Were the vote shares for Kemi vs Bobby J released?
Totting it up I think I am down about £30 on the Tory leadership race.
131,680 eligible electors. Turnout was 72.8%.
Kemi Badenoch received 53,806 votes
Robert Jenrick received 41,388 votes
There were 655 rejected ballots.
66,288 electors voted online and 29,621 electors voted by post.
That last stat is worrying enough by itself. 1/3rd of members so out of touch they can't use the internet OR alternatively so fiscally imprudent they'd pay for a stamp unnecessarily.
Were the vote shares for Kemi vs Bobby J released?
Totting it up I think I am down about £30 on the Tory leadership race.
131,680 eligible electors. Turnout was 72.8%.
Kemi Badenoch received 53,806 votes
Robert Jenrick received 41,388 votes
There were 655 rejected ballots.
66,288 electors voted online and 29,621 electors voted by post.
That last stat is worrying enough by itself. 1/3rd of members so out of touch they can't use the internet OR alternatively so fiscally imprudent they'd pay for a stamp unnecessarily.
Quite a few people have an association in their minds between paper ballots and "proper voting"
Given the comedies we will shortly see in the US over machine voting, I rather agree with it.
And I've been in IT since Noah needed to tabulate boarding....
A result that seems to have united PB as being the right result.
If only because the one person worse than Bad Enoch is Paint over Mickey Mouse Jenrick.
It will be interesting to see what the key message is that she tries to communicate to the public.
The problem as Sunak found is that without Brexit there is little to unite the 2019 coalition.
Going after Reform voters will not work in my view.
Hence why I said she needs to re-orient the party towards “working people” under the age of 60. There are votes to be won there.
Going after the grey vote is understandably tempting, it votes more after all, and can really punish you if they take against you. But you do need to make inroads lower down if you are to have a longterm chance. Isn't that what the Canadian Tory leader has done?
That's advice for left and right btw, so I hope it is acceptable.
As best I can work out the Canadian guy has gone after housing.
Badenoch would be wise to do the same.
The three largest issues facing the country are housing, housing, and planning.
The issue Badenoch will face on housing is her party being utterly opposed to doing anything about planning.
So there is a wide open goal for Starmer here but if he misses then Badenoch has her opening.
Gove had good ideas but was shut down by the NIMBYs in the party, who mostly lost to the Lib Dems anyway.
Time to do the right thing, there’s more than four years until the next election.
Gove also helped draft the worst piece of property relayed legislation ever written so said my solicitor friend.
But overall I rate Gove as a skilled operator.
The best the Tories had were Gauke and Stewart. Both gone.
The last Conservative politicians who impressed me were Steve Baker and (don't laugh) JRM, who both exhibited the capacity to analyse and act necessary for politics. That's not to say I agreed with them, it is to say that I could follow their arguments and found them to be relevant. Kemi isn't stupid - she has a computer science degree - but I think she's more gut than head.
she did bugger all as a minster, more interested in promoting culture war shite
Promoting culture war? Isn’t that a bit like accusing Ukraine of promoting a war against Putin when they realized he’s marching half way to their capital and they need to start mobilizing the troops?
No.
Well it is. We had a culture we were broadly happy with in the noughties. And then certain elements of the left came along and contested it quite furiously. You either give in and get a crap new culture or you tell them they're talking shit and get called a culture warrior.
Yebbut, when you say 'we', who do you mean?
I would be interested to find out whether the number of people who feel the new culture is crap are more numerous than those who feel the culture now has more space for them that that of the noughties.
Were the vote shares for Kemi vs Bobby J released?
Totting it up I think I am down about £30 on the Tory leadership race.
131,680 eligible electors. Turnout was 72.8%.
Kemi Badenoch received 53,806 votes
Robert Jenrick received 41,388 votes
There were 655 rejected ballots.
66,288 electors voted online and 29,621 electors voted by post.
That last stat is worrying enough by itself. 1/3rd of members so out of touch they can't use the internet OR alternatively so fiscally imprudent they'd pay for a stamp unnecessarily.
Quite a few people have an association in their minds between paper ballots and "proper voting"
Given the comedies we will shortly see in the US over machine voting, I rather agree with it.
And I've been in IT since Noah needed to tabulate boarding....
Postal vote though. You gonna trust Royal Mail?
Voting machines V pencil and paper in a poll booth is a different kettle of fish (and yes I'm looking forward to the comedies too).
Were the vote shares for Kemi vs Bobby J released?
Totting it up I think I am down about £30 on the Tory leadership race.
131,680 eligible electors. Turnout was 72.8%.
Kemi Badenoch received 53,806 votes
Robert Jenrick received 41,388 votes
There were 655 rejected ballots.
66,288 electors voted online and 29,621 electors voted by post.
That last stat is worrying enough by itself. 1/3rd of members so out of touch they can't use the internet OR alternatively so fiscally imprudent they'd pay for a stamp unnecessarily.
Quite a few people have an association in their minds between paper ballots and "proper voting"
Given the comedies we will shortly see in the US over machine voting, I rather agree with it.
And I've been in IT since Noah needed to tabulate boarding....
Postal vote though. You gonna trust Royal Mail?
Voting machines V pencil and paper in a poll booth is a different kettle of fish (and yes I'm looking forward to the comedies too).
Royal Mail isn't bad.
Mind you it has fallen a long way from when it was obvious that to get the Cullinan Diamond to the UK -
1) Send the dummy in a guarded safe. 2) Post the real thing. Second class.
Were the vote shares for Kemi vs Bobby J released?
Totting it up I think I am down about £30 on the Tory leadership race.
131,680 eligible electors. Turnout was 72.8%.
Kemi Badenoch received 53,806 votes
Robert Jenrick received 41,388 votes
There were 655 rejected ballots.
66,288 electors voted online and 29,621 electors voted by post.
That last stat is worrying enough by itself. 1/3rd of members so out of touch they can't use the internet OR alternatively so fiscally imprudent they'd pay for a stamp unnecessarily.
Quite a few people have an association in their minds between paper ballots and "proper voting"
Given the comedies we will shortly see in the US over machine voting, I rather agree with it.
And I've been in IT since Noah needed to tabulate boarding....
Discussions with Americans that the rest of the world uses paper ballots, human counters, and has the result final overnight, are somewhat enlightening.
But maybe the MPs got it wrong in dumping Cleverly.
I am no Tory but FWIW I'm pleased Kemi has won. Not sure she is up to being PM but I sense she has ideas and integrity that will make effective opposition (or at least more effective than Bobby J). I hope she can broaden out from so-called 'culture war' stuff and find other genuine conservative ideas relevant to 2024 to champion.
They got it right in 2019 electing Boris over Hunt, IMO. Boris was the only one who could break the Brexit logjam and enable us all to move on...
The price of course was ultimately catastrophic for the Tory Party itself, but the Brexit merry-go-round had gone on too long during that terrible 2017 to 2019 Parliament and it needed to be resolved.
Granted they got the 2022 leadership election wrong though. Both Truss and Sunak were poor candidates but yes, voting Loopy Liz over Rishi was a terrible decision.
We'll see if things change now that the leadership contest is over, but the first four months of the Tories in opposition has seen little sign of a pincer movement from Reform and Lib Dems on the Tories.
It's the main point of interest in next year's local elections, but the early signs are that the public are cultivating an impressive capacity for forgiveness and forgetfulness in relation to the Tories.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
The alternative universes populated by failed leadership candidates is a very alien country. To think we will never know how PM Rebecca Long-Bailey might have fared against LoO Robert Jenrick.
Potentially as interesting as the clash between Bryan Gould and Douglas Hurd in the 90s or Owen Smith versus Andrea Leadsom in the 2010s.
Completely off topic but proud of my daughter, 10, who had her first ever "big chop" today and donated her hair to the Little Princess Trust.
I hadn't heard of this charity until a few months ago when we started planning this, but the Little Princess Trust does real hair wigs, for free, for children and young people who have lost their hair due to undergoing cancer treatments or other medical issues.
Our daughter has always had long hair, her favourite princess when she was little was Rapunzel, but today she got her hair cut short for the first time into a bob and she donated over 16 inches, over 40cm, of hair to the charity as well as doing some really good fundraising for it too.
I think this is a fantastic charity and a great thing she's done. I thought it might be nice to mention it here to help raise awareness in case in the future any other kids or grandkids of people here want to do something similar.
Completely off topic but proud of my daughter, 10, who had her first ever "big chop" today and donated her hair to the Little Princess Trust.
I hadn't heard of this charity until a few months ago when we started planning this, but the Little Princess Trust does real hair wigs, for free, for children and young people who have lost their hair due to undergoing cancer treatments or other medical issues.
Our daughter has always had long hair, her favourite princess when she was little was Rapunzel, but today she got her hair cut short for the first time into a bob and she donated over 16 inches, over 40cm, of hair to the charity as well as doing some really good fundraising for it too.
I think this is a fantastic charity and a great thing she's done. I thought it might be nice to mention it here to help raise awareness in case in the future any other kids or grandkids of people here want to do something similar.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
If she is serious on that front and manages to come up with some serious policies to cut back bureaucracy, like cutting back planning paperwork and regulations etc, then that would be great.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
If she is serious on that front and manages to come up with some serious policies to cut back bureaucracy, like cutting back planning paperwork and regulations etc, then that would be great.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
It’s not so much ideological capture and more about process capture.
The belief that if we have enough rules, enough quangos run by the Right Type Of People, furrowing their brows over enough metric tons of paper… that all that tricky nonsense out there in reality will fall in line. And the Universe will behave.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
blaming a 'bureaucratic class' for all ills doesn't seem too far a leap from populist rabble-rousing and her remarks on maternity pay doesn't exactly fill me with enthusiasm that she's another more than throwback to Victorian attitudes. What exactly did she do as a Minister to reduce this bureaucracy she bewails? Nothing.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
If she is serious on that front and manages to come up with some serious policies to cut back bureaucracy, like cutting back planning paperwork and regulations etc, then that would be great.
But I won't hold my breath.
So you're sticking with Labour for now?
No, there's no election on now and I'm not attached to any party.
Besides Labour jacking up National Insurance is something I vehemently oppose.
I lent my vote to Labour at the last election as the only party who came close to suggesting serious planning reform but they've not done any whatsoever yet so they absolutely do not deserve to get it again until they follow through.
I am politically homeless still, but still consider myself right of centre, simply someone on the right who thinks deregulation is the solution and regrettably no political party currently meets that.
Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch It is an honour and a privilege to have been elected to lead our great Conservative Party. A party that I love, that has given me so much.
I’d also like to pay tribute to @RobertJenrick who fought a great campaign. I have no doubt he will have a key role to play in our party for many years to come.
Thank you to all the members who have put their faith in me.
Completely off topic but proud of my daughter, 10, who had her first ever "big chop" today and donated her hair to the Little Princess Trust.
I hadn't heard of this charity until a few months ago when we started planning this, but the Little Princess Trust does real hair wigs, for free, for children and young people who have lost their hair due to undergoing cancer treatments or other medical issues.
Our daughter has always had long hair, her favourite princess when she was little was Rapunzel, but today she got her hair cut short for the first time into a bob and she donated over 16 inches, over 40cm, of hair to the charity as well as doing some really good fundraising for it too.
I think this is a fantastic charity and a great thing she's done. I thought it might be nice to mention it here to help raise awareness in case in the future any other kids or grandkids of people here want to do something similar.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
Completely off topic but proud of my daughter, 10, who had her first ever "big chop" today and donated her hair to the Little Princess Trust.
I hadn't heard of this charity until a few months ago when we started planning this, but the Little Princess Trust does real hair wigs, for free, for children and young people who have lost their hair due to undergoing cancer treatments or other medical issues.
Our daughter has always had long hair, her favourite princess when she was little was Rapunzel, but today she got her hair cut short for the first time into a bob and she donated over 16 inches, over 40cm, of hair to the charity as well as doing some really good fundraising for it too.
I think this is a fantastic charity and a great thing she's done. I thought it might be nice to mention it here to help raise awareness in case in the future any other kids or grandkids of people here want to do something similar.
PM me if she has a personal link, I’ll give her a donation.
I appreciate the very kind offer, and she has got a Just Giving page but as it's got her photos on it we are only sharing it with people she knows in real life.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
There is stuff to agree with in that but more straw men than you'd see in a scarecrow factory. Some of the stuff in it seems quite odd, eg attacking people for being motivated at work by things other than money (I seem to remember somebody once said something about the love of money and the root of all evil, I'm sure the chap's name will come back to me).
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
The last bonfire of red tape gave us Grenfell. And many parts of government, rather than proliferating in the last few years, have been eviscerated. Local government, for instance.
So, the fourth female leader for the Tories and the second in a row from an ethnic minority. They are really taking the piss out of male, pale and stale Labour, aren't they?
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
It’s not so much ideological capture and more about process capture.
The belief that if we have enough rules, enough quangos run by the Right Type Of People, furrowing their brows over enough metric tons of paper… that all that tricky nonsense out there in reality will fall in line. And the Universe will behave.
The longer PDF makes the argument that the 'process problem' is a political problem, because the process is driven by an ideological orthodoxy that says more bureaucracy is always better. To quote:" The idea that we can hive off ideology and principles from managerial economics is false. They are all intertwined."
Now, that's a view that people are welcome to agree or disagree with, but it's a long way off the toxic culture wars "trans illegal aliens are getting sex changes in our prisons" nonsense that's playing out in the US at the moment.
I like a small state, less bureaucracy, more liberalism and personal freedom. Reframing the left as the intolerant ones is interesting to me. My views aren't wholly incompatible with what is written in the link(s) above, so I'm going to be cautiously optimistic about Kemi, until she demonstrates otherwise.
So, the fourth female leader for the Tories and the second in a row from an ethnic minority. They are really taking the piss out of male, pale and stale Labour, aren't they?
You're not comparing like with like. The Tories are the party of the rich, so obviously they will be more cosmopolitan. You can't hold a party of the working class to the same standards.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
The last bonfire of red tape gave us Grenfell. And many parts of government, rather than proliferating in the last few years, have been eviscerated. Local government, for instance.
Every one of those regulations signposts something bad in the past. Argue that they cause more harm than good, or that the aims could be achieved better, but you have to understand why they are there first. Chesterton's Fence and all that.
Besides, KB has just finished a stint as Business Sec. What deregulation did she achieve in that time?
Completely off topic but proud of my daughter, 10, who had her first ever "big chop" today and donated her hair to the Little Princess Trust.
I hadn't heard of this charity until a few months ago when we started planning this, but the Little Princess Trust does real hair wigs, for free, for children and young people who have lost their hair due to undergoing cancer treatments or other medical issues.
Our daughter has always had long hair, her favourite princess when she was little was Rapunzel, but today she got her hair cut short for the first time into a bob and she donated over 16 inches, over 40cm, of hair to the charity as well as doing some really good fundraising for it too.
I think this is a fantastic charity and a great thing she's done. I thought it might be nice to mention it here to help raise awareness in case in the future any other kids or grandkids of people here want to do something similar.
PM me if she has a personal link, I’ll give her a donation.
I appreciate the very kind offer, and she has got a Just Giving page but as it's got her photos on it we are only sharing it with people she knows in real life.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
What is needed is an understanding of what the process is actually for. And that excessive process is *harmful* - just like “security theatre”, you end up with people avoiding doing the checks etc to Get Things Done.
So you need a continual evolution of the process, with emphasis on ergonomics, function and simplicity. It should be quick, simple and easy To Do The Right Thing.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
It’s not so much ideological capture and more about process capture.
The belief that if we have enough rules, enough quangos run by the Right Type Of People, furrowing their brows over enough metric tons of paper… that all that tricky nonsense out there in reality will fall in line. And the Universe will behave.
The longer PDF makes the argument that the 'process problem' is a political problem, because the process is driven by an ideological orthodoxy that says more bureaucracy is always better. To quote:" The idea that we can hive off ideology and principles from managerial economics is false. They are all intertwined."
Now, that's a view that people are welcome to agree or disagree with, but it's a long way off the toxic culture wars "trans illegal aliens are getting sex changes in our prisons" nonsense that's playing out in the US at the moment.
I like a small state, less bureaucracy, more liberalism and personal freedom. Reframing the left as the intolerant ones is interesting to me. My views aren't wholly incompatible with what is written in the link(s) above, so I'm going to be cautiously optimistic about Kemi, until she demonstrates otherwise.
Where does she stand on the drugs laws? Or is that the wrong kind of personal freedom?
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
It’s not so much ideological capture and more about process capture.
The belief that if we have enough rules, enough quangos run by the Right Type Of People, furrowing their brows over enough metric tons of paper… that all that tricky nonsense out there in reality will fall in line. And the Universe will behave.
The longer PDF makes the argument that the 'process problem' is a political problem, because the process is driven by an ideological orthodoxy that says more bureaucracy is always better. To quote:" The idea that we can hive off ideology and principles from managerial economics is false. They are all intertwined."
Now, that's a view that people are welcome to agree or disagree with, but it's a long way off the toxic culture wars "trans illegal aliens are getting sex changes in our prisons" nonsense that's playing out in the US at the moment.
I like a small state, less bureaucracy, more liberalism and personal freedom. Reframing the left as the intolerant ones is interesting to me. My views aren't wholly incompatible with what is written in the link(s) above, so I'm going to be cautiously optimistic about Kemi, until she demonstrates otherwise.
The most toxic element in the Process State is the belief that morality, ethics, accountability etc can be replaced with a sufficiently complex process.
The Post Office enquiry presented us with a large number of upright apes of this form.
A test - suggest that an official needs “discretion” in the exercise of their duties. Do the people you are talking to react as if a tarantula the size of Border Terrier has strolled into the room?
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
What is needed is an understanding of what the process is actually for. And that excessive process is *harmful* - just like “security theatre”, you end up with people avoiding doing the checks etc to Get Things Done.
So you need a continual evolution of the process, with emphasis on ergonomics, function and simplicity. It should be quick, simple and easy To Do The Right Thing.
Yes okay, I buy that eg one of the most effective systems we have in school is that for reporting anything relating to child protection. It is, as you suggest, quick, simple and easy.
But it's also expensive.
More broadly, I'm not sure 'evolution of process' is what Badenoch is proposing in the link, but rather a bonfire of process.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
I think it's more the oft cited example of the Lower Thames Crossing being up to £300m in costs just on paperwork (360,000 pages or somesuch), while Norway managed to build the world's longest road tunnel for £140m all in.
To the other people saying "without more paperwork you'll get another grenfell" I agree with Malmesbury's point that there were reams and reams of paperwork certifying the cladding as safe, when in fact it wasn't.
Processes need to be simplified and streamlined. That much I'm sure of. The 'process culture is a direct result of political ideology' is as others have noted more of a straw man, which is why I'll take a cautious, wait and see attitude to what Kemi's Conservatives come up with in opposition.
Labour's first 100 days and dire tax'n'spend, low-growth, anti-business budget has already shown us what the next five years are going to look like.
Watching Hope glide that ball down to a deep 3rd man for one makes me ask once again why is Joe Root not in this team? He is surely our best ODI batsman, bar none.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
It’s not so much ideological capture and more about process capture.
The belief that if we have enough rules, enough quangos run by the Right Type Of People, furrowing their brows over enough metric tons of paper… that all that tricky nonsense out there in reality will fall in line. And the Universe will behave.
The longer PDF makes the argument that the 'process problem' is a political problem, because the process is driven by an ideological orthodoxy that says more bureaucracy is always better. To quote:" The idea that we can hive off ideology and principles from managerial economics is false. They are all intertwined."
Now, that's a view that people are welcome to agree or disagree with, but it's a long way off the toxic culture wars "trans illegal aliens are getting sex changes in our prisons" nonsense that's playing out in the US at the moment.
I like a small state, less bureaucracy, more liberalism and personal freedom. Reframing the left as the intolerant ones is interesting to me. My views aren't wholly incompatible with what is written in the link(s) above, so I'm going to be cautiously optimistic about Kemi, until she demonstrates otherwise.
The 'bureaucracy/process state' will die by itself because it doesn't work. It is like the end of the soviet union. Planning is a good example. Hardly any buildings will get built because the amount of process involved has destroyed the structure. The absurdity of it is such that vast human resource (ie equivalent to tens of thousands of pounds) are devoted to discussing a bollard or a 1 metre patch of grass.
With legendary modesty, my prediction of 55/45 to Badenoch was pretty good. Maybe it's time to turn attention to doing a US election spreadsheet, which I've been too lazy to start so far.
Apparently a pro-Russian hacking group took down several council websites this week, including Bradford, Eastleigh, Keighley, Salford, Tameside, and Trafford, followed by Middlesbrough, Medway, and Hastings. Others remained up with issues.
Completely off topic but proud of my daughter, 10, who had her first ever "big chop" today and donated her hair to the Little Princess Trust.
I hadn't heard of this charity until a few months ago when we started planning this, but the Little Princess Trust does real hair wigs, for free, for children and young people who have lost their hair due to undergoing cancer treatments or other medical issues.
Our daughter has always had long hair, her favourite princess when she was little was Rapunzel, but today she got her hair cut short for the first time into a bob and she donated over 16 inches, over 40cm, of hair to the charity as well as doing some really good fundraising for it too.
I think this is a fantastic charity and a great thing she's done. I thought it might be nice to mention it here to help raise awareness in case in the future any other kids or grandkids of people here want to do something similar.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
It’s not so much ideological capture and more about process capture.
The belief that if we have enough rules, enough quangos run by the Right Type Of People, furrowing their brows over enough metric tons of paper… that all that tricky nonsense out there in reality will fall in line. And the Universe will behave.
The longer PDF makes the argument that the 'process problem' is a political problem, because the process is driven by an ideological orthodoxy that says more bureaucracy is always better. To quote:" The idea that we can hive off ideology and principles from managerial economics is false. They are all intertwined."
Now, that's a view that people are welcome to agree or disagree with, but it's a long way off the toxic culture wars "trans illegal aliens are getting sex changes in our prisons" nonsense that's playing out in the US at the moment.
I like a small state, less bureaucracy, more liberalism and personal freedom. Reframing the left as the intolerant ones is interesting to me. My views aren't wholly incompatible with what is written in the link(s) above, so I'm going to be cautiously optimistic about Kemi, until she demonstrates otherwise.
The most toxic element in the Process State is the belief that morality, ethics, accountability etc can be replaced with a sufficiently complex process.
The Post Office enquiry presented us with a large number of upright apes of this form.
A test - suggest that an official needs “discretion” in the exercise of their duties. Do the people you are talking to react as if a tarantula the size of Border Terrier has strolled into the room?
The worry is that Gavin Williamson might be coming in behind it.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
There's some stuff there that Badenoch can work with, albeit somewhat incoherent arguments. Essentially it's a rejection of everything that's happened since Thatcher.
I think the biggest problem is that the small state, high risk society is a million miles away from the Conservatives as they are now. For all the report's condescension towards Starmer, his government is more business-like than they are. I don't think this is actually true:
We are moving from the largely horizontal politics of the 1950s to 1980s, where those at the top in socio-economic terms vote right and those at the bottom vote left, to a vertical politics, where those in the bureaucratic class or supported by it, e.g. those on welfare or newly arrived migrants, vote left, and those in the market dominated classes vote right.
This, from the New Statesman, is a pretty good statement of where we are with the US. Unpromising, even if Kamala wins this time. Worth a read.
In the late 1970s a divided Labour Party and much of the British left (apart from Martin Jacques’ Marxism Today) misunderstood the forces unlocked by the election of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister. Her victory was complacently assumed to be transient, just another Conservative government passing through, and the consensus politics of the postwar order would be restored in due course...
...Something similar could be said of Donald Trump. When he first ran for the presidency as a Republican he was traduced, ridiculed and written off: part orange-faced game-show host, part Mafia Big Man. The American novelist Philip Roth called him the “boastful buffoon”. Trump is boastful and he is a buffoon. But he won in 2016 and may win again next week.
What does he know? What does he understand about the atavistic impulses and insecurities of America and the American people? Why has the Republican Party allowed itself to be captured by Trump and Trumpism? The Maga movement is not a passing phenomenon: like Thatcherism it has hardened into something permanent. It is a counter-hegemonic project. As my colleague Sohrab Ahmari writes in our cover story this week, “The Republicans – once the party of suburban affluence, of free markets and social conservatism – have morphed into a populist vehicle.” There is no turning back.
“No one I know of has foreseen an America like the one we live in today,” Roth said shortly before he died. “No one could have imagined that the 21st-century catastrophe to befall the USA, the most debasing of disasters, would appear not, say, in the terrifying guise of an Orwellian Big Brother but in the ominously ridiculous commedia dell’arte figure of the boastful buffoon.”
But perhaps this outcome could have been imagined. After all, as John Gray has written, the word “populism” has no clear meaning but is “used by liberals to refer to political blowback against the social disruption produced by their own policies”.
The result of the 2024 US presidential election is likely to be decided in Pennsylvania where the polls have Trump and Kamala Harris deadlocked. Trump won the state in 2016 and Biden in 2020. In so many ways, Harris is the ideal candidate for Trump: the West Coast liberal-lawyer with a rictus smile and an undistinguished record as vice-president and an opaque policy platform. She smiles and laughs a lot, but you can see the panic in her eyes. For after Trump comes JD Vance, a true ideologue, and the pro-worker, anti-liberal American New Right.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
It’s not so much ideological capture and more about process capture.
The belief that if we have enough rules, enough quangos run by the Right Type Of People, furrowing their brows over enough metric tons of paper… that all that tricky nonsense out there in reality will fall in line. And the Universe will behave.
The longer PDF makes the argument that the 'process problem' is a political problem, because the process is driven by an ideological orthodoxy that says more bureaucracy is always better. To quote:" The idea that we can hive off ideology and principles from managerial economics is false. They are all intertwined."
Now, that's a view that people are welcome to agree or disagree with, but it's a long way off the toxic culture wars "trans illegal aliens are getting sex changes in our prisons" nonsense that's playing out in the US at the moment.
I like a small state, less bureaucracy, more liberalism and personal freedom. Reframing the left as the intolerant ones is interesting to me. My views aren't wholly incompatible with what is written in the link(s) above, so I'm going to be cautiously optimistic about Kemi, until she demonstrates otherwise.
The most toxic element in the Process State is the belief that morality, ethics, accountability etc can be replaced with a sufficiently complex process.
The Post Office enquiry presented us with a large number of upright apes of this form.
A test - suggest that an official needs “discretion” in the exercise of their duties. Do the people you are talking to react as if a tarantula the size of Border Terrier has strolled into the room?
The worry is that Gavin Williamson might be coming in behind it.
I'm not sure I'd think that. Depends I suppose on how fast it's running to get away from whatever's scared it.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
I think it's more the oft cited example of the Lower Thames Crossing being up to £300m in costs just on paperwork (360,000 pages or somesuch), while Norway managed to build the world's longest road tunnel for £140m all in.
To the other people saying "without more paperwork you'll get another grenfell" I agree with Malmesbury's point that there were reams and reams of paperwork certifying the cladding as safe, when in fact it wasn't.
Processes need to be simplified and streamlined. That much I'm sure of. The 'process culture is a direct result of political ideology' is as others have noted more of a straw man, which is why I'll take a cautious, wait and see attitude to what Kemi's Conservatives come up with in opposition.
Labour's first 100 days and dire tax'n'spend, low-growth, anti-business budget has already shown us what the next five years are going to look like.
I agree, and it shouldn't be beyond the wit of a transport secretary or civil servant to go to Norway to learn how to build a tunnel that doesn't collapse on a sensible budget.
But this isn't ideology - I also agree with you that Badenoch's attempt to make this a political argument rather than a technocratic argument bodes poorly for her ability to come up with effective solutions.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
That’s a false comparison though.
Let’s say you make a 70 page form into a 20 page form (the US takes things to an unhelpful extreme) that’s a serious reduction in time spent by the consumer.
If thoughtfully designed then it shouldnt result in a reduction in safeguarding in your example.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
Re-reading your comment on planning
A friend had an old property that he didn’t need. He got the planning permission to turn it into 2 units and then gave it to a local charity for social housing.
The planning people made the charity redo all the expert reports - at a cost of thousands and a delay of months - because the LibDems on the council insisted that because they were addressed to my friend they were no longer valid and it wasn’t possible to assign the reports to the charity.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
There's some stuff there that Badenoch can work with, albeit somewhat incoherent arguments. Essentially it's a rejection of everything that's happened since Thatcher.
I think the biggest problem is that the small state, high risk society is a million miles away from the Conservatives as they are now. For all the report's condescension towards Starmer, his government is more business-like than they are. I don't think this is actually true:
We are moving from the largely horizontal politics of the 1950s to 1980s, where those at the top in socio-economic terms vote right and those at the bottom vote left, to a vertical politics, where those in the bureaucratic class or supported by it, e.g. those on welfare or newly arrived migrants, vote left, and those in the market dominated classes vote right.
Small state, high risk is also a long way from where I suspect a winning coalition of voters is.
There are those who crave it- mostly the minority who can lose 90% and still rub along nicely, thank you. But even most capitalists happily trade upside for stability.
Which is the problem Buccaneering Brexiteers continue to trip over.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
That’s a false comparison though.
Let’s say you make a 70 page form into a 20 page form (the US takes things to an unhelpful extreme) that’s a serious reduction in time spent by the consumer.
If thoughtfully designed then it shouldnt result in a reduction in safeguarding in your example.
And also turn it into an app/webpage that auto populates so you actually only need fill in the two or three pages of new info that allows the right person to take action (or not).
Agreed, but that's an issue of modernising process, not ideological deregulation. The two need to be separated and from what Badenoch has written I believe she is more interested in the ideological aspects of this.
Yes this gripping piece of analysis amused me too. Especially the fact that 'right' and 'left' are the wrong way round.
You better decide which side you're on This ship goes down before too long If Left is right then Right is Wrong You better decide which side you're on
TRB
Beat me to it! TRB "rising free". It's the record I play when I want to refresh my inner radical. It's so easy to get sucked into centrist daddery, and when I do and it's getting too stultifying I put that on and ... yeah I'm young again and scowling joyfully and punching the air and absolutely livid about the Tories and everything they stand for.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
The last bonfire of red tape gave us Grenfell. And many parts of government, rather than proliferating in the last few years, have been eviscerated. Local government, for instance.
Every one of those regulations signposts something bad in the past. Argue that they cause more harm than good, or that the aims could be achieved better, but you have to understand why they are there first. Chesterton's Fence and all that.
Besides, KB has just finished a stint as Business Sec. What deregulation did she achieve in that time?
These days without support from the PM very little happens in government
Apparently a pro-Russian hacking group took down several council websites this week, including Bradford, Eastleigh, Keighley, Salford, Tameside, and Trafford, followed by Middlesbrough, Medway, and Hastings. Others remained up with issues.
An interesting (and brief) Peter Zeihan account of Russia's intel activity. Basically, having been booted out of much of the west, their spies and saboteurs, are focusing on Africa, Mexico, etc.
Yes this gripping piece of analysis amused me too. Especially the fact that 'right' and 'left' are the wrong way round.
You better decide which side you're on This ship goes down before too long If Left is right then Right is Wrong You better decide which side you're on
TRB
Beat me to it! TRB "rising free". It's the record I play when I want to refresh my inner radical.
It's so easy to get sucked into centrist daddery, and when I do and it's getting too stultifying I put that on and ... yeah I'm young again and scowling joyfully and punching the air and absolutely livid about the Tories and everything they stand for.
I never had the anger etc, too conventional but the man was a real poet with genuine wit and just impossible not to like. My brother played it incessantly which suited me just fine.
If Kyf is around I replied to your post about 'Anora' on the last thread. I'd have brought it across if I'd known how. I'm glad you liked it though. Mikey Madison was terrific. To me its saving grace. I'll watch it again to see if I wasn't being harsh
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
There's some stuff there that Badenoch can work with, albeit somewhat incoherent arguments. Essentially it's a rejection of everything that's happened since Thatcher.
I think the biggest problem is that the small state, high risk society is a million miles away from the Conservatives as they are now. For all the report's condescension towards Starmer, his government is more business-like than they are. I don't think this is actually true:
We are moving from the largely horizontal politics of the 1950s to 1980s, where those at the top in socio-economic terms vote right and those at the bottom vote left, to a vertical politics, where those in the bureaucratic class or supported by it, e.g. those on welfare or newly arrived migrants, vote left, and those in the market dominated classes vote right.
Small state, high risk is also a long way from where I suspect a winning coalition of voters is.
There are those who crave it- mostly the minority who can lose 90% and still rub along nicely, thank you. But even most capitalists happily trade upside for stability.
Which is the problem Buccaneering Brexiteers continue to trip over.
It's also why Thatcherism was never as popular as its disciples think it was, and politics ever since has been a reaction against it.
Having said that, I'm in favour of reducing unnecessary bureaucracy. Deciding what you want to achieve - build better infrastructure, protect vulnerable people etc - then working out how you most effectively achieve that is a better approach in my view than saying, let's fill in more forms, or alternatively abolishing all governance entirely.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
That’s a false comparison though.
Let’s say you make a 70 page form into a 20 page form (the US takes things to an unhelpful extreme) that’s a serious reduction in time spent by the consumer.
If thoughtfully designed then it shouldnt result in a reduction in safeguarding in your example.
And also turn it into an app/webpage that auto populates so you actually only need fill in the two or three pages of new info that allows the right person to take action (or not).
Agreed, but that's an issue of modernising process, not ideological deregulation. The two need to be separated and from what Badenoch has written I believe she is more interested in the ideological aspects of this.
If anything cutting down on pointless forms improves rather than worsens safeguarding.
Having 70 pages of paperwork that nobody ever reads just makes work and worsens safeguarding as it serves no purpose.
Keeping notes short, to the point and succinct vastly improves safeguarding, cuts paperwork and means a better job is done.
Having a solution like CPOMS to log safeguarding concerns on where relevant issues can be recorded and actually dealt with is better than book sized forms nobody will pay any attention to.
If people like you you can propose things they would not accept from others. So if Badenoch can gain some public traction her agenda will automatically become more acceptable.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
If she is serious on that front and manages to come up with some serious policies to cut back bureaucracy, like cutting back planning paperwork and regulations etc, then that would be great.
But I won't hold my breath.
So you're sticking with Labour for now?
No, there's no election on now and I'm not attached to any party.
Besides Labour jacking up National Insurance is something I vehemently oppose.
I lent my vote to Labour at the last election as the only party who came close to suggesting serious planning reform but they've not done any whatsoever yet so they absolutely do not deserve to get it again until they follow through.
I am politically homeless still, but still consider myself right of centre, simply someone on the right who thinks deregulation is the solution and regrettably no political party currently meets that.
If there was an election tomorrow, I'd be voting Tory. This wasn't true at the last election and wouldn't have been true had Jenrick won. So that's a +1 for Kemi straight away. Not that it'll do them the tiniest but of good in WSE, mind, but still. As Bart says, a long way to go yet,mind.
Yes this gripping piece of analysis amused me too. Especially the fact that 'right' and 'left' are the wrong way round.
I didn't notice that, I was too absorbed in the new horizontal division being labelled '20th century' and the old vertical division labelled 21st Century.
Yes this gripping piece of analysis amused me too. Especially the fact that 'right' and 'left' are the wrong way round.
I didn't notice that, I was too absorbed in the new horizontal division being labelled '20th century' and the old vertical division labelled 21st Century.
Good afternoon, everybody.
I think it's labelled correctly. Vertical refers to the up/down division, which is the one on the left labelled "20th century".
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
That’s a false comparison though.
Let’s say you make a 70 page form into a 20 page form (the US takes things to an unhelpful extreme) that’s a serious reduction in time spent by the consumer.
If thoughtfully designed then it shouldnt result in a reduction in safeguarding in your example.
A simple example.
At the bank I work at, they have a legal obligation to monitor behaviour for insider trading. As part of this, the employees have to register all their personal bank accounts with the bank.
The new system remembers all your bank accounts from last year. So all you have to do it click “no change”, if you have nothing to add. The old system required you to type everything in, each time.
More pertinently, how do we pronounce the first syllable of Kemi's surname? Bad or Bade? I presume the latter but I've not heard her name said yet. And when was the last time a party leader had a surname which was included in the name of a constituency? All I have so far is Lord Liverpool, which doesn't really count.
If Kyf is around I replied to your post about 'Anora' on the last thread. I'd have brought it across if I'd known how. I'm glad you liked it though. Mikey Madison was terrific. To me its saving grace. I'll watch it again to see if I wasn't being harsh
Seen, thanks.
I don't want to go into too much detail about a film that's only just hit the cinemas in case it spoils it for other people, but I think your criticism there is a valid one. It *did* tonally shift a great deal in the second act, to the point you might think you were watching a three stooges movie.
I don't know if you've seen Tangerine (Sean Baker's 2015 low budget movie about two black trans sex workers on the streets of LA) but he certainly doesn't shy away from filming the seedier side of life. Whether that's exploitative or not I don't know. You could compare it to, say, Hustlers, a film about the same milieu written and directed by a woman, and argue that Baker's eye is more prurient. But it's hard to make a movie about strippers without, well, strip clubs. Compare it to the sanitised, 'Pretty Woman' Hollywood take. Should we try to sanitise sex work? I felt the gut-punch ending was the point Baker was trying to make. But I can also understand your point of view. Other reviewers have also noted it feels a bit exploitative in places.
I felt Anora was less pornographic than The Substance, where scenes in which women were hyper-sexualised and commodified (obviously, to make a feminist point about the male gaze) left me feeling genuinely uncomfortable.
Perhaps the biggest criticism of Anora is the way she's under-developed as a character and comes off as a bit of a stereotype. As you say, Mikey Madison's performance does a lot of the heavy lifting.
Anyway, that's about as much as I can say without turning this thread into an off topic spoiler fest!
More pertinently, how do we pronounce the first syllable of Kemi's surname? Bad or Bade? I presume the latter but I've not heard her name said yet. And when was the last time a party leader had a surname which was included in the name of a constituency? All I have so far is Lord Liverpool, which doesn't really count.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
That’s a false comparison though.
Let’s say you make a 70 page form into a 20 page form (the US takes things to an unhelpful extreme) that’s a serious reduction in time spent by the consumer.
If thoughtfully designed then it shouldnt result in a reduction in safeguarding in your example.
And also turn it into an app/webpage that auto populates so you actually only need fill in the two or three pages of new info that allows the right person to take action (or not).
Agreed, but that's an issue of modernising process, not ideological deregulation. The two need to be separated and from what Badenoch has written I believe she is more interested in the ideological aspects of this.
As a part of this, comes the mantra “The Best Part is No Part”. Why do you need the report at all?
Which rapidly becomes a battle with the department that collects the reports, collates the reports, reports on the reports.
More pertinently, how do we pronounce the first syllable of Kemi's surname? Bad or Bade? I presume the latter but I've not heard her name said yet. And when was the last time a party leader had a surname which was included in the name of a constituency? All I have so far is Lord Liverpool, which doesn't really count.
More pertinently, how do we pronounce the first syllable of Kemi's surname? Bad or Bade? I presume the latter but I've not heard her name said yet. And when was the last time a party leader had a surname which was included in the name of a constituency? All I have so far is Lord Liverpool, which doesn't really count.
More pertinently, how do we pronounce the first syllable of Kemi's surname? Bad or Bade? I presume the latter but I've not heard her name said yet. And when was the last time a party leader had a surname which was included in the name of a constituency? All I have so far is Lord Liverpool, which doesn't really count.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
That’s a false comparison though.
Let’s say you make a 70 page form into a 20 page form (the US takes things to an unhelpful extreme) that’s a serious reduction in time spent by the consumer.
If thoughtfully designed then it shouldnt result in a reduction in safeguarding in your example.
A simple example.
At the bank I work at, they have a legal obligation to monitor behaviour for insider trading. As part of this, the employees have to register all their personal bank accounts with the bank.
The new system remembers all your bank accounts from last year. So all you have to do it click “no change”, if you have nothing to add. The old system required you to type everything in, each time.
The bank kindly looking after my money has revamped the page for transferring funds between accounts, so now I have to specify where I am transferring to, as well as from. I only have two accounts! Until a few months back, the old system correctly defaulted to the other one.
Congratulations to (not Nigerian born) Kemi Badenoch and to the Tory members for choosing the better of the two unpalatable offerings available. I also have some doubts about her being leader at the time of the next GE, but I'm sure she'll give it a good shot. Can she turn her focus away from owning the libz and onto the kind of issues that normal people care about? I suspect not but let's see.
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
Thanks for the link, an interesting read although I was slightly triggered by the capitalisation of Malaise.
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
Re-reading your comment on planning
A friend had an old property that he didn’t need. He got the planning permission to turn it into 2 units and then gave it to a local charity for social housing.
The planning people made the charity redo all the expert reports - at a cost of thousands and a delay of months - because the LibDems on the council insisted that because they were addressed to my friend they were no longer valid and it wasn’t possible to assign the reports to the charity.
Is there a name for this council that actually allows councillors to get that close to the details?
Comments
Kemi Badenoch received 53,806 votes
Robert Jenrick received 41,388 votes
There were 655 rejected ballots.
66,288 electors voted online and 29,621 electors voted by post.
That last stat is worrying enough by itself. 1/3rd of members so out of touch they can't use the internet OR alternatively so fiscally imprudent they'd pay for a stamp unnecessarily.
Given the comedies we will shortly see in the US over machine voting, I rather agree with it.
And I've been in IT since Noah needed to tabulate boarding....
Voting machines V pencil and paper in a poll booth is a different kettle of fish (and yes I'm looking forward to the comedies too).
1) Talking heads
2) Councillors
3) MPs, MSPs etc
4) Cabinet members
@BorisJohnson
Congratulations to Kemi on her outstanding victory
She brings a much needed zing and zap to the Conservative Party
This sleaze-ridden Labour government has no ideas or agenda beyond the old tax and spend socialism
They are far more vulnerable than the parliamentary maths might suggest
Kemi has exactly the right courage and clarity to expose Starmer’s failings
She is now ideally placed to flip them over and take the Tories to victory at the next election
I will be giving her my full support and call on all Conservatives to do the same
Mind you it has fallen a long way from when it was obvious that to get the Cullinan Diamond to the UK -
1) Send the dummy in a guarded safe.
2) Post the real thing. Second class.
I am no Tory but FWIW I'm pleased Kemi has won. Not sure she is up to being PM but I sense she has ideas and integrity that will make effective opposition (or at least more effective than Bobby J). I hope she can broaden out from so-called 'culture war' stuff and find other genuine conservative ideas relevant to 2024 to champion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemi_Badenoch
The price of course was ultimately catastrophic for the Tory Party itself, but the Brexit merry-go-round had gone on too long during that terrible 2017 to 2019 Parliament and it needed to be resolved.
Granted they got the 2022 leadership election wrong though. Both Truss and Sunak were poor candidates but yes, voting Loopy Liz over Rishi was a terrible decision.
It's the main point of interest in next year's local elections, but the early signs are that the public are cultivating an impressive capacity for forgiveness and forgetfulness in relation to the Tories.
The alternative universes populated by failed leadership candidates is a very alien country. To think we will never know how PM Rebecca Long-Bailey might have fared against LoO Robert Jenrick.
Potentially as interesting as the clash between Bryan Gould and Douglas Hurd in the 90s or Owen Smith versus Andrea Leadsom in the 2010s.
Yes indeed, who?
No it isn't. It's completely irrelevant.
If she has the right personality and above all the right policies it was the right choice. If not, not.
Her race and gender are totally unimportant.
I hadn't heard of this charity until a few months ago when we started planning this, but the Little Princess Trust does real hair wigs, for free, for children and young people who have lost their hair due to undergoing cancer treatments or other medical issues.
Our daughter has always had long hair, her favourite princess when she was little was Rapunzel, but today she got her hair cut short for the first time into a bob and she donated over 16 inches, over 40cm, of hair to the charity as well as doing some really good fundraising for it too.
I think this is a fantastic charity and a great thing she's done. I thought it might be nice to mention it here to help raise awareness in case in the future any other kids or grandkids of people here want to do something similar.
https://www.littleprincesses.org.uk/
https://conservativehome.com/2024/09/30/kemi-badenoch-conservatism-is-in-crisis-and-we-need-to-be-serious-about-getting-it-back-on-track/
and the more detailed
https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/66e290977b0f17041797e6ae/66fb3a4aa6d5bf17f7481ed1_Conservatism in Crisis.pdf
from which the first link is taken, are essential reading on what kind of direction Kemi's Conservatives might take.
I'm an incredibly socially liberal, libertarian type, and still manage to find much to agree with in the above writings.
Rather than being part of the "PC gone mad" "common sense" anti-woke stuff Reform push, it's a much more comprehensive argument that society has become less liberal and tolerant as a result of ideological capture by left leaning bureaucracy - call it the blob, the nu10k, whatever. And that its view is more bureaucracy, more government, is always the solution, and that needs to be challenged.
Her argument seems to be more that the "bureaucratic class" is an assault on capitalism, rather than "woke ideology is destroying our children".
Cautiously optimistic that Kemi will surprise to the upside. With Starmer and Reeves pushing tax and spend, low growth, big government, on us all, we will need an effective opposition to challenge an ever encroaching state.
But I won't hold my breath.
The belief that if we have enough rules, enough quangos run by the Right Type Of People, furrowing their brows over enough metric tons of paper… that all that tricky nonsense out there in reality will fall in line. And the Universe will behave.
Besides Labour jacking up National Insurance is something I vehemently oppose.
I lent my vote to Labour at the last election as the only party who came close to suggesting serious planning reform but they've not done any whatsoever yet so they absolutely do not deserve to get it again until they follow through.
I am politically homeless still, but still consider myself right of centre, simply someone on the right who thinks deregulation is the solution and regrettably no political party currently meets that.
@KemiBadenoch
It is an honour and a privilege to have been elected to lead our great Conservative Party. A party that I love, that has given me so much.
I’d also like to pay tribute to
@RobertJenrick
who fought a great campaign. I have no doubt he will have a key role to play in our party for many years to come.
Thank you to all the members who have put their faith in me.
It is time to get down to business.
It is time to renew.
Will check in this evening to see if we've had some post-budget polls. Have a good afternoon PB 👍
Thing is, I think this is superficially very appealing (and I say that as a fairly hard leftist). But my only experience of the reality of this is in teaching, where one of the main sources of bureaucracy comes in through trying to prevent kids being abused, either at home or in school. Whilst the form-filling is time consuming and creates unproductive roles for administrators, I still think that is a better world than one in which child molesters are allowed to be with kids unsupervised.
To rephrase, how to do you remove the bureaucracy whilst keeping protections in place? Or do you accept less protection eg more kids being abused? Or is there another solution?
I realise I've just picked one aspect of bureaucracy, but there is also a wider question - which bits of paperwork for eg planning are the important ones? That's quite a hard, value-laden question to answer (not to say it shouldn't be asked, though).
If anyone would like to make a donation, please feel free to donate directly to the charity: https://www.littleprincesses.org.uk/donate-money
lol
Now, that's a view that people are welcome to agree or disagree with, but it's a long way off the toxic culture wars "trans illegal aliens are getting sex changes in our prisons" nonsense that's playing out in the US at the moment.
I like a small state, less bureaucracy, more liberalism and personal freedom. Reframing the left as the intolerant ones is interesting to me. My views aren't wholly incompatible with what is written in the link(s) above, so I'm going to be cautiously optimistic about Kemi, until she demonstrates otherwise.
Besides, KB has just finished a stint as Business Sec. What deregulation did she achieve in that time?
This ship goes down before too long
If Left is right then Right is Wrong
You better decide which side you're on
TRB
So you need a continual evolution of the process, with emphasis on ergonomics, function and simplicity. It should be quick, simple and easy To Do The Right Thing.
The Post Office enquiry presented us with a large number of upright apes of this form.
A test - suggest that an official needs “discretion” in the exercise of their duties. Do the people you are talking to react as if a tarantula the size of Border Terrier has strolled into the room?
But it's also expensive.
More broadly, I'm not sure 'evolution of process' is what Badenoch is proposing in the link, but rather a bonfire of process.
To the other people saying "without more paperwork you'll get another grenfell" I agree with Malmesbury's point that there were reams and reams of paperwork certifying the cladding as safe, when in fact it wasn't.
Processes need to be simplified and streamlined. That much I'm sure of. The 'process culture is a direct result of political ideology' is as others have noted more of a straw man, which is why I'll take a cautious, wait and see attitude to what Kemi's Conservatives come up with in opposition.
Labour's first 100 days and dire tax'n'spend, low-growth, anti-business budget has already shown us what the next five years are going to look like.
Oh, and Tottenham Hotspur FC for some reason.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/01/uk_councils_russia_ddos/
It's not even true, either.
I think the biggest problem is that the small state, high risk society is a million miles away from the Conservatives as they are now. For all the report's condescension towards Starmer, his government is more business-like than they are. I don't think this is actually true:
We are moving from the largely horizontal politics of the 1950s to 1980s, where those at the top in socio-economic terms vote right and those at the bottom vote left, to a vertical politics, where those in the bureaucratic class or supported by it, e.g. those on welfare or newly arrived migrants, vote left, and those in the market dominated classes vote right.
In the late 1970s a divided Labour Party and much of the British left (apart from Martin Jacques’ Marxism Today) misunderstood the forces unlocked by the election of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister. Her victory was complacently assumed to be transient, just another Conservative government passing through, and the consensus politics of the postwar order would be restored in due course...
...Something similar could be said of Donald Trump. When he first ran for the presidency as a Republican he was traduced, ridiculed and written off: part orange-faced game-show host, part Mafia Big Man. The American novelist Philip Roth called him the “boastful buffoon”. Trump is boastful and he is a buffoon. But he won in 2016 and may win again next week.
What does he know? What does he understand about the atavistic impulses and insecurities of America and the American people? Why has the Republican Party allowed itself to be captured by Trump and Trumpism? The Maga movement is not a passing phenomenon: like Thatcherism it has hardened into something permanent. It is a counter-hegemonic project. As my colleague Sohrab Ahmari writes in our cover story this week, “The Republicans – once the party of suburban affluence, of free markets and social conservatism – have morphed into a populist vehicle.” There is no turning back.
“No one I know of has foreseen an America like the one we live in today,” Roth said shortly before he died. “No one could have imagined that the 21st-century catastrophe to befall the USA, the most debasing of disasters, would appear not, say, in the terrifying guise of an Orwellian Big Brother but in the ominously ridiculous commedia dell’arte figure of the boastful buffoon.”
But perhaps this outcome could have been imagined. After all, as John Gray has written, the word “populism” has no clear meaning but is “used by liberals to refer to political blowback against the social disruption produced by their own policies”.
The result of the 2024 US presidential election is likely to be decided in Pennsylvania where the polls have Trump and Kamala Harris deadlocked. Trump won the state in 2016 and Biden in 2020. In so many ways, Harris is the ideal candidate for Trump: the West Coast liberal-lawyer with a rictus smile and an undistinguished record as vice-president and an opaque policy platform. She smiles and laughs a lot, but you can see the panic in her eyes. For after Trump comes JD Vance, a true ideologue, and the pro-worker, anti-liberal American New Right.
But this isn't ideology - I also agree with you that Badenoch's attempt to make this a political argument rather than a technocratic argument bodes poorly for her ability to come up with effective solutions.
Let’s say you make a 70 page form into a 20 page form (the US takes things to an unhelpful extreme) that’s a serious reduction in time spent by the consumer.
If thoughtfully designed then it shouldnt result in a reduction in safeguarding in your example.
A friend had an old property that he didn’t need. He got the planning permission to turn it into 2 units and then gave it to a local charity for social housing.
The planning people made the charity redo all the expert reports - at a cost of thousands and a delay of months - because the LibDems on the council insisted that because they were addressed to my friend they were no longer valid and it wasn’t possible to assign the reports to the charity.
There are those who crave it- mostly the minority who can lose 90% and still rub along nicely, thank you. But even most capitalists happily trade upside for stability.
Which is the problem Buccaneering Brexiteers continue to trip over.
Agreed, but that's an issue of modernising process, not ideological deregulation. The two need to be separated and from what Badenoch has written I believe she is more interested in the ideological aspects of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgzP9Q1s4H4
Having said that, I'm in favour of reducing unnecessary bureaucracy. Deciding what you want to achieve - build better infrastructure, protect vulnerable people etc - then working out how you most effectively achieve that is a better approach in my view than saying, let's fill in more forms, or alternatively abolishing all governance entirely.
Having 70 pages of paperwork that nobody ever reads just makes work and worsens safeguarding as it serves no purpose.
Keeping notes short, to the point and succinct vastly improves safeguarding, cuts paperwork and means a better job is done.
Having a solution like CPOMS to log safeguarding concerns on where relevant issues can be recorded and actually dealt with is better than book sized forms nobody will pay any attention to.
Not that it'll do them the tiniest but of good in WSE, mind, but still.
As Bart says, a long way to go yet,mind.
Glad I backed her when she drifted out to third in the betting just before the final MP vote.
Good afternoon, everybody.
At the bank I work at, they have a legal obligation to monitor behaviour for insider trading. As part of this, the employees have to register all their personal bank accounts with the bank.
The new system remembers all your bank accounts from last year. So all you have to do it click “no change”, if you have nothing to add. The old system required you to type everything in, each time.
And when was the last time a party leader had a surname which was included in the name of a constituency? All I have so far is Lord Liverpool, which doesn't really count.
I don't want to go into too much detail about a film that's only just hit the cinemas in case it spoils it for other people, but I think your criticism there is a valid one. It *did* tonally shift a great deal in the second act, to the point you might think you were watching a three stooges movie.
I don't know if you've seen Tangerine (Sean Baker's 2015 low budget movie about two black trans sex workers on the streets of LA) but he certainly doesn't shy away from filming the seedier side of life. Whether that's exploitative or not I don't know. You could compare it to, say, Hustlers, a film about the same milieu written and directed by a woman, and argue that Baker's eye is more prurient. But it's hard to make a movie about strippers without, well, strip clubs. Compare it to the sanitised, 'Pretty Woman' Hollywood take. Should we try to sanitise sex work? I felt the gut-punch ending was the point Baker was trying to make. But I can also understand your point of view. Other reviewers have also noted it feels a bit exploitative in places.
I felt Anora was less pornographic than The Substance, where scenes in which women were hyper-sexualised and commodified (obviously, to make a feminist point about the male gaze) left me feeling genuinely uncomfortable.
Perhaps the biggest criticism of Anora is the way she's under-developed as a character and comes off as a bit of a stereotype. As you say, Mikey Madison's performance does a lot of the heavy lifting.
Anyway, that's about as much as I can say without turning this thread into an off topic spoiler fest!
Which rapidly becomes a battle with the department that collects the reports, collates the reports, reports on the reports.
https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1852715478461890626