundamentally disabled and unable to do any work.
We all feel awful and struggle from time to time. It doesn't mean we expect everyone else to pay for us.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
I'm afraid I would do exactly that: reduce it to a room rent or flatshare allowance of £600pcm max and a meal allowance. They can then choose whether to live with friends or family or with others in a similar position. That might not be living in clover but, tough.
These are the choices ordinary working people have to make, who are often under immense pressure themselves, and their taxes shouldn't go to pay for this.
Yes, I can entirely understand that sentiment in the current system - especially in the context of a budget that is going to push taxes up.
I don't think it will help, without a much wider societal shift away from looking after the vulnerable and towards a more brutal/Stoic approach.
(I often find myself personally harking for a more stoic approach - you get out and work regardless - but I have come to reflect that I probably feel this way only because I have never had to work with a significant disability.)
Anecdote alert: one of my colleagues left teaching just this half term. She has worked with me for 8 years whilst having rheumatoid arthritis. She takes a day or two off every six weeks to have blood infusions, without which she cannot move her joints. She worked all through COVID teaching full time remotely despite having to shield. For context, she meets a group of six or seven other people with RA each time she has an infusion and none of them work at all, let alone full time in a school - she is a machine.
But she has finally quit largely because as the school takes on more sixth form students to try to keep itself afloat, she no longer has her own classroom and has to move around the school more, meaning that her joints flared up too much between infusions.
Part of the answer to this problem is to try to ensure employers can better accommodate individuals with disabilities. Telling this person she should now move house and live with family/friends would be deeply offensive and wrong headed on an individual level. Not to say that's the wrong policy because of an anecdote, but it's worth hearing the edge cases on the other side of the coin.
OK, but I don't much care if it's deeply offensive or not. It's not the duty of Government to make policy, nor the Treasury spending decisions, on what individuals may or may not find deeply offensive.
Spending on this is expected to rise to over £30bn a year by 2027/28, and we can't afford it. Almost all of us will suffer from health issues or disabilities at some point in our lives. What many of us object to is that the State should pay such people to live a more comfortable lifestyle than those working for a living and struggling to make ends meet.
I'd far rather this money was invested in defence, education and industrial strategy and lowering the tax burden on working people.
Everyone should do some form of work. And almost everyone can do some form of work.
He said we spent more on ending slavery in the early 19th century as a % GDP than we're spending on foreign aid now.
Seems a perfectly reasonable point to make. His "crime" is that he's attacking Left-Liberal shibboleths.
No doubt he'll be accusing of stoking a culture war next.
That part of what he wrote was quite fair.
But, nobody owes us a “debt of gratitude” for our ancestors’ beneficial deeds, any more than we carry a debt of guilt for their harmful ones.
Indeed. The best argument against reparations is clearly that we are not responsible for the actions of previous generations, at least those outside of living memory, so there is no calculation of debt to be made.
Jenrick is clearly suggesting that there is calculation to be made and he thinks it is in our favour. That is a far weaker position which would unravel with scrutiny.
I see the IDF are upping the slaughter in Gaza whilst attention is on the US election .
It’s extraordinary how de-sensitized western media has become . The IDF tell people to move to safe zones then slaughter them in that alleged safe zone .
The banning of UNRWA essentially means the west will be looking on as thousands starve to death .
Does anyone care anymore ?
The grim and depressing truth is, almost nobody has ever cared about the ordinary people of Gaza.
Sad but true .
Also the IDF know that the Dems can’t say too much now because of the election .
If Harris wins then I expect things to change . It was also clear for the last few months that there was never a chance of a ceasefire because Netenyahu didn’t want to give a boost to the Harris campaign . He’s hoping for a Trump win .
This makes the decision by some Arab Americans to support Trump utter lunacy .
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
It makes employment for them almost impossible. To have that much after tax you need to earn something like £50k a year. People with a poor employment record and uncertain attendance are just unemployable at that kind of level, no matter what their qualifications. How on earth do you make work pay in such a scenario?
So there's a conversation about incentives there.
I don't see any reason why she should get more than the basic Universal Credit, and live with friends or relatives or with other people in a similar position.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
They don't need to earn that much, Pip is not means tested and will continued to be paid whatever you earn.
Also, that indicates they are receiving the LCWRA element of UC, and if they are indeed getting Housing Benefit (and not the housing element of UC) will be in supported housing of some sort.
So someone who probably counts as "disabled" and unable to work.
I agree with every comment in this little sub-conversation. PB at its best imo.
He said we spent more on ending slavery in the early 19th century as a % GDP than we're spending on foreign aid now.
Seems a perfectly reasonable point to make. His "crime" is that he's attacking Left-Liberal shibboleths.
No doubt he'll be accusing of stoking a culture war next.
Sorry, it's not reasonable, it's completely bonkers. Show us the figures on the how much 'we spent on ending slavery' - I bet most of it was compensation paid to slave owners.
There were several Royal Navy squadrons dedicated to catching slave ships. The West Africa squadron is the most famous but there was one in Zanzibar as well. These cost around 0.05-0.1% of the British budget. May not sound like much but these squadrons operated for decades.
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
She was in digital marketing in the civil service so hardly working down the mines.
Whilst I have sympathy for anyone who's not feeling OK those benefits are excessive. I doubt she's fundamentally disabled and unable to do any work.
We all feel awful and struggle from time to time. It doesn't mean we expect everyone else to pay for us.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
I'm afraid I would do exactly that: reduce it to a room rent or flatshare allowance of £600pcm max and a meal allowance. They can then choose whether to live with friends or family or with others in a similar position. That might not be living in clover but, tough.
These are the choices ordinary working people have to make, who are often under immense pressure themselves, and their taxes shouldn't go to pay for this.
Yes, I can entirely understand that sentiment in the current system - especially in the context of a budget that is going to push taxes up.
I don't think it will help, without a much wider societal shift away from looking after the vulnerable and towards a more brutal/Stoic approach.
(I often find myself personally harking for a more stoic approach - you get out and work regardless - but I have come to reflect that I probably feel this way only because I have never had to work with a significant disability.)
Anecdote alert: one of my colleagues left teaching just this half term. She has worked with me for 8 years whilst having rheumatoid arthritis. She takes a day or two off every six weeks to have blood infusions, without which she cannot move her joints. She worked all through COVID teaching full time remotely despite having to shield. For context, she meets a group of six or seven other people with RA each time she has an infusion and none of them work at all, let alone full time in a school - she is a machine.
But she has finally quit largely because as the school takes on more sixth form students to try to keep itself afloat, she no longer has her own classroom and has to move around the school more, meaning that her joints flared up too much between infusions.
Part of the answer to this problem is to try to ensure employers can better accommodate individuals with disabilities. Telling this person she should now move house and live with family/friends would be deeply offensive and wrong headed on an individual level. Not to say that's the wrong policy because of an anecdote, but it's worth hearing the edge cases on the other side of the coin.
OK, but I don't much care if it's deeply offensive or not. It's not the duty of Government to make policy, nor the Treasury spending decisions, on what individuals may or may not find deeply offensive.
Spending on this is expected to rise to over £30bn a year by 2027/28, and we can't afford it. Almost all of us will suffer from health issues or disabilities at some point in our lives. What many of us object to is that the State should pay such people to live a more comfortable lifestyle than those working for a living and struggling to make ends meet.
I'd far rather this money was invested in defence, education and industrial strategy and lowering the tax burden on working people.
Everyone should do some form of work. And almost everyone can do some form of work.
It's why we're here.
I am sure then you are fully behind our new government's plan to tackle the issue, the existing situation being inherited after 14 years of Tory run Treasury and DWP..
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
She was in digital marketing in the civil service so hardly working down the mines.
Whilst I have sympathy for anyone who's not feeling OK those benefits are excessive. I doubt she's fundamentally disabled and unable to do any work.
We all feel awful and struggle from time to time. It doesn't mean we expect everyone else to pay for us.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
I'm afraid I would do exactly that: reduce it to a room rent or flatshare allowance of £600pcm max and a meal allowance. They can then choose whether to live with friends or family or with others in a similar position. That might not be living in clover but, tough.
These are the choices ordinary working people have to make, who are often under immense pressure themselves, and their taxes shouldn't go to pay for this.
Yes, I can entirely understand that sentiment in the current system - especially in the context of a budget that is going to push taxes up.
I don't think it will help, without a much wider societal shift away from looking after the vulnerable and towards a more brutal/Stoic approach.
(I often find myself personally harking for a more stoic approach - you get out and work regardless - but I have come to reflect that I probably feel this way only because I have never had to work with a significant disability.)
Anecdote alert: one of my colleagues left teaching just this half term. She has worked with me for 8 years whilst having rheumatoid arthritis. She takes a day or two off every six weeks to have blood infusions, without which she cannot move her joints. She worked all through COVID teaching full time remotely despite having to shield. For context, she meets a group of six or seven other people with RA each time she has an infusion and none of them work at all, let alone full time in a school - she is a machine.
But she has finally quit largely because as the school takes on more sixth form students to try to keep itself afloat, she no longer has her own classroom and has to move around the school more, meaning that her joints flared up too much between infusions.
Part of the answer to this problem is to try to ensure employers can better accommodate individuals with disabilities. Telling this person she should now move house and live with family/friends would be deeply offensive and wrong headed on an individual level. Not to say that's the wrong policy because of an anecdote, but it's worth hearing the edge cases on the other side of the coin.
OK, but I don't much care if it's deeply offensive or not. It's not the duty of Government to make policy, nor the Treasury spending decisions, on what individuals may or may not find deeply offensive.
Spending on this is expected to rise to over £30bn a year by 2027/28, and we can't afford it. Almost all of us will suffer from health issues or disabilities at some point in our lives. What many of us object to is that the State should pay such people to live a more comfortable lifestyle than those working for a living and struggling to make ends meet.
I'd far rather this money was invested in defence, education and industrial strategy and lowering the tax burden on working people.
Everyone should do some form of work. And almost everyone can do some form of work.
It's why we're here.
Again, I largely agree - we should make choices that are deeply offensive to edge cases - thats the only way to make effective policy.
Two comments back, though: 1. "more comfortable lifestyle" I doubt it. Money isn't everything, I bet her lifestyle is empty, dull and depressing. 2. I think you are somewhat hoisted by your own petard. If we shouldn't make policy on the basis of my anecdote (I agree), then we also shouldn't make policy based on AndyJS's.
I expect we’ll see an apology of sorts by Trump at his rally in Allentown today. Yes rare as hens teeth but he’ll have to say something .
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
The "joke" was vetted in advance - and cleared.
We know this because a joke about "c***" Kamala Harris - specifically using that c-word - was removed.
So the Republicans are just getting tied in more knots....
The Republicans say the joke was improvised and was not vetted.
There was more than one such joke.
No one believes them anyway, as they are notorious liars. And in any event, no speaker at the event saw fit to disavow it.
Anecdotally, it's cutting through. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/28/trump-rally-puerto-rico-pennsylvania-fallout-00185935 ... “If we weren’t engaged before, we’re all paying attention now,” Martinez said. He added the morning radio show he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally comments, including a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who is now telling people not to vote for the former president...
And after a day consider a more thoughtful response, this is what Vance came up .. “Our country was built by frontiersmen who conquered the wilderness,” Vance said. “We’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing. Let’s have a sense of humor and let’s have a little fun.”.
So I think it's fair to say they're good with the racist jokes. It is what they are.
He said we spent more on ending slavery in the early 19th century as a % GDP than we're spending on foreign aid now.
Seems a perfectly reasonable point to make. His "crime" is that he's attacking Left-Liberal shibboleths.
No doubt he'll be accusing of stoking a culture war next.
Yes flavour of the day and all the usual halfwits wanting even more good money thrown after bad. We have pumped money into foreign aid for ever and achieved nothing , it gets stolen, used for guns etc. Wonder how much largesse they will get from their new pals China and Russia. What next reparation for the crusades.
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
She was in digital marketing in the civil service so hardly working down the mines.
Whilst I have sympathy for anyone who's not feeling OK those benefits are excessive. I doubt she's fundamentally disabled and unable to do any work.
We all feel awful and struggle from time to time. It doesn't mean we expect everyone else to pay for us.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
I'm afraid I would do exactly that: reduce it to a room rent or flatshare allowance of £600pcm max and a meal allowance. They can then choose whether to live with friends or family or with others in a similar position. That might not be living in clover but, tough.
These are the choices ordinary working people have to make, who are often under immense pressure themselves, and their taxes shouldn't go to pay for this.
Yes, I can entirely understand that sentiment in the current system - especially in the context of a budget that is going to push taxes up.
I don't think it will help, without a much wider societal shift away from looking after the vulnerable and towards a more brutal/Stoic approach.
(I often find myself personally harking for a more stoic approach - you get out and work regardless - but I have come to reflect that I probably feel this way only because I have never had to work with a significant disability.)
Anecdote alert: one of my colleagues left teaching just this half term. She has worked with me for 8 years whilst having rheumatoid arthritis. She takes a day or two off every six weeks to have blood infusions, without which she cannot move her joints. She worked all through COVID teaching full time remotely despite having to shield. For context, she meets a group of six or seven other people with RA each time she has an infusion and none of them work at all, let alone full time in a school - she is a machine.
But she has finally quit largely because as the school takes on more sixth form students to try to keep itself afloat, she no longer has her own classroom and has to move around the school more, meaning that her joints flared up too much between infusions.
Part of the answer to this problem is to try to ensure employers can better accommodate individuals with disabilities. Telling this person she should now move house and live with family/friends would be deeply offensive and wrong headed on an individual level. Not to say that's the wrong policy because of an anecdote, but it's worth hearing the edge cases on the other side of the coin.
OK, but I don't much care if it's deeply offensive or not. It's not the duty of Government to make policy, nor the Treasury spending decisions, on what individuals may or may not find deeply offensive.
Spending on this is expected to rise to over £30bn a year by 2027/28, and we can't afford it. Almost all of us will suffer from health issues or disabilities at some point in our lives. What many of us object to is that the State should pay such people to live a more comfortable lifestyle than those working for a living and struggling to make ends meet.
I'd far rather this money was invested in defence, education and industrial strategy and lowering the tax burden on working people.
Everyone should do some form of work. And almost everyone can do some form of work.
It's why we're here.
Again, I largely agree - we should make choices that are deeply offensive to edge cases - thats the only way to make effective policy.
Two comments back, though: 1. "more comfortable lifestyle" I doubt it. Money isn't everything, I bet her lifestyle is empty, dull and depressing. 2. I think you are somewhat hoisted by your own petard. If we shouldn't make policy on the basis of my anecdote (I agree), then we also shouldn't make policy based on AndyJS's.
Most of the time in government, you have to choose between unpleasant courses.
Which ties in with compensating slave owners. Justice would demand that they be asset-stripped. Realpolitik makes that impossible.
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
She was in digital marketing in the civil service so hardly working down the mines.
Whilst I have sympathy for anyone who's not feeling OK those benefits are excessive. I doubt she's fundamentally disabled and unable to do any work.
We all feel awful and struggle from time to time. It doesn't mean we expect everyone else to pay for us.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
I'm afraid I would do exactly that: reduce it to a room rent or flatshare allowance of £600pcm max and a meal allowance. They can then choose whether to live with friends or family or with others in a similar position. That might not be living in clover but, tough.
These are the choices ordinary working people have to make, who are often under immense pressure themselves, and their taxes shouldn't go to pay for this.
Yes, I can entirely understand that sentiment in the current system - especially in the context of a budget that is going to push taxes up.
I don't think it will help, without a much wider societal shift away from looking after the vulnerable and towards a more brutal/Stoic approach.
(I often find myself personally harking for a more stoic approach - you get out and work regardless - but I have come to reflect that I probably feel this way only because I have never had to work with a significant disability.)
Anecdote alert: one of my colleagues left teaching just this half term. She has worked with me for 8 years whilst having rheumatoid arthritis. She takes a day or two off every six weeks to have blood infusions, without which she cannot move her joints. She worked all through COVID teaching full time remotely despite having to shield. For context, she meets a group of six or seven other people with RA each time she has an infusion and none of them work at all, let alone full time in a school - she is a machine.
But she has finally quit largely because as the school takes on more sixth form students to try to keep itself afloat, she no longer has her own classroom and has to move around the school more, meaning that her joints flared up too much between infusions.
Part of the answer to this problem is to try to ensure employers can better accommodate individuals with disabilities. Telling this person she should now move house and live with family/friends would be deeply offensive and wrong headed on an individual level. Not to say that's the wrong policy because of an anecdote, but it's worth hearing the edge cases on the other side of the coin.
OK, but I don't much care if it's deeply offensive or not. It's not the duty of Government to make policy, nor the Treasury spending decisions, on what individuals may or may not find deeply offensive.
Spending on this is expected to rise to over £30bn a year by 2027/28, and we can't afford it. Almost all of us will suffer from health issues or disabilities at some point in our lives. What many of us object to is that the State should pay such people to live a more comfortable lifestyle than those working for a living and struggling to make ends meet.
I'd far rather this money was invested in defence, education and industrial strategy and lowering the tax burden on working people.
Everyone should do some form of work. And almost everyone can do some form of work.
It's why we're here.
And yet fourteen years of your party in government failed to make any of that anything like a reality.
But you delivered Brexit. Which is now barely more popular than Keir Starmer.
I'm noting a number of attacks on the Government regarding the scrapping of the £2 bus fare.
Problem is it was time limited to January 2025 and then the budget was spent elsewhere so as with everything else it was a trap that Labour didn't pay attention to and catch...
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
She was in digital marketing in the civil service so hardly working down the mines.
Whilst I have sympathy for anyone who's not feeling OK those benefits are excessive. I doubt she's fundamentally disabled and unable to do any work.
We all feel awful and struggle from time to time. It doesn't mean we expect everyone else to pay for us.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
I'm afraid I would do exactly that: reduce it to a room rent or flatshare allowance of £600pcm max and a meal allowance. They can then choose whether to live with friends or family or with others in a similar position. That might not be living in clover but, tough.
These are the choices ordinary working people have to make, who are often under immense pressure themselves, and their taxes shouldn't go to pay for this.
Yes, I can entirely understand that sentiment in the current system - especially in the context of a budget that is going to push taxes up.
I don't think it will help, without a much wider societal shift away from looking after the vulnerable and towards a more brutal/Stoic approach.
(I often find myself personally harking for a more stoic approach - you get out and work regardless - but I have come to reflect that I probably feel this way only because I have never had to work with a significant disability.)
Anecdote alert: one of my colleagues left teaching just this half term. She has worked with me for 8 years whilst having rheumatoid arthritis. She takes a day or two off every six weeks to have blood infusions, without which she cannot move her joints. She worked all through COVID teaching full time remotely despite having to shield. For context, she meets a group of six or seven other people with RA each time she has an infusion and none of them work at all, let alone full time in a school - she is a machine.
But she has finally quit largely because as the school takes on more sixth form students to try to keep itself afloat, she no longer has her own classroom and has to move around the school more, meaning that her joints flared up too much between infusions.
Part of the answer to this problem is to try to ensure employers can better accommodate individuals with disabilities. Telling this person she should now move house and live with family/friends would be deeply offensive and wrong headed on an individual level. Not to say that's the wrong policy because of an anecdote, but it's worth hearing the edge cases on the other side of the coin.
OK, but I don't much care if it's deeply offensive or not. It's not the duty of Government to make policy, nor the Treasury spending decisions, on what individuals may or may not find deeply offensive.
Spending on this is expected to rise to over £30bn a year by 2027/28, and we can't afford it. Almost all of us will suffer from health issues or disabilities at some point in our lives. What many of us object to is that the State should pay such people to live a more comfortable lifestyle than those working for a living and struggling to make ends meet.
I'd far rather this money was invested in defence, education and industrial strategy and lowering the tax burden on working people.
Everyone should do some form of work. And almost everyone can do some form of work.
It's why we're here.
I don't disagree with that broad sentiment Casino (some extreme cases excepted).
I became a paraplegic at 19 and was lucky enough to forge a career in IT and finance. But that was because, if I say so myself, I am reasonably bright and good at managing people and projects. Most manual jobs would be unsuitable for me - I am not going to forge a career on a building site. So if I was below average intellect, I would have struggled to find work.
Now I'm retired the issue with a lot of people I see at Citizens Advice, particularly those with mental problems, is that they are unemployable. I would not employ them, nor would you.
He said we spent more on ending slavery in the early 19th century as a % GDP than we're spending on foreign aid now.
Seems a perfectly reasonable point to make. His "crime" is that he's attacking Left-Liberal shibboleths.
No doubt he'll be accusing of stoking a culture war next.
Sorry, it's not reasonable, it's completely bonkers. Show us the figures on the how much 'we spent on ending slavery' - I bet most of it was compensation paid to slave owners.
He possibly counting - equally fallaciously - the cost of running the Royal Navy.
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
She was in digital marketing in the civil service so hardly working down the mines.
Whilst I have sympathy for anyone who's not feeling OK those benefits are excessive. I doubt she's fundamentally disabled and unable to do any work.
We all feel awful and struggle from time to time. It doesn't mean we expect everyone else to pay for us.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
I'm afraid I would do exactly that: reduce it to a room rent or flatshare allowance of £600pcm max and a meal allowance. They can then choose whether to live with friends or family or with others in a similar position. That might not be living in clover but, tough.
These are the choices ordinary working people have to make, who are often under immense pressure themselves, and their taxes shouldn't go to pay for this.
Yes, I can entirely understand that sentiment in the current system - especially in the context of a budget that is going to push taxes up.
I don't think it will help, without a much wider societal shift away from looking after the vulnerable and towards a more brutal/Stoic approach.
(I often find myself personally harking for a more stoic approach - you get out and work regardless - but I have come to reflect that I probably feel this way only because I have never had to work with a significant disability.)
Anecdote alert: one of my colleagues left teaching just this half term. She has worked with me for 8 years whilst having rheumatoid arthritis. She takes a day or two off every six weeks to have blood infusions, without which she cannot move her joints. She worked all through COVID teaching full time remotely despite having to shield. For context, she meets a group of six or seven other people with RA each time she has an infusion and none of them work at all, let alone full time in a school - she is a machine.
But she has finally quit largely because as the school takes on more sixth form students to try to keep itself afloat, she no longer has her own classroom and has to move around the school more, meaning that her joints flared up too much between infusions.
Part of the answer to this problem is to try to ensure employers can better accommodate individuals with disabilities. Telling this person she should now move house and live with family/friends would be deeply offensive and wrong headed on an individual level. Not to say that's the wrong policy because of an anecdote, but it's worth hearing the edge cases on the other side of the coin.
Losing a teacher that dedicated because of poor timetabling strikes me as a pretty bad bargain.
Could an adjustment not have been made? Was one not even attempted?
It was attempted successfully for the last 5 years or so (but was increasingly skewing the timetable and became more and more difficult each year). It stopped working because in some periods we now have zero free rooms, and many of our classrooms are not full-sized as we have converted offices, breakout rooms etc to accommodate more classes.
It doesn't help that we have a lot of NQTs this year and understandably HoDs have been more reluctant to boot them out of consistent, full-sized, fully functioning rooms in favour of the crap ones us experienced teachers use.
All the same, I agree it's a very poor bargain, especially as she was a brilliant maths teacher who the kids loved to bits.
In the short term, you can make the budget look better by sweating the assets harder- you can even call it efficiency.
After a while, it always bites you on the behind. Always.
He said we spent more on ending slavery in the early 19th century as a % GDP than we're spending on foreign aid now.
Seems a perfectly reasonable point to make. His "crime" is that he's attacking Left-Liberal shibboleths.
No doubt he'll be accusing of stoking a culture war next.
Sorry, it's not reasonable, it's completely bonkers. Show us the figures on the how much 'we spent on ending slavery' - I bet most of it was compensation paid to slave owners.
Does that not count? If my taxes today were used to fund a diesel to EV scrappage scheme, that should count as spending to mitigate the environmental effects of diesel cars. Is there a logical difference?
I see the IDF are upping the slaughter in Gaza whilst attention is on the US election .
It’s extraordinary how de-sensitized western media has become . The IDF tell people to move to safe zones then slaughter them in that alleged safe zone .
The banning of UNRWA essentially means the west will be looking on as thousands starve to death .
Does anyone care anymore ?
It is de riguer across middle east and africa , they are always killing each other and at best it gets the odd mention in the news/media. People just see it as normal.
I'm noting a number of attacks on the Government regarding the scrapping of the £2 bus fare.
Problem is it was time limited to January 2025 and then the budget was spent elsewhere so as with everything else it was a trap that Labour didn't pay attention to and catch...
AFAICR it was time-limited before, but was extended.
It was, I think, a good idea, and should also aid several of the government's objectives. But having said that, have there been any reports into the policy's effects? It's been going on for long enough.
He said we spent more on ending slavery in the early 19th century as a % GDP than we're spending on foreign aid now.
Seems a perfectly reasonable point to make. His "crime" is that he's attacking Left-Liberal shibboleths.
No doubt he'll be accusing of stoking a culture war next.
Sorry, it's not reasonable, it's completely bonkers. Show us the figures on the how much 'we spent on ending slavery' - I bet most of it was compensation paid to slave owners.
There were several Royal Navy squadrons dedicated to catching slave ships. The West Africa squadron is the most famous but there was one in Zanzibar as well. These cost around 0.05-0.1% of the British budget. May not sound like much but these squadrons operated for decades.
it certainly sounds like a lot less than the roughly 1% of the British budget currently spent on overseas aid. If we compare in GDP terms (as Jenrick did) then the difference is even bigger, as government spending was a much lower percentage of GDP in those days.
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
It makes employment for them almost impossible. To have that much after tax you need to earn something like £50k a year. People with a poor employment record and uncertain attendance are just unemployable at that kind of level, no matter what their qualifications. How on earth do you make work pay in such a scenario?
So there's a conversation about incentives there.
I don't see any reason why she should get more than the basic Universal Credit, and live with friends or relatives or with other people in a similar position.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
They don't need to earn that much, Pip is not means tested and will continued to be paid whatever you earn.
Also, that indicates they are receiving the LCWRA element of UC, and if they are indeed getting Housing Benefit (and not the housing element of UC) will be in supported housing of some sort.
So someone who probably counts as "disabled" and unable to work.
Still criminal that they can fork out 33K tax free to peopel yet workers get hammered and pensioners on 13K get their measly heating allowance taken away, this country is a real shithole run by morons.
I'm noting a number of attacks on the Government regarding the scrapping of the £2 bus fare.
Problem is it was time limited to January 2025 and then the budget was spent elsewhere so as with everything else it was a trap that Labour didn't pay attention to and catch...
On the bright side, it gives BJO the chance to pop a few posts on here.
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
It makes employment for them almost impossible. To have that much after tax you need to earn something like £50k a year. People with a poor employment record and uncertain attendance are just unemployable at that kind of level, no matter what their qualifications. How on earth do you make work pay in such a scenario?
So there's a conversation about incentives there.
I don't see any reason why she should get more than the basic Universal Credit, and live with friends or relatives or with other people in a similar position.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
They don't need to earn that much, Pip is not means tested and will continued to be paid whatever you earn.
Also, that indicates they are receiving the LCWRA element of UC, and if they are indeed getting Housing Benefit (and not the housing element of UC) will be in supported housing of some sort.
So someone who probably counts as "disabled" and unable to work.
Still criminal that they can fork out 33K tax free to peopel yet workers get hammered and pensioners on 13K get their measly heating allowance taken away, this country is a real shithole run by morons.
Those people won the lottery by being born or moving down south.
I'm not sure how you fix it however without building a few million homes down south...
I expect we’ll see an apology of sorts by Trump at his rally in Allentown today. Yes rare as hens teeth but he’ll have to say something .
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
The "joke" was vetted in advance - and cleared.
We know this because a joke about "c***" Kamala Harris - specifically using that c-word - was removed.
So the Republicans are just getting tied in more knots....
The Republicans say the joke was improvised and was not vetted.
There was more than one such joke.
No one believes them anyway, as they are notorious liars. And in any event, no speaker at the event saw fit to disavow it.
Anecdotally, it's cutting through. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/28/trump-rally-puerto-rico-pennsylvania-fallout-00185935 ... “If we weren’t engaged before, we’re all paying attention now,” Martinez said. He added the morning radio show he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally comments, including a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who is now telling people not to vote for the former president...
And after a day consider a more thoughtful response, this is what Vance came up .. “Our country was built by frontiersmen who conquered the wilderness,” Vance said. “We’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing. Let’s have a sense of humor and let’s have a little fun.”.
So I think it's fair to say they're good with the racist jokes. It is what they are.
Almost as if the whole thing was organised by Ricky Gervais to see everyone outraged at a bunch of jokes.
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
She was in digital marketing in the civil service so hardly working down the mines.
Whilst I have sympathy for anyone who's not feeling OK those benefits are excessive. I doubt she's fundamentally disabled and unable to do any work.
We all feel awful and struggle from time to time. It doesn't mean we expect everyone else to pay for us.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
I'm afraid I would do exactly that: reduce it to a room rent or flatshare allowance of £600pcm max and a meal allowance. They can then choose whether to live with friends or family or with others in a similar position. That might not be living in clover but, tough.
These are the choices ordinary working people have to make, who are often under immense pressure themselves, and their taxes shouldn't go to pay for this.
Yes, I can entirely understand that sentiment in the current system - especially in the context of a budget that is going to push taxes up.
I don't think it will help, without a much wider societal shift away from looking after the vulnerable and towards a more brutal/Stoic approach.
(I often find myself personally harking for a more stoic approach - you get out and work regardless - but I have come to reflect that I probably feel this way only because I have never had to work with a significant disability.)
Anecdote alert: one of my colleagues left teaching just this half term. She has worked with me for 8 years whilst having rheumatoid arthritis. She takes a day or two off every six weeks to have blood infusions, without which she cannot move her joints. She worked all through COVID teaching full time remotely despite having to shield. For context, she meets a group of six or seven other people with RA each time she has an infusion and none of them work at all, let alone full time in a school - she is a machine.
But she has finally quit largely because as the school takes on more sixth form students to try to keep itself afloat, she no longer has her own classroom and has to move around the school more, meaning that her joints flared up too much between infusions.
Part of the answer to this problem is to try to ensure employers can better accommodate individuals with disabilities. Telling this person she should now move house and live with family/friends would be deeply offensive and wrong headed on an individual level. Not to say that's the wrong policy because of an anecdote, but it's worth hearing the edge cases on the other side of the coin.
Losing a teacher that dedicated because of poor timetabling strikes me as a pretty bad bargain.
Could an adjustment not have been made? Was one not even attempted?
It was attempted successfully for the last 5 years or so (but was increasingly skewing the timetable and became more and more difficult each year). It stopped working because in some periods we now have zero free rooms, and many of our classrooms are not full-sized as we have converted offices, breakout rooms etc to accommodate more classes.
It doesn't help that we have a lot of NQTs this year and understandably HoDs have been more reluctant to boot them out of consistent, full-sized, fully functioning rooms in favour of the crap ones us experienced teachers use.
All the same, I agree it's a very poor bargain, especially as she was a brilliant maths teacher who the kids loved to bits.
In the short term, you can make the budget look better by sweating the assets harder- you can even call it efficiency.
After a while, it always bites you on the behind. Always.
Problem is the school population boom is temporary and depending where you are, say London, has a massive lull that follows where schools will be closing rather than opening. So no school is going to get money to expend for short term purposes.
Worse most temporary classrooms are already in use due to the RAACs issue..
I'm noting a number of attacks on the Government regarding the scrapping of the £2 bus fare.
Problem is it was time limited to January 2025 and then the budget was spent elsewhere so as with everything else it was a trap that Labour didn't pay attention to and catch...
On the bright side, it gives BJO the chance to pop a few posts on here.
on the downside I'm starting to think that BJO is right and Labour just aren't very good...
The problem there is that I definitely know the other options won't do any better...
I'm noting a number of attacks on the Government regarding the scrapping of the £2 bus fare.
Problem is it was time limited to January 2025 and then the budget was spent elsewhere so as with everything else it was a trap that Labour didn't pay attention to and catch...
Trouble is, there are so many things like that. Huge swathes of government activity primed to blow up just after the election.
That doesn't excuse the "Starmer isn't good at politics" thing. The obvious spin here is "The Tories planned to stop this scheme just after Christmas and have fares go back to their old levels. Five pounds, ten pounds, you name it. There isn't the money to keep the old cap, but we have found some to keep the cap at three pounds next year."
Won't stop the permanently outraged, but better than nothing.
And a choice between "bad at comms" and "bad and dishonest at government"... Sorry, but that's no choice at all.
re reparations which are analagous to apologies for past deeds I am with Jonathan Sumption here. To apologise for a past deed because it is now deemed immoral, say, is wrong because to do so makes the assumption that values never change and, by implication, that our current values are right and "good" now and forever more. Which is pretty much how religions operate and it is no good thing for the State to operate as a religion.
He said we spent more on ending slavery in the early 19th century as a % GDP than we're spending on foreign aid now.
Seems a perfectly reasonable point to make. His "crime" is that he's attacking Left-Liberal shibboleths.
No doubt he'll be accusing of stoking a culture war next.
Sorry, it's not reasonable, it's completely bonkers. Show us the figures on the how much 'we spent on ending slavery' - I bet most of it was compensation paid to slave owners.
Does that not count? If my taxes today were used to fund a diesel to EV scrappage scheme, that should count as spending to mitigate the environmental effects of diesel cars. Is there a logical difference?
it's comparing money spent then on buying slaves from British slave-owners to money spent now on overseas aid
I'm noting a number of attacks on the Government regarding the scrapping of the £2 bus fare.
Problem is it was time limited to January 2025 and then the budget was spent elsewhere so as with everything else it was a trap that Labour didn't pay attention to and catch...
On the bright side, it gives BJO the chance to pop a few posts on here.
on the downside I'm starting to think that BJO is right and Labour just aren't very good...
The problem there is that I definitely know the other options won't do any better...
Thinking BJO is right is to think Labour would have been better losing under Corbyn than winning under Starmer.
re reparations which are analagous to apologies for past deeds I am with Jonathan Sumption here. To apologise for a past deed because it is now deemed immoral, say, is wrong because to do so makes the assumption that values never change and, by implication, that our current values are right and "good" now and forever more. Which is pretty much how religions operate and it is no good thing for the State to operate as a religion.
otoh implying that slavery was considered moral at the time, is to ignore all the people (not least the slaves themselves) who weren't ok with it at the time.
I expect we’ll see an apology of sorts by Trump at his rally in Allentown today. Yes rare as hens teeth but he’ll have to say something .
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
The "joke" was vetted in advance - and cleared.
We know this because a joke about "c***" Kamala Harris - specifically using that c-word - was removed.
So the Republicans are just getting tied in more knots....
The Republicans say the joke was improvised and was not vetted.
There was more than one such joke.
No one believes them anyway, as they are notorious liars. And in any event, no speaker at the event saw fit to disavow it.
Anecdotally, it's cutting through. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/28/trump-rally-puerto-rico-pennsylvania-fallout-00185935 ... “If we weren’t engaged before, we’re all paying attention now,” Martinez said. He added the morning radio show he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally comments, including a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who is now telling people not to vote for the former president...
And after a day consider a more thoughtful response, this is what Vance came up .. “Our country was built by frontiersmen who conquered the wilderness,” Vance said. “We’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing. Let’s have a sense of humor and let’s have a little fun.”.
So I think it's fair to say they're good with the racist jokes. It is what they are.
Almost as if the whole thing was organised by Ricky Gervais to see everyone outraged at a bunch of jokes.
Gervais isn't usually running on a manifesto of deporting several million people, and splitting up American families, though.
When would be despots are making the jokes, it pays to take them a bit more seriously.
I'm noting a number of attacks on the Government regarding the scrapping of the £2 bus fare.
Problem is it was time limited to January 2025 and then the budget was spent elsewhere so as with everything else it was a trap that Labour didn't pay attention to and catch...
On the bright side, it gives BJO the chance to pop a few posts on here.
on the downside I'm starting to think that BJO is right and Labour just aren't very good...
The problem there is that I definitely know the other options won't do any better...
Thinking BJO is right is to think Labour would have been better losing under Corbyn than winning under Starmer.
Tbf, he was coincidentally quite correct that the 2019 election was a good one to lose for Labour.
Can you imagine how many seats they would have been down to if they had overseen Covid, Brexit and presumably the defeat of Ukraine? Along with the munching of pensions caused by Corbyn's open-ended spending commitments?
I mean, never mind taxis, we'd have been talking about the PLP sending for a cargo bike.
I'm noting a number of attacks on the Government regarding the scrapping of the £2 bus fare.
Problem is it was time limited to January 2025 and then the budget was spent elsewhere so as with everything else it was a trap that Labour didn't pay attention to and catch...
Trouble is, there are so many things like that. Huge swathes of government activity primed to blow up just after the election.
That doesn't excuse the "Starmer isn't good at politics" thing. The obvious spin here is "The Tories planned to stop this scheme just after Christmas and have fares go back to their old levels. Five pounds, ten pounds, you name it. There isn't the money to keep the old cap, but we have found some to keep the cap at three pounds next year."
Won't stop the permanently outraged, but better than nothing.
And a choice between "bad at comms" and "bad and dishonest at government"... Sorry, but that's no choice at all.
Of course taxes would go up but they can't go up forever for everyone and hence the focus on "investment" in SKS' speeches. Derided as she rightly was, La Truss knew that we had to get the country growing again and we will see what plans Lab have for this.
On R4 Today this morning briefly I think I heard that of a proposed £4-5bn extra that the NHS is either getting or wants, £3bn is going on wage increases. That doesn't sound like "investment" to me.
I expect we’ll see an apology of sorts by Trump at his rally in Allentown today. Yes rare as hens teeth but he’ll have to say something .
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
The "joke" was vetted in advance - and cleared.
We know this because a joke about "c***" Kamala Harris - specifically using that c-word - was removed.
So the Republicans are just getting tied in more knots....
The Republicans say the joke was improvised and was not vetted.
There was more than one such joke.
No one believes them anyway, as they are notorious liars. And in any event, no speaker at the event saw fit to disavow it.
Anecdotally, it's cutting through. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/28/trump-rally-puerto-rico-pennsylvania-fallout-00185935 ... “If we weren’t engaged before, we’re all paying attention now,” Martinez said. He added the morning radio show he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally comments, including a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who is now telling people not to vote for the former president...
And after a day consider a more thoughtful response, this is what Vance came up .. “Our country was built by frontiersmen who conquered the wilderness,” Vance said. “We’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing. Let’s have a sense of humor and let’s have a little fun.”.
So I think it's fair to say they're good with the racist jokes. It is what they are.
Almost as if the whole thing was organised by Ricky Gervais to see everyone outraged at a bunch of jokes.
Gervais isn't usually running on a manifesto of deporting several million people, and splitting up American families, though.
When would be despots are making the jokes, it pays to take them a bit more seriously.
AFAICS they want to deport the illegal immigrants, "illegal" being the operative word. Didn't you hear the speech?
Does Lab not want to deport illegal immigrants. Do any countries not want to.
re reparations which are analagous to apologies for past deeds I am with Jonathan Sumption here. To apologise for a past deed because it is now deemed immoral, say, is wrong because to do so makes the assumption that values never change and, by implication, that our current values are right and "good" now and forever more. Which is pretty much how religions operate and it is no good thing for the State to operate as a religion.
"Reparations as apologies" I agree.
But what I think gets lost in the wailing and knashing of teeth on this is Foxy's astute point about compensation for ending slavery - it gave slave owners capital just as capital began to create a self-reinforcing cycle of wealth that we still benefit from today.
Just as decimating the cotton production in India in favour of that in UK created an imbalance that we still benefit from today.
So guilt about slavery? Hell no. But a recognition that we shouldn't have a massively more comfortable life than a rural Indian by accident of being born into a country that undertook some fairly horrendous policies in that past? That's more worthy of interrogation in my view.
I'm noting a number of attacks on the Government regarding the scrapping of the £2 bus fare.
Problem is it was time limited to January 2025 and then the budget was spent elsewhere so as with everything else it was a trap that Labour didn't pay attention to and catch...
Trouble is, there are so many things like that. Huge swathes of government activity primed to blow up just after the election.
That doesn't excuse the "Starmer isn't good at politics" thing. The obvious spin here is "The Tories planned to stop this scheme just after Christmas and have fares go back to their old levels. Five pounds, ten pounds, you name it. There isn't the money to keep the old cap, but we have found some to keep the cap at three pounds next year."
Won't stop the permanently outraged, but better than nothing.
And a choice between "bad at comms" and "bad and dishonest at government"... Sorry, but that's no choice at all.
Of course taxes would go up but they can't go up forever for everyone and hence the focus on "investment" in SKS' speeches. Derided as she rightly was, La Truss knew that we had to get the country growing again and we will see what plans Lab have for this.
One of the main reasons I decided to vote Labour rather than not bother was I thought, and still do, that Rachel Reeves genuinely gets this and will put in place the measures to achieve it.
The problem is there are too many in Labour and on the left who think it is literally as easy as "wealth tax now".
re reparations which are analagous to apologies for past deeds I am with Jonathan Sumption here. To apologise for a past deed because it is now deemed immoral, say, is wrong because to do so makes the assumption that values never change and, by implication, that our current values are right and "good" now and forever more. Which is pretty much how religions operate and it is no good thing for the State to operate as a religion.
otoh implying that slavery was considered moral at the time, is to ignore all the people (not least the slaves themselves) who weren't ok with it at the time.
That is true. But it was the societal attitude (even Plato had slaves, of course, as did the American Republic) which are relevant.
Edit: and by societal attitude I mean the broad masses, rather than as you note the dissenters.
re reparations which are analagous to apologies for past deeds I am with Jonathan Sumption here. To apologise for a past deed because it is now deemed immoral, say, is wrong because to do so makes the assumption that values never change and, by implication, that our current values are right and "good" now and forever more. Which is pretty much how religions operate and it is no good thing for the State to operate as a religion.
That's pretty woolly thinking by Sumption; it does no such thing.
For start, it assumes no one thought slavery immoral at the time, which is plain wrong.
And any such apology might well be explicitly to demonstrate our values have changed. That doesn't make them immutable
Whether there's any value in an apology is debatable, but Sumption is just blowing smoke.
Budget: I get £2,750 a month in benefits and I'm freaking out over cuts.
Nicole Healing, 44, Unemployed.
"Nicole, who uses them and they pronoun, said they receive Employment and Support Allowance of £1,042, Personal Independent Payments of £798, and Housing Benefit of £917 per month.
Though they feel in a "fortunate position" currently, Nicole says: "I feel I am at the mercy of the DWP."
That's £33,000 a year in benefits for a single person.
I know a few people in a category possibly similar to the above. They are educated to a very high (ie postgraduate) level. They become unable to work, sometimes after a few unsuccessful attempts, due to health conditions that seem to be predominantly psychological disorders. Then they get benefit payments from the government that are equivalent to the wage you would get from a full time professional job.
In the end I can only really feel sorry for them. People don't take them seriously, they are viewed as a drain on the state - and they know it.
“I am fearful about the negative rhetoric in the media about disabled people in receipt of benefits."
She was in digital marketing in the civil service so hardly working down the mines.
Whilst I have sympathy for anyone who's not feeling OK those benefits are excessive. I doubt she's fundamentally disabled and unable to do any work.
We all feel awful and struggle from time to time. It doesn't mean we expect everyone else to pay for us.
Yes I think two separate sentiments clash here: 1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and, 2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow: 1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied. 2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this. 3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
I'm afraid I would do exactly that: reduce it to a room rent or flatshare allowance of £600pcm max and a meal allowance. They can then choose whether to live with friends or family or with others in a similar position. That might not be living in clover but, tough.
These are the choices ordinary working people have to make, who are often under immense pressure themselves, and their taxes shouldn't go to pay for this.
Yes, I can entirely understand that sentiment in the current system - especially in the context of a budget that is going to push taxes up.
I don't think it will help, without a much wider societal shift away from looking after the vulnerable and towards a more brutal/Stoic approach.
(I often find myself personally harking for a more stoic approach - you get out and work regardless - but I have come to reflect that I probably feel this way only because I have never had to work with a significant disability.)
Anecdote alert: one of my colleagues left teaching just this half term. She has worked with me for 8 years whilst having rheumatoid arthritis. She takes a day or two off every six weeks to have blood infusions, without which she cannot move her joints. She worked all through COVID teaching full time remotely despite having to shield. For context, she meets a group of six or seven other people with RA each time she has an infusion and none of them work at all, let alone full time in a school - she is a machine.
But she has finally quit largely because as the school takes on more sixth form students to try to keep itself afloat, she no longer has her own classroom and has to move around the school more, meaning that her joints flared up too much between infusions.
Part of the answer to this problem is to try to ensure employers can better accommodate individuals with disabilities. Telling this person she should now move house and live with family/friends would be deeply offensive and wrong headed on an individual level. Not to say that's the wrong policy because of an anecdote, but it's worth hearing the edge cases on the other side of the coin.
Losing a teacher that dedicated because of poor timetabling strikes me as a pretty bad bargain.
Could an adjustment not have been made? Was one not even attempted?
It was attempted successfully for the last 5 years or so (but was increasingly skewing the timetable and became more and more difficult each year). It stopped working because in some periods we now have zero free rooms, and many of our classrooms are not full-sized as we have converted offices, breakout rooms etc to accommodate more classes.
It doesn't help that we have a lot of NQTs this year and understandably HoDs have been more reluctant to boot them out of consistent, full-sized, fully functioning rooms in favour of the crap ones us experienced teachers use.
All the same, I agree it's a very poor bargain, especially as she was a brilliant maths teacher who the kids loved to bits.
In the short term, you can make the budget look better by sweating the assets harder- you can even call it efficiency.
After a while, it always bites you on the behind. Always.
Problem is the school population boom is temporary and depending where you are, say London, has a massive lull that follows where schools will be closing rather than opening. So no school is going to get money to expend for short term purposes.
Worse most temporary classrooms are already in use due to the RAACs issue..
That's some of it, and it's going to get worse as the baby bust continues. But there's also the bizarre Wild West of 16-18 education, where expansion by increasing market share is seen as a way of making the whole school budget add up better.
The Trump Documentary on Panorama, which is being reviewed in the press this morning was well done. It set out the basis of the Trump appeal in a clear and relatively unjudgmental way. Nevertheless, whether or not Project 2025 is the full agenda of an incoming Trump administration, we are left in no doubt that Trump is a clear and present danger to American democracy, and quite possibly the freedom of the entire planet.
Although the election is clearly close, I also wonder about how much the media is being taken in by a well orchestrated focus on rather skewed polls and betting markets being influenced by a small number of very large bets.
The news that much of the Trump ground campaign in the key states is being inadequately conducted by paid campaign agents suggests that the Dems may have a significant advantage over Trump in that critical area. The aggressive nature of the MAGA loyalists must certainly be a turn off, especially to younger and more educated voters, especially women. The Democratic ground campaign, by contrast, is laser focussed and well funded.
As such, and even though this prediction may age like milk, I can see a scenario where the MAGA vote falls back and that Kamala Harris ends in the White House by a fairly comfortable margin. Obviously I am praying for this outcome, but this is also my brain talking. A campaign based on moral corruption and lies may, in fact, trip up over its own feet, as we learn that it has been lying to itself as well.
Another tiny crumb of comfort is that the Democratic Leadership is not giving off "Loser" vibes, rather, they appear confused- they genuinely cannot tell what the result will be.
We will all know in a week whether Farage will be licking his lips at being the prospective MAGA gauleiter, or whether the US has rejected the 21st century version of Fascism.
Good Luck, and Good Betting, everyone (but, please God, let it be a Kamala Harris victory).
I expect we’ll see an apology of sorts by Trump at his rally in Allentown today. Yes rare as hens teeth but he’ll have to say something .
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
The "joke" was vetted in advance - and cleared.
We know this because a joke about "c***" Kamala Harris - specifically using that c-word - was removed.
So the Republicans are just getting tied in more knots....
The Republicans say the joke was improvised and was not vetted.
There was more than one such joke.
No one believes them anyway, as they are notorious liars. And in any event, no speaker at the event saw fit to disavow it.
Anecdotally, it's cutting through. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/28/trump-rally-puerto-rico-pennsylvania-fallout-00185935 ... “If we weren’t engaged before, we’re all paying attention now,” Martinez said. He added the morning radio show he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally comments, including a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who is now telling people not to vote for the former president...
And after a day consider a more thoughtful response, this is what Vance came up .. “Our country was built by frontiersmen who conquered the wilderness,” Vance said. “We’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing. Let’s have a sense of humor and let’s have a little fun.”.
So I think it's fair to say they're good with the racist jokes. It is what they are.
Almost as if the whole thing was organised by Ricky Gervais to see everyone outraged at a bunch of jokes.
Gervais isn't usually running on a manifesto of deporting several million people, and splitting up American families, though.
When would be despots are making the jokes, it pays to take them a bit more seriously.
AFAICS they want to deport the illegal immigrants, "illegal" being the operative word. Didn't you hear the speech?
Does Lab not want to deport illegal immigrants. Do any countries not want to.
re reparations which are analagous to apologies for past deeds I am with Jonathan Sumption here. To apologise for a past deed because it is now deemed immoral, say, is wrong because to do so makes the assumption that values never change and, by implication, that our current values are right and "good" now and forever more. Which is pretty much how religions operate and it is no good thing for the State to operate as a religion.
"Reparations as apologies" I agree.
But what I think gets lost in the wailing and knashing of teeth on this is Foxy's astute point about compensation for ending slavery - it gave slave owners capital just as capital began to create a self-reinforcing cycle of wealth that we still benefit from today.
Just as decimating the cotton production in India in favour of that in UK created an imbalance that we still benefit from today.
So guilt about slavery? Hell no. But a recognition that we shouldn't have a massively more comfortable life than a rural Indian by accident of being born into a country that undertook some fairly horrendous policies in that past? That's more worthy of interrogation in my view.
I don't disagree at all, and this is also related to "positive discrimination" which usually well-off white people rail against. There have been many injustices in the world and I suppose the challenge is to determine a starting line wherefrom such iniquities should be measured. If we look at some of post-colonial Africa then it is reasonable to ask how well they are doing since independence, acknowledging, or rather referencing @Kamski's point about not all Africans being delighted at British rule.
I think the assumption that if the popular vote is tied the swing states will definitely all go to Trump is also now mistaken. On the latest polls the popular vote average has it nearly tied and the closest swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania also near tied with Harris ahead in Ne02 which would get her to 270 if she won that district and those states even if Trump won Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada in which he has a narrow lead.
Remember in 2004 even John Kerry won Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Yet Bush won the national popular vote that year 50% to 48% for Kerry
I expect we’ll see an apology of sorts by Trump at his rally in Allentown today. Yes rare as hens teeth but he’ll have to say something .
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
The "joke" was vetted in advance - and cleared.
We know this because a joke about "c***" Kamala Harris - specifically using that c-word - was removed.
So the Republicans are just getting tied in more knots....
The Republicans say the joke was improvised and was not vetted.
There was more than one such joke.
No one believes them anyway, as they are notorious liars. And in any event, no speaker at the event saw fit to disavow it.
Anecdotally, it's cutting through. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/28/trump-rally-puerto-rico-pennsylvania-fallout-00185935 ... “If we weren’t engaged before, we’re all paying attention now,” Martinez said. He added the morning radio show he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally comments, including a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who is now telling people not to vote for the former president...
And after a day consider a more thoughtful response, this is what Vance came up .. “Our country was built by frontiersmen who conquered the wilderness,” Vance said. “We’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing. Let’s have a sense of humor and let’s have a little fun.”.
So I think it's fair to say they're good with the racist jokes. It is what they are.
Almost as if the whole thing was organised by Ricky Gervais to see everyone outraged at a bunch of jokes.
Gervais isn't usually running on a manifesto of deporting several million people, and splitting up American families, though.
When would be despots are making the jokes, it pays to take them a bit more seriously.
Gervais and Hinchcliffe aren’t despots, they’re comedians. Telling jokes is what they do.
Yes I still think it was a silly idea to hire an offensive roast comic for a political rally.
I expect we’ll see an apology of sorts by Trump at his rally in Allentown today. Yes rare as hens teeth but he’ll have to say something .
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
The "joke" was vetted in advance - and cleared.
We know this because a joke about "c***" Kamala Harris - specifically using that c-word - was removed.
So the Republicans are just getting tied in more knots....
The Republicans say the joke was improvised and was not vetted.
There was more than one such joke.
No one believes them anyway, as they are notorious liars. And in any event, no speaker at the event saw fit to disavow it.
Anecdotally, it's cutting through. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/28/trump-rally-puerto-rico-pennsylvania-fallout-00185935 ... “If we weren’t engaged before, we’re all paying attention now,” Martinez said. He added the morning radio show he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally comments, including a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who is now telling people not to vote for the former president...
And after a day consider a more thoughtful response, this is what Vance came up .. “Our country was built by frontiersmen who conquered the wilderness,” Vance said. “We’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing. Let’s have a sense of humor and let’s have a little fun.”.
So I think it's fair to say they're good with the racist jokes. It is what they are.
Almost as if the whole thing was organised by Ricky Gervais to see everyone outraged at a bunch of jokes.
Gervais isn't usually running on a manifesto of deporting several million people, and splitting up American families, though.
When would be despots are making the jokes, it pays to take them a bit more seriously.
AFAICS they want to deport the illegal immigrants, "illegal" being the operative word. Didn't you hear the speech?
Does Lab not want to deport illegal immigrants. Do any countries not want to.
You haven't been following this, have you ?
Sounds like you have only been following the bits which confirm your pre-existing views. You should get out more (on twitter).
Although the election is clearly close, I also wonder about how much the media is being taken in by a well orchestrated focus on rather skewed polls and betting markets being influenced by a small number of very large bets.
...
538: 2024 has fewer polls, but they are higher quality
re reparations which are analagous to apologies for past deeds I am with Jonathan Sumption here. To apologise for a past deed because it is now deemed immoral, say, is wrong because to do so makes the assumption that values never change and, by implication, that our current values are right and "good" now and forever more. Which is pretty much how religions operate and it is no good thing for the State to operate as a religion.
That seems a rather tortured argument. So modern day Germany has no business apologising for the holocaust because it would be immoral to assume that the current view that the holocaust is a bad thing is not going to change? Maybe in the future we will think the holocaust was totally fine - and so we should shut up about it right now? Have I got this right? Sumption always seems to be one of those terribly clever people who always comes up with the wrong answer.
I expect we’ll see an apology of sorts by Trump at his rally in Allentown today. Yes rare as hens teeth but he’ll have to say something .
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
The "joke" was vetted in advance - and cleared.
We know this because a joke about "c***" Kamala Harris - specifically using that c-word - was removed.
So the Republicans are just getting tied in more knots....
The Republicans say the joke was improvised and was not vetted.
There was more than one such joke.
No one believes them anyway, as they are notorious liars. And in any event, no speaker at the event saw fit to disavow it.
Anecdotally, it's cutting through. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/28/trump-rally-puerto-rico-pennsylvania-fallout-00185935 ... “If we weren’t engaged before, we’re all paying attention now,” Martinez said. He added the morning radio show he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally comments, including a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who is now telling people not to vote for the former president...
And after a day consider a more thoughtful response, this is what Vance came up .. “Our country was built by frontiersmen who conquered the wilderness,” Vance said. “We’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing. Let’s have a sense of humor and let’s have a little fun.”.
So I think it's fair to say they're good with the racist jokes. It is what they are.
"Conquered the wilderness" lol. Because the country was empty before the white man turned up.
re reparations which are analagous to apologies for past deeds I am with Jonathan Sumption here. To apologise for a past deed because it is now deemed immoral, say, is wrong because to do so makes the assumption that values never change and, by implication, that our current values are right and "good" now and forever more. Which is pretty much how religions operate and it is no good thing for the State to operate as a religion.
That seems a rather tortured argument. So modern day Germany has no business apologising for the holocaust because it would be immoral to assume that the current view that the holocaust is a bad thing is not going to change? Maybe in the future we will think the holocaust was totally fine - and so we should shut up about it right now? Have I got this right? Sumption always seems to be one of those terribly clever people who always comes up with the wrong answer.
Explain to me what the German apology is actually for. Describe it to me. What is it saying.
Comments
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10659129241289135
Recent years have witnessed a global uptick in populist candidates and sentiment. Populist communication and campaign styles are well-studied, but whom in the U.S. mass public is attracted to populist ideas and why is still subject to debate. Using unique survey data, we employ latent profile analysis to estimate constellations of characteristics and orientations that relate to support for populist ideas in the United States. Instead of a single, linear path, there are several routes to populist support composed of many combinations of social, psychological, and political characteristics. Whereas some turn to populism because they feel like victims of the political system, others do so to create exclusive sovereignty for their preferred identity group(s). We also find that populist support is more connected to psychological and political orientations than socioeconomic circumstances or even political predispositions, such as partisanship. While populism, itself, is not anti-democratic, some forms of populist support appear to be exclusionary on the grounds of race, religion, and political identity.
https://x.com/cnviolations/status/1851042248932409656?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
1. Someone who is ill and living off the state probably has a thoroughly unfulfilling life (ordering lots of crap off Temu is most likely a symptom of this) dependent on the considerable but capricious largesse of DWP which in many cases creates a spiral of negativity, not helped by DavidL's point that returning to the workforce is probably unaffordable without a big drop in money coming in; and,
2. Someone working has to pay for that £33k, which seems deeply unfair.
I think a few things definitely follow:
1. There is often a tinge of envy (cf Blanche's comment about having to work 55 hour weeks). I can relate to this sentiment but I think it is fundamentally misplaced - this is not someone to be envied.
2. There is often a further implication that the problem would be lessened if someone's life circumstances could only be made worse (cf the comment about a £1250pcm rent, one possible implication of which is that really this person should be in a £500pcm shithole with mould all over the walls). I think this is also fundamentally misplaced - some people, but very few, would choose this life, whether in a decent flat or not. Worsening their circumstances is a poor route out of this.
3. At a time when someone can be earning +/- £33k from full time employment but is unable to support a family, it is deeply wrong that this person's taxes need to rise in order to fund the £33k going to an unemployed person.
As a result solutions are hard to find - but I think must come from a deeper restructuring of the economy such that living costs are reduced relative to wages. Primarily this must come from a reduction in housing costs (and I say this as someone who hugely depends on a second income from a rental flat to support my own family).
From an AP article:
"Harris spent Sunday in Pennsylvania, which may be the election’s biggest prize. Harris is next scheduled to go to Michigan. And after Tuesday’s closing argument in Washington, she plans to visit North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin on Wednesday alone. She heads to Nevada and Arizona on Thursday.
What do we know about Trump’s schedule? He’s booked to host at least one rally every day next week: Monday in Georgia, Tuesday in Pennsylvania, Wednesday in Wisconsin, Thursday in Nevada, Friday in Wisconsin again, and Saturday in Virginia.
But as a reminder, these schedules are likely to change based on the campaigns’ intelligence on the ground."
Harris still hoping for NC, Trump presumably thinks it is safe, for now. Michigan was supposed to be safe for the Dems but the Arab vote there seems to have thrown it into the melting pot. Does Trump think he has better prospects in Wisconsin?
ROBERT JENRICK: Many of Britain's former colonies owe us a debt of gratitude for the inheritance we left them
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14012923/ROBERT-JENRICK-Britains-former-colonies-debt-inheritance.html
Although the media have highlighted the Puerto Rico joke it’s really what came after that was truly disgusting.
In terms of polling we should see a load this week but overall it’s been a polling desert relative to previous elections. Because of that GOP biased pollsters have made up a much larger percentage.
It’s irrelevant whether models down weight them , if there’s enough they’re still going to skew the average .
https://x.com/Otto_English/status/1851166320479408459
Seems a perfectly reasonable point to make. His "crime" is that he's attacking Left-Liberal shibboleths.
No doubt he'll be accusing of stoking a culture war next.
I don't do spread betting but if I did I think the value is on Harris right now.
We know this because a joke about "c***" Kamala Harris - specifically using that c-word - was removed.
So the Republicans are just getting tied in more knots....
But, nobody owes us a “debt of gratitude” for our ancestors’ beneficial deeds, any more than we carry a debt of guilt for their harmful ones.
I don't think it will help, without a much wider societal shift away from looking after the vulnerable and towards a more brutal/Stoic approach.
(I often find myself personally harking for a more stoic approach - you get out and work regardless - but I have come to reflect that I probably feel this way only because I have never had to work with a significant disability.)
Anecdote alert: one of my colleagues left teaching just this half term. She has worked with me for 8 years whilst having rheumatoid arthritis. She takes a day or two off every six weeks to have blood infusions, without which she cannot move her joints. She worked all through COVID teaching full time remotely despite having to
shield. For context, she meets a group of six or seven other people with RA each time she has an infusion and none of them work at all, let alone full time in a school - she is a machine.
But she has finally quit largely because as the school takes on more sixth form students to try to keep itself afloat, she no longer has her own classroom and has to move around the school more, meaning that her joints flared up too much between infusions.
Part of the answer to this problem is to try to ensure employers can better accommodate individuals with disabilities. Telling this person she should now move house and live with family/friends would be deeply offensive and wrong headed on an individual level. Not to say that's the wrong policy because of an anecdote, but it's worth hearing the edge cases on the other side of the coin.
Also, that indicates they are receiving the LCWRA element of UC, and if they are indeed getting Housing Benefit (and not the housing element of UC) will be in supported housing of some sort.
So someone who probably counts as "disabled" and unable to work.
Indeed it gave them capital at a critical time in the development of the Industrial Revolution, putting the former owners in the driving seat.
OR THE WORLD???
Because if Harris wins he'll sue 'er.
It’s extraordinary how de-sensitized western media has become . The IDF tell people to move to safe zones then slaughter them in that alleged safe zone .
The banning of UNRWA essentially means the west will be looking on as thousands starve to death .
Does anyone care anymore ?
Could an adjustment not have been made? Was one not even attempted?
Jenrick is clearly suggesting that there is calculation to be made and he thinks it is in our favour. That is a far weaker position which would unravel with scrutiny.
It will get worse before it gets better on this one.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/29/petition-elite-london-gym-spider-man-tom-holland-trained
The East London Gymnastic Centre was built with lottery funding in 1997 to provide affordable coaching in a deprived part of the capital.
The charity that leases the building has been told it must be out by Christmas after it was sold to a housing developer in a deal reportedly worth more than £2m.
The East London School of Gymnastics, Movement and Dance signed a 14-year lease on the venue in 2020 and says the freeholder, East London Gymnastics Centre, sold the building to Linea Homes during lockdown.
Why is a public asset, still being used for its original purpose, sold off? Who are the "East London Gymnastics Centre" who had ownership of the building, and why did they sell it off to developers?
Only a handful of radicals like William Corbett or Thaddeus Stevens thought that masters should compensate slaves.
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/10/28/2024-elections-live-coverage-updates-analysis/trump-not-nazi-atlanta-rally-00185967
It doesn't help that we have a lot of NQTs this year and understandably HoDs have been more reluctant to boot them out of consistent, full-sized, fully functioning rooms in favour of the crap ones us experienced teachers use.
All the same, I agree it's a very poor bargain, especially as she was a brilliant maths teacher who the kids loved to bits.
Spending on this is expected to rise to over £30bn a year by 2027/28, and we can't afford it. Almost all of us will suffer from health issues or disabilities at some point in our lives. What many of us object to is that the State should pay such people to live a more comfortable lifestyle than those working for a living and struggling to make ends meet.
I'd far rather this money was invested in defence, education and industrial strategy and lowering the tax burden on working people.
Everyone should do some form of work. And almost everyone can do some form of work.
It's why we're here.
I doubt there's anything sincere about him.
Also the IDF know that the Dems can’t say too much now because of the election .
If Harris wins then I expect things to change . It was also clear for the last few months that there was never a chance of a ceasefire because Netenyahu didn’t want to give a boost to the Harris campaign . He’s hoping for a Trump win .
This makes the decision by some Arab Americans to support Trump utter lunacy .
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-benefits-sickness-work-liz-kendall-b2584903.html
Two comments back, though:
1. "more comfortable lifestyle" I doubt it. Money isn't everything, I bet her lifestyle is empty, dull and depressing.
2. I think you are somewhat hoisted by your own petard. If we shouldn't make policy on the basis of my anecdote (I agree), then we also shouldn't make policy based on AndyJS's.
No one believes them anyway, as they are notorious liars.
And in any event, no speaker at the event saw fit to disavow it.
Anecdotally, it's cutting through.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/28/trump-rally-puerto-rico-pennsylvania-fallout-00185935
... “If we weren’t engaged before, we’re all paying attention now,” Martinez said. He added the morning radio show he hosts was chock-full of callers Monday sounding off on the Trump rally comments, including a Puerto Rican Trump supporter who is now telling people not to vote for the former president...
And after a day consider a more thoughtful response, this is what Vance came up
.. “Our country was built by frontiersmen who conquered the wilderness,” Vance said. “We’re not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing. Let’s have a sense of humor and let’s have a little fun.”.
So I think it's fair to say they're good with the racist jokes. It is what they are.
Main question is whether it's measured in weeks or months.
What next reparation for the crusades.
Which ties in with compensating slave owners. Justice would demand that they be asset-stripped. Realpolitik makes that impossible.
But you delivered Brexit.
Which is now barely more popular than Keir Starmer.
Problem is it was time limited to January 2025 and then the budget was spent elsewhere so as with everything else it was a trap that Labour didn't pay attention to and catch...
I became a paraplegic at 19 and was lucky enough to forge a career in IT and finance. But that was because, if I say so myself, I am reasonably bright and good at managing people and projects. Most manual jobs would be unsuitable for me - I am not going to forge a career on a building site. So if I was below average intellect, I would have struggled to find work.
Now I'm retired the issue with a lot of people I see at Citizens Advice, particularly those with mental problems, is that they are unemployable. I would not employ them, nor would you.
After a while, it always bites you on the behind. Always.
It was, I think, a good idea, and should also aid several of the government's objectives. But having said that, have there been any reports into the policy's effects? It's been going on for long enough.
PS. Can't decide which one lacks most class.
He's just a would be fascist.
I'm not sure how you fix it however without building a few million homes down south...
Worse most temporary classrooms are already in use due to the RAACs issue..
The problem there is that I definitely know the other options won't do any better...
That doesn't excuse the "Starmer isn't good at politics" thing. The obvious spin here is "The Tories planned to stop this scheme just after Christmas and have fares go back to their old levels. Five pounds, ten pounds, you name it. There isn't the money to keep the old cap, but we have found some to keep the cap at three pounds next year."
Won't stop the permanently outraged, but better than nothing.
And a choice between "bad at comms" and "bad and dishonest at government"... Sorry, but that's no choice at all.
They have limits, you know.
When would be despots are making the jokes, it pays to take them a bit more seriously.
Can you imagine how many seats they would have been down to if they had overseen Covid, Brexit and presumably the defeat of Ukraine? Along with the munching of pensions caused by Corbyn's open-ended spending commitments?
I mean, never mind taxis, we'd have been talking about the PLP sending for a cargo bike.
On R4 Today this morning briefly I think I heard that of a proposed £4-5bn extra that the NHS is either getting or wants, £3bn is going on wage increases. That doesn't sound like "investment" to me.
I guess they owe a debt in the same sense prisoners wrongly convicted owe a debt for their board and lodgings.
Does Lab not want to deport illegal immigrants. Do any countries not want to.
But what I think gets lost in the wailing and knashing of teeth on this is Foxy's astute point about compensation for ending slavery - it gave slave owners capital just as capital began to create a self-reinforcing cycle of wealth that we still benefit from today.
Just as decimating the cotton production in India in favour of that in UK created an imbalance that we still benefit from today.
So guilt about slavery? Hell no. But a recognition that we shouldn't have a massively more comfortable life than a rural Indian by accident of being born into a country that undertook some fairly horrendous policies in that past? That's more worthy of interrogation in my view.
The problem is there are too many in Labour and on the left who think it is literally as easy as "wealth tax now".
Edit: and by societal attitude I mean the broad masses, rather than as you note the dissenters.
For start, it assumes no one thought slavery immoral at the time, which is plain wrong.
And any such apology might well be explicitly to demonstrate our values have changed. That doesn't make them immutable
Whether there's any value in an apology is debatable, but Sumption is just blowing smoke.
Although the election is clearly close, I also wonder about how much the media is being taken in by a well orchestrated focus on rather skewed polls and betting markets being influenced by a small number of very large bets.
The news that much of the Trump ground campaign in the key states is being inadequately conducted by paid campaign agents suggests that the Dems may have a significant advantage over Trump in that critical area. The aggressive nature of the MAGA loyalists must certainly be a turn off, especially to younger and more educated voters, especially women. The Democratic ground campaign, by contrast, is laser focussed and well funded.
As such, and even though this prediction may age like milk, I can see a scenario where the MAGA vote falls back and that Kamala Harris ends in the White House by a fairly comfortable margin. Obviously I am praying for this outcome, but this is also my brain talking. A campaign based on moral corruption and lies may, in fact, trip up over its own feet, as we learn that it has been lying to itself as well.
Another tiny crumb of comfort is that the Democratic Leadership is not giving off "Loser" vibes, rather, they appear confused- they genuinely cannot tell what the result will be.
We will all know in a week whether Farage will be licking his lips at being the prospective MAGA gauleiter, or whether the US has rejected the 21st century version of Fascism.
Good Luck, and Good Betting, everyone (but, please God, let it be a Kamala Harris victory).
Remember in 2004 even John Kerry won Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Yet Bush won the national popular vote that year 50% to 48% for Kerry
Yes I still think it was a silly idea to hire an offensive roast comic for a political rally.
https://abcnews.go.com/538/2024-fewer-polls-higher-quality/story?id=115157919
Sumption always seems to be one of those terribly clever people who always comes up with the wrong answer.