"This didn't happen overnight. It took years and years for people on the Left to construct the censorship machinery that inevitably led to police knocking on a journalist's door for something she posted on social media.
These bigots HATE that you might think differently and NOTHING will change their thinking until the Right grabs hold of this machinery and turns it on them."
"This thing is bad. We must use it against those we hate"
You could, y'know...just disassemble it?
If recording non-crime-hate-incident reports is bad... stop recording them. My preference would be to deindividualize them, aggregate the data and use it for statistical purposes. Ideally move it under the ONS and away from the criminal justice system.
This is possibly the first time I've disagreed with you on something. I don't think they should be collecting the data at all.
@Andy_JS , yes that's fair, and you are right that stopping gathering it is the most elegant solution, but, y'know...statistician. There's a difference between gathering data and throwing it away once gathered.
I think Rishi was probably right to call the election when he did. The Tories may have been reduced to less than 100 seats if they'd hung on to the last possible moment.
Sunak was completely unsuited for the job. If not for Covid and the furlough scheme, he would never have got that far. Beats me how someone could come up with Furlough which worked well and copied across the world and be so terrible at being PM. And he finally threw his toys out of the pram and called a snap election to sink Tories to their worst result in history.
We seem to go round and round in ever decreasing circles on the issue of social care..🥴
Yep.
More delay incoming.
A Royal Commission will take three years and mean literally nothing will be done before the next GE other than the Fair Pay Agreement for care workers which will increase costs with no one seemingly able to say if LAs will be able to cover the additional costs.
Inevitable after voters rewarded Theresa May's 'brave' plan to take all old people's assets over £100k to pay for social care in 2017 by almost making Corbyn PM and seeing her lose her majority.
No party will ever touch tough choices on social care again themselves unless a cross party agreement (I prefer a Japanese style insurance system but still needs cross party agreement)
Blair had a Royal Commission but didn't like the results so nothing happened.
Same could happen again.
To govern is to choose. The whole political class are cowards.
Theresa May governed and chose, just the voters, especially home owning pensioners and their heirs, decided her choice would cost them and said 'sod off' at the next general election as she lost her majority and had to back down
Theresa May decided to drop the announcement in the middle of an election campaign which allowed the opposition time to emphasis the bad points before people had time to discuss the good points..
I think Rishi was probably right to call the election when he did. The Tories may have been reduced to less than 100 seats if they'd hung on to the last possible moment.
Why?
There's an assumption of a proportionate equation that the Tories would have lost an extra 10 seats per month for every extra month they held on, but without any evidence for it.
Politics doesn't work like that, even if it does make a good story.
I bet he was getting contrary advice as well: that going sooner was better.
I really cannot see a delay as having improved things for the Tories - their problems were far more structural than just people feeling better off or not. The changes there would have been tiny, and would have been dwarfed by the fact that people simply wanted change.
So if he had delayed, we would see a threader with other stories about the contrary advice: that going earlier would have been better,
The Tories were doomed.
edit: and first with an on-topic post!
I think it was pretty mad the Tories went in July rather than October, but I concede there may have been further drip-drip-drip by-elections and defections.
However, I don't think they'd have done worse than 120 seats had they waited another 3 months - and the economy would have certainly improved.
And if Rishi had waited another three months, or even till January, then Conservatives would have enjoyed an extra three or six months in office, with jobs and wages to pay their mortgages. That many Conservative colleagues are not very well off and depend on their salaries is often lost on millionaire Conservative leaders from Mrs Thatcher through David Cameron to Rishi Sunak.
This should never be a factor. An absolutely disgraceful reason for any party to extend its governance and I hope one never thinks like that.
OK, how about Conservative governments think they are better than Labour ones, and vice versa, and therefore should aim to maximise their time in office?
I'm fine with that. In dying days of last administration it was pretty obvious that wasn't the case though except to the most blinkered!
I think Rishi was probably right to call the election when he did. The Tories may have been reduced to less than 100 seats if they'd hung on to the last possible moment.
That's the thing - alternative history would have the election now with the Tories possibly getting 200 seats or 70.
Meanwhile how would Farage's relationship with Trump be impacting voters - Reform on 20 seats+ ??
Sunak was completely unsuited for the job. If not for Covid and the furlough scheme, he would never have got that far. Beats me how someone could come up with Furlough which worked well and copied across the world and be so terrible at being PM. And he finally threw his toys out of the pram and called a snap election to sink Tories to their worst result in history.
Although absolutely necessary in principle, furlough was complicated and open to outrageous abuse. There were probably simpler and more cost effective means of ensuring business survived Covid. Rishi never really did simple.
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
Makes sense. It's an industry that uses 70% of our land and 1% of the workforce to produce 0.4% of our GDP, and that's after being showered with £4bn/year of subsidies and tax breaks and favourable regulations unlike any other industry.
It uses scarce inputs wastefully, destroying epic amounts of value. Many family farms are particularly inefficient (though some, generally making niche products, are more viable). The sooner we close most of it down and redeploy the inputs the better, and leaving the EU was a great opportunity to do that.
My best guess is the current Labour government will last for 1 or 2 years before it collapses. It is incapable of dealing with the problems it is going to encounter and the only thing going for it is its large majority, but the latter will rapidly erode as MP's flake out.
The first (only?) smart move I think it's done so far is to start to negotiate returns agreements with other countries. Offset by cancelling Rwanda so early, which I think was a mistake.
Sunak did it with Albania, and that's a big reason the boat numbers for 2024 were down on 2023. Why he didn't do it for Vietnam and other places I don't know.
If Labour do and crossings drop to just 10-15k a year the Conservatives will look incompetent.
They were in the works under the Tories (these things take time) and foreign governments don’t like to sign treaties in the run up to an election where the government is likely to change.
Renowned pollster Ann Selzer is stepping away from election polling, citing the changing nature of the industry and a desire to explore new opportunities. Her work shaped political forecasting for years.
No connection with her final Iowa poll being massively out of line with Trump's 13% lead over Harris in the state when the results came in I am sure
Yes, she really did soil herself whilst wearing white trousers. Likewise Lichtman.
Yes Lichtman can't even say he got the popular vote right as he did with his only other wrong call in 2000 when he called it for Gore.
His call for Harris was equally disastrous for his reputation as a forecaster going forward
Bowtie Bob did rather better, even with a pin the tail on the donkey polling methodology.
In response to @Leon 's enquiry yesterday about Bluesky.
I've just dropped a toe in the water for the last few weeks, and just tipped over 100 followers. For those familiar with the Twitter timeline, I'd say it is in roughly autumn 2007 by comparison. UK politicos going onto Twitter started in about spring 2007 with early adopters or media tarts, and the process was largely done by about autumn 2008.
I like there being an absence of deliberate manipulation by Musk and the Muskovites.
I have a decent Twitter community of a little under 5k followers, since I have been cross-partisan and cross-cutting by design since I started my blog in 2007, and I have maintained my community by trimming dormant follows and followers every year or so. It's going to take some effort to rebuild on Bluesky, but that is currently possible - with lots of new people around. I get follow backs from most.
On Twitter strategy-type people (eg Mark Pack) are putting in the plumbing interconnection and future influence for their communities. A different set of hub / distributor accounts will emerge from Twitter.
Automated and ease-of-use tools are not so available. Remember the difference made by Tweetdeck and Hootsuite? I'm not sure how this will go.
I'm also not sure about Bluesky's future business model.
One test will be what happens when people who have other platforms to cross-promote from start feeling they have to be on Bluesky, and take their followers with them.
For me, a couple of my current core niches are shifting to Bluesky - active travel and disabled. Which makes the decision to transfer more likely.
From my point of view, if I lose the "patriots" and the trolls I won't miss them. Nor the Pfaffers - people focused on football, autos, flags and the far right, which seem to go together, including the Usonian types who have never left Alabama and think their laws rule everywhere. Reform UK can have them.
An absence of drive by abuse artists posting "the pedestrian should have got out of the way" (tbf I don't get that many), every time someone is run down on a zebra crossing, will be welcome. And they are irrelevant in the UK for the next several years, as in my niche it is all about delivery not diversionary debates.
Equally, an account with a small number of followers is great for self-expression, just like a blog which only gets 100 readers a week.
What do you want from it ,and what do you want to put in?
I just want it to fail because it is full of wankers
Arizona Senate. Estimated 88 percent of votes have been counted.
Votes received and percentages of total vote Candidate Votes Pct. Ruben Gallego DEM 1,484,205 49.7 Kari Lake GOP 1,436,045 48.1 Eduardo Quintana GRN 63,582 2.1
Lead: 48,160
Arizona Senate. Estimated 88.9 percent of votes have been counted.
Votes received and percentages of total vote Candidate Votes Pct. Ruben Gallego DEM 1,500,850 49.8 Kari Lake GOP 1,449,464 48.1 Eduardo Quintana GRN 64,552 2.1
Lead: 51,386
Arizona Senate. Estimated 91.8 percent of votes have been counted.
Votes received and percentages of total vote Candidate Votes Pct. Ruben Gallego DEM 1,555,426 50.0 Kari Lake GOP 1,488,733 47.8 Eduardo Quintana GRN 67,961 2.2
Lead: 66,693
Arizona Senate. Estimated 93.1 percent of votes have been counted.
Votes received and percentages of total vote Candidate Votes Pct. Ruben Gallego DEM 1,574,597 50.0 Kari Lake GOP 1,505,837 47.8 Eduardo Quintana GRN 69,107 2.2
Lead 68,760
Arizona Senate. Estimated 94.6 percent of votes have been counted.
Votes received and percentages of total vote Candidate Votes Pct. Ruben Gallego DEM 1,600,923 50.0 Kari Lake GOP 1,528,297 47.8 Eduardo Quintana GRN 70,678 2.2
Lead 72,626.
Gallego (D) is projected to win by the Associated Press.
Arizona Senate. Estimated 95.8 percent of votes have been counted.
Votes received and percentages of total vote Candidate Votes Pct. Ruben Gallego DEM 1,618,527 50.0 Kari Lake GOP 1,545,791 47.8 Eduardo Quintana GRN 71,869 2.2
Lead 72,736
Gallego (D) is projected to win by the Associated Press.
Arizona Senate. Estimated 98.4 percent of votes have been counted.
Votes received and percentages of total vote Candidate Votes Pct. Ruben Gallego DEM 1,663,717 50.1 Kari Lake GOP 1,584,450 47.7 Eduardo Quintana GRN 74,925 2.3
Lead 79,267
Gallego (D) is projected to win by the Associated Press
Arizona Senate. Estimated 98.7 percent of votes have been counted.
Votes received and percentages of total vote Candidate Votes Pct. Ruben Gallego DEM 1,669,135 50.1 Kari Lake GOP 1,589,790 47.7 Eduardo Quintana GRN 75,337 2.3
Lead 79,345
Gallego (D) is projected to win by the Associated Press.
We seem to go round and round in ever decreasing circles on the issue of social care..🥴
Yep.
More delay incoming.
A Royal Commission will take three years and mean literally nothing will be done before the next GE other than the Fair Pay Agreement for care workers which will increase costs with no one seemingly able to say if LAs will be able to cover the additional costs.
Inevitable after voters rewarded Theresa May's 'brave' plan to take all old people's assets over £100k to pay for social care in 2017 by almost making Corbyn PM and seeing her lose her majority.
No party will ever touch tough choices on social care again themselves unless a cross party agreement (I prefer a Japanese style insurance system but still needs cross party agreement)
Blair had a Royal Commission but didn't like the results so nothing happened.
Same could happen again.
To govern is to choose. The whole political class are cowards.
Theresa May governed and chose, just the voters, especially home owning pensioners and their heirs, decided her choice would cost them and said 'sod off' at the next general election as she lost her majority and had to back down
Theresa May decided to drop the announcement in the middle of an election campaign which allowed the opposition time to emphasis the bad points before people had time to discuss the good points..
There were no good points for the elderly homeowners and their heirs, who expected estates to be preserved and transmitted completely intact and free of tax. Economic self interest is the overwhelming motivation for almost all voters in every election, so a load of them sat on their hands. It's quite possible that Labour would've won that election under a less radical leader.
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
That's another outrageous sweeping statement a without citation.
If they were that concerned they shouldn't have voted Brexit. If they voted Brexit it is their own fault that the Bentley Bentaga has to last four rather than two years.
If their farming portfolio is below £3m they have nothing to fear.
“If their farming portfolio is below £3m they have nothing to fear.”
That is an outrageous sweeping statement that needs a citation. Because HY is right, a lot of farming is income/profit poor, requiring help with investment and planning, not money taken out of investment and planning.
I’ve argued that this argument is being argued all wrong - Labour want to be seen as enemy’s of privilege at time of belt tightening/black hole filling (that we all ain’t dumb and know as war chest building for later in parliament). So it’s politically dumb for Labours opponents to also paint Labour as the enemy of what it sees as privilege, it misses the point being the danger here, as with all Reeves unraveling budget Starmer is so proud of, are the unintended consequences of budget measures, more land lost to non farming, less planning and less investment, more money surrendered to insurance and accountants than employing staff or investing in the business, the business being food security of UK, maintaining consumer choice, and protecting the environment - that’s where Labour money grab is taking the money from.
If you think you are whacking spiders, you are actually shrinking the song bird population, Labour.
We seem to go round and round in ever decreasing circles on the issue of social care..🥴
Yep.
More delay incoming.
A Royal Commission will take three years and mean literally nothing will be done before the next GE other than the Fair Pay Agreement for care workers which will increase costs with no one seemingly able to say if LAs will be able to cover the additional costs.
Inevitable after voters rewarded Theresa May's 'brave' plan to take all old people's assets over £100k to pay for social care in 2017 by almost making Corbyn PM and seeing her lose her majority.
No party will ever touch tough choices on social care again themselves unless a cross party agreement (I prefer a Japanese style insurance system but still needs cross party agreement)
Blair had a Royal Commission but didn't like the results so nothing happened.
Same could happen again.
To govern is to choose. The whole political class are cowards.
Theresa May governed and chose, just the voters, especially home owning pensioners and their heirs, decided her choice would cost them and said 'sod off' at the next general election as she lost her majority and had to back down
Theresa May decided to drop the announcement in the middle of an election campaign which allowed the opposition time to emphasis the bad points before people had time to discuss the good points..
There were no good points for the elderly homeowners and their heirs, who expected estates to be preserved and transmitted completely intact and free of tax. Economic self interest is the overwhelming motivation for almost all voters in every election, so a load of them sat on their hands. It's quite possible that Labour would've won that election under a less radical leader.
Yup, it was cost of living that won it for Trump too.
Burnham may well have won the 2017 GE I agree. Picking Corbyn over him in 2015 probably had the cost of giving Labour another 7 years in opposition
I think Rishi was probably right to call the election when he did. The Tories may have been reduced to less than 100 seats if they'd hung on to the last possible moment.
Why?
There's an assumption of a proportionate equation that the Tories would have lost an extra 10 seats per month for every extra month they held on, but without any evidence for it.
Politics doesn't work like that, even if it does make a good story.
All speculation is merely that, speculation. My tuppence worth is post Trump, Reform would have done even better. That would probably have negatively impacted both Labour and the Tories, whether it translated into very many more Reform or a few more Tory seats is debateable.
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
Makes sense. It's an industry that uses 70% of our land and 1% of the workforce to produce 0.4% of our GDP, and that's after being showered with £4bn/year of subsidies and tax breaks and favourable regulations unlike any other industry.
It uses scarce inputs wastefully, destroying epic amounts of value. Many family farms are particularly inefficient (though some, generally making niche products, are more viable). The sooner we close most of it down and redeploy the inputs the better, and leaving the EU was a great opportunity to do that.
Absolutely not, if anything after the Ukraine war and lockdown we need to support our farmers providing our own food even more
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
That's another outrageous sweeping statement a without citation.
If they were that concerned they shouldn't have voted Brexit. If they voted Brexit it is their own fault that the Bentley Bentaga has to last four rather than two years.
If their farming portfolio is below £3m they have nothing to fear.
“If their farming portfolio is below £3m they have nothing to fear.”
That is an outrageous sweeping statement that needs a citation. Because HY is right, a lot of farming is income/profit poor, requiring help with investment and planning, not money taken out of investment and planning.
I’ve argued that this argument is being argued all wrong - Labour want to be seen as enemy’s of privilege at time of belt tightening/black hole filling (that we all ain’t dumb and know as war chest building for later in parliament). So it’s politically dumb for Labours opponents to also paint Labour as the enemy of what it sees as privilege, it misses the point being the danger here, as with all Reeves unraveling budget Starmer is so proud of, are the unintended consequences of budget measures, more land lost to non farming, less planning and less investment, more money surrendered to insurance and accountants than employing staff or investing in the business, the business being food security of UK, maintaining consumer choice, and protecting the environment - that’s where Labour money grab is taking the money from.
If you think you are whacking spiders, you are actually shrinking the song bird population, Labour.
We seem to go round and round in ever decreasing circles on the issue of social care..🥴
Yep.
More delay incoming.
A Royal Commission will take three years and mean literally nothing will be done before the next GE other than the Fair Pay Agreement for care workers which will increase costs with no one seemingly able to say if LAs will be able to cover the additional costs.
Inevitable after voters rewarded Theresa May's 'brave' plan to take all old people's assets over £100k to pay for social care in 2017 by almost making Corbyn PM and seeing her lose her majority.
No party will ever touch tough choices on social care again themselves unless a cross party agreement (I prefer a Japanese style insurance system but still needs cross party agreement)
Blair had a Royal Commission but didn't like the results so nothing happened.
Same could happen again.
To govern is to choose. The whole political class are cowards.
Theresa May governed and chose, just the voters, especially home owning pensioners and their heirs, decided her choice would cost them and said 'sod off' at the next general election as she lost her majority and had to back down
Theresa May decided to drop the announcement in the middle of an election campaign which allowed the opposition time to emphasis the bad points before people had time to discuss the good points..
To voters who saw it as taking their home or their parents home on death to fund at home care there would never be any good points from it
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
FWIW I am the trustee (sadly not the beneficiary!) of a 3,000 acre West Country estate. It is very well run by the land agent. Asset value is around £30 million. Income is £650,000.
Land yields are only 2-2.5% which is not much good when interest rates are over 4%
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
Hutton's argument is that they can sell off part of the farm. It might even depress land values.
They have loads of options. Gift slices of the farm to their inheritors every 7 years and they need pay nothing at all.
They need to pay an annual market rent on the gifted property otherwise it is a gift with reservation which doesn’t work for IHT
In response to @Leon 's enquiry yesterday about Bluesky.
I've just dropped a toe in the water for the last few weeks, and just tipped over 100 followers. For those familiar with the Twitter timeline, I'd say it is in roughly autumn 2007 by comparison. UK politicos going onto Twitter started in about spring 2007 with early adopters or media tarts, and the process was largely done by about autumn 2008.
I like there being an absence of deliberate manipulation by Musk and the Muskovites.
I have a decent Twitter community of a little under 5k followers, since I have been cross-partisan and cross-cutting by design since I started my blog in 2007, and I have maintained my community by trimming dormant follows and followers every year or so. It's going to take some effort to rebuild on Bluesky, but that is currently possible - with lots of new people around. I get follow backs from most.
On Twitter strategy-type people (eg Mark Pack) are putting in the plumbing interconnection and future influence for their communities. A different set of hub / distributor accounts will emerge from Twitter.
Automated and ease-of-use tools are not so available. Remember the difference made by Tweetdeck and Hootsuite? I'm not sure how this will go.
I'm also not sure about Bluesky's future business model.
One test will be what happens when people who have other platforms to cross-promote from start feeling they have to be on Bluesky, and take their followers with them.
For me, a couple of my current core niches are shifting to Bluesky - active travel and disabled. Which makes the decision to transfer more likely.
From my point of view, if I lose the "patriots" and the trolls I won't miss them. Nor the Pfaffers - people focused on football, autos, flags and the far right, which seem to go together, including the Usonian types who have never left Alabama and think their laws rule everywhere. Reform UK can have them.
An absence of drive by abuse artists posting "the pedestrian should have got out of the way" (tbf I don't get that many), every time someone is run down on a zebra crossing, will be welcome. And they are irrelevant in the UK for the next several years, as in my niche it is all about delivery not diversionary debates.
Equally, an account with a small number of followers is great for self-expression, just like a blog which only gets 100 readers a week.
What do you want from it ,and what do you want to put in?
I just want it to fail because it is full of wankers
I'll give you that that's succinct.
Do you wish the same on any chain of hotels for the same reason?
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
Hutton's argument is that they can sell off part of the farm. It might even depress land values.
They have loads of options. Gift slices of the farm to their inheritors every 7 years and they need pay nothing at all.
They need to pay an annual market rent on the gifted property otherwise it is a gift with reservation which doesn’t work for IHT
I suspect the market rent on a few acres of land isn't that much...
In fact the average rent of the 45,000 rental agreements in the UK is £5000...
I’m watching Sky news. I don’t know who the speaker is, but she’s evil. I mean fully fucking evil. Right now she’s doing the whole climate NIMBYism thing. China USA blah blah blah.
But that’s not the evil thing. After commenting that Europe is so “sclerotic” (yawn) that we should do a deal with Trump where we kowtow to his highness in exchange for reduced tariffs, she then said, and I quote, “Zelenskyy is going to have to realise that this war needs a diplomatic solution, rather than a land grab”.
Rather than a land grab. I mean. Where do you start. Who’s doing the land grab? Angry goose meme. But of course she wasn’t challenged on this, because the West is terrified of those twats in the Kremlin.
Hence Zelensky is getting closer to developing a nuclear bomb
Her comments might be a bit offensive, but does she deserve to be nuked?
Probably. I don't see how getting a primitive nuclear device helps Ukraine, they need to deliver it as well and even if they do, Putin will retaliate either with full-blown nukes or by "accidentally" hitting a nuclear power station. The west left support for Ukraine far too late, in hindsight the time to have stopped Putin was right at the beginning when all his tanks were stuck in a convoy on the roads.
You don't build one, you build a dozen.
And you don't use it, you just ring up the White House and tell them "unless you continue to support us, we will detonate one of these on the Black Sea."
One single nuclear test like that and the entire world is in chaos. Stock markets down 50% overnight. People fighting each other in the shops for the last loo rolls and tinned beans. Half the population of western cities fleeing en masse to the countryside. Panic in the streets.
Ukraine need to play hardball now. It's the only way to prevent themselves being strongarmed into a deal that favours Russia.
Clearly some people on here are desperate for WW3 ..🥴🤨
It is somewhat hard to see how the situation above is better for the rest of the world than a suboptimal peace deal.
As I've pointed out many times, the west giving in to Putin's nuclear blackmail has made the world a much more dangerous place. Now every tinpot regime with expansionist ideas will realise that having nukes means the civilised world will just give in to whatever they wish. Why spend billions on a military that can often be defeated - and which can turn against you - and which puts you in hock to supplier countries, when you can build a nuke for less?
Of the many, many problems inflicted by an old fool's dithering, that's obviously not one. It's been blindingly obvious since the 40s that nuclear weapons have a powerful deterrent effect, and ghastly regimes haven't needed the Ukraine war to demonstrate that to them. Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, South Africa are varying examples of tinpot regimes who realised this long before 2022.
What the war and Biden's dithering has done is demonstrate to democracies like Ukraine, but perhaps also South Korea, Taiwan, Poland, Japan and others, that they can't rely on the US shield. Again, some have been realising that since 2016 or before - Ukraine is not the only example of America's chronic unreliability as an ally. That is where the true damage to the nuclear proliferation framework lies.
“To be America’s enemy is dangerous. To be America’s friend is fatal.”
The original was better:
I would rather be the Englishman’s enemy than their friend. For they buy their enemies and sell their friends.
Who said/wrote that?
I tried Google but it doesn't seem to be able to pin it down. It references George Orwell but doesn't give the exact quote or even anything close to it.
Yep - me too.
I guess we'll have to wait for the wisdom of @StillWaters to enlighten us.
I am sure I have heard it before. So surprised it is not appearing anywhere.
AI tells me:
The quote "better to be the enemy of the English than their friend. for they buy their enemies and sell their friends" is attributed to Lord Palmerston, a British statesman and Prime Minister from 1855–8 and 1859–65.
Which makes no sense - why would he say that?
It's A not very I. It got confused because Palmerston said 'we have no eternal allies and have no perpetual enemies' which sounded vaguely similar.
I always assumed the eternal/perpetual quote was Talleyrand…
In response to @Leon 's enquiry yesterday about Bluesky.
I've just dropped a toe in the water for the last few weeks, and just tipped over 100 followers. For those familiar with the Twitter timeline, I'd say it is in roughly autumn 2007 by comparison. UK politicos going onto Twitter started in about spring 2007 with early adopters or media tarts, and the process was largely done by about autumn 2008.
I like there being an absence of deliberate manipulation by Musk and the Muskovites.
I have a decent Twitter community of a little under 5k followers, since I have been cross-partisan and cross-cutting by design since I started my blog in 2007, and I have maintained my community by trimming dormant follows and followers every year or so. It's going to take some effort to rebuild on Bluesky, but that is currently possible - with lots of new people around. I get follow backs from most.
On Twitter strategy-type people (eg Mark Pack) are putting in the plumbing interconnection and future influence for their communities. A different set of hub / distributor accounts will emerge from Twitter.
Automated and ease-of-use tools are not so available. Remember the difference made by Tweetdeck and Hootsuite? I'm not sure how this will go.
I'm also not sure about Bluesky's future business model.
One test will be what happens when people who have other platforms to cross-promote from start feeling they have to be on Bluesky, and take their followers with them.
For me, a couple of my current core niches are shifting to Bluesky - active travel and disabled. Which makes the decision to transfer more likely.
From my point of view, if I lose the "patriots" and the trolls I won't miss them. Nor the Pfaffers - people focused on football, autos, flags and the far right, which seem to go together, including the Usonian types who have never left Alabama and think their laws rule everywhere. Reform UK can have them.
An absence of drive by abuse artists posting "the pedestrian should have got out of the way" (tbf I don't get that many), every time someone is run down on a zebra crossing, will be welcome. And they are irrelevant in the UK for the next several years, as in my niche it is all about delivery not diversionary debates.
Equally, an account with a small number of followers is great for self-expression, just like a blog which only gets 100 readers a week.
What do you want from it ,and what do you want to put in?
I just want it to fail because it is full of wankers
I'll give you that that's succinct.
Do you wish the same on any chain of hotels for the same reason?
Sorry, couldn't resist the amusement of a one line reply after your eloquent and lengthy explanation (for which I am grateful)
That said, I do think it will fail, in the end, for several reasons
1. It is full of wankers, mainly on the left
so
2. It will become an echo chamber, and boring
therefore
3. In their boredom, and absent rightwingers to argue with, the users will turn on each other and it will descend into fratricidal chaos, and they don't have the money/skill to moderate it
Beginning to think it’s not fanciful that this Government might collapse. Rumours whirling around Starmer; allegations Rachel Reeve not even an economist; 100 days of Government so chaotic it was not even celebrated; furious farmers about to stop food and petrol; debt heading towards IMF visit levels; business up in arms; big taxpayers leaving country. The Opposition better get its act together. May not have years to think about it.
Getting a heavy 'move over Leon, there's a new hystericist in town' vibe.
I think I am right in the centre ground of politics, and it is everyone else who is out at the extremes. IE the position I took on the US election was an absolutely centrist position (Both very bad options, Trump very slightly preferable).
The assumption now that 'everything will carry on as normal, order will be restored' is flawed. We are going through structural change, and I think the likelihood that Labour (who I voted for, again evidence of my 'centrism') will be able to successfully deal with it is minimal. Not impossible but minimal. As cited in the quote above, they have done almost nothing in the first 100 days, despite its massive majority.
On the US, now we have an anti-vaxxer responsible for public health and a Russian asset as director of national intelligence… so you still hold that view?
Was Trump the right decision? Too soon to say. And hard to answer because we don't know the counterfactual scenario, where Harris takes over. However I don't think that the way you are characterising either Gabbard or RFK is correct.
I have concerns about Musk, having read his biography I don't think he has experience working as a team player so it is concerning that he is so close to the decision making.
I’m watching Sky news. I don’t know who the speaker is, but she’s evil. I mean fully fucking evil. Right now she’s doing the whole climate NIMBYism thing. China USA blah blah blah.
But that’s not the evil thing. After commenting that Europe is so “sclerotic” (yawn) that we should do a deal with Trump where we kowtow to his highness in exchange for reduced tariffs, she then said, and I quote, “Zelenskyy is going to have to realise that this war needs a diplomatic solution, rather than a land grab”.
Rather than a land grab. I mean. Where do you start. Who’s doing the land grab? Angry goose meme. But of course she wasn’t challenged on this, because the West is terrified of those twats in the Kremlin.
Hence Zelensky is getting closer to developing a nuclear bomb
Her comments might be a bit offensive, but does she deserve to be nuked?
Probably. I don't see how getting a primitive nuclear device helps Ukraine, they need to deliver it as well and even if they do, Putin will retaliate either with full-blown nukes or by "accidentally" hitting a nuclear power station. The west left support for Ukraine far too late, in hindsight the time to have stopped Putin was right at the beginning when all his tanks were stuck in a convoy on the roads.
You don't build one, you build a dozen.
And you don't use it, you just ring up the White House and tell them "unless you continue to support us, we will detonate one of these on the Black Sea."
One single nuclear test like that and the entire world is in chaos. Stock markets down 50% overnight. People fighting each other in the shops for the last loo rolls and tinned beans. Half the population of western cities fleeing en masse to the countryside. Panic in the streets.
Ukraine need to play hardball now. It's the only way to prevent themselves being strongarmed into a deal that favours Russia.
Clearly some people on here are desperate for WW3 ..🥴🤨
It is somewhat hard to see how the situation above is better for the rest of the world than a suboptimal peace deal.
As I've pointed out many times, the west giving in to Putin's nuclear blackmail has made the world a much more dangerous place. Now every tinpot regime with expansionist ideas will realise that having nukes means the civilised world will just give in to whatever they wish. Why spend billions on a military that can often be defeated - and which can turn against you - and which puts you in hock to supplier countries, when you can build a nuke for less?
Of the many, many problems inflicted by an old fool's dithering, that's obviously not one. It's been blindingly obvious since the 40s that nuclear weapons have a powerful deterrent effect, and ghastly regimes haven't needed the Ukraine war to demonstrate that to them. Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, South Africa are varying examples of tinpot regimes who realised this long before 2022.
What the war and Biden's dithering has done is demonstrate to democracies like Ukraine, but perhaps also South Korea, Taiwan, Poland, Japan and others, that they can't rely on the US shield. Again, some have been realising that since 2016 or before - Ukraine is not the only example of America's chronic unreliability as an ally. That is where the true damage to the nuclear proliferation framework lies.
“To be America’s enemy is dangerous. To be America’s friend is fatal.”
The original was better:
I would rather be the Englishman’s enemy than their friend. For they buy their enemies and sell their friends.
Who said/wrote that?
I believe it was Nasser, but he was quoting an Arab proverb
I have it in the back of my mind that it was said by a ruler in Afghanistan during The Great Game. The British Government - or the British India officials - often played one local ruler off against another and them some years later did the reverse.
That’s plausible - in the back of my mind was one of Faisal’s opponents at the time of Lawrence
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
Beginning to think it’s not fanciful that this Government might collapse. Rumours whirling around Starmer; allegations Rachel Reeve not even an economist; 100 days of Government so chaotic it was not even celebrated; furious farmers about to stop food and petrol; debt heading towards IMF visit levels; business up in arms; big taxpayers leaving country. The Opposition better get its act together. May not have years to think about it.
Getting a heavy 'move over Leon, there's a new hystericist in town' vibe.
I think I am right in the centre ground of politics, and it is everyone else who is out at the extremes. IE the position I took on the US election was an absolutely centrist position (Both very bad options, Trump very slightly preferable).
The assumption now that 'everything will carry on as normal, order will be restored' is flawed. We are going through structural change, and I think the likelihood that Labour (who I voted for, again evidence of my 'centrism') will be able to successfully deal with it is minimal. Not impossible but minimal. As cited in the quote above, they have done almost nothing in the first 100 days, despite its massive majority.
On the US, now we have an anti-vaxxer responsible for public health and a Russian asset as director of national intelligence… so you still hold that view?
Was Trump the right decision? Too soon to say. And hard to answer because we don't know the counterfactual scenario, where Harris takes over. However I don't think that the way you are characterising either Gabbard or RFK is correct.
I have concerns about Musk, having read his biography I don't think he has experience working as a team player so it is concerning that he is so close to the decision making.
RFK's anti-vax shitbaggery has already killed people.
Interesting about Selzer - she states she took the decision to step down before the election. One wonders whether that influenced her poll findings in a deliberate or undeliberate way.
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
Urgh. Hope it's not Gove. There's not enough mind bleach in the world.
Interesting about Selzer - she states she took the decision to step down before the election. One wonders whether that influenced her poll findings in a deliberate or undeliberate way.
Why? To have stfu and retained her reputation would seem optimal to me. Her error was even more unforgiveable for giving many of us false hope.
One in ten to be hit with £3,000 council tax bills after Keir Starmer gives local authorities permission to raise it by nearly three times the rate of inflation
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
Makes sense. It's an industry that uses 70% of our land and 1% of the workforce to produce 0.4% of our GDP, and that's after being showered with £4bn/year of subsidies and tax breaks and favourable regulations unlike any other industry.
It uses scarce inputs wastefully, destroying epic amounts of value. Many family farms are particularly inefficient (though some, generally making niche products, are more viable). The sooner we close most of it down and redeploy the inputs the better, and leaving the EU was a great opportunity to do that.
Do you understand now KY100? It’s the clueless rightwing pirates like Fishing I fear more than Labour.
Labour may be paving our way to hell with their ignorance and unintended consequences - but PB Pirates will run a shuttle service A to B down it.
I'm also fuming at Labour now talking up migrant deportation schemes with Vietnam and Kurdistan. We had a deal in place and they fucking scrapped it for no good reason. Record illegal immigrant arrivals and now he's realised that axing the deterrent was a bad idea. As @Casino_Royale said, it's sixth form politics.
You don’t buy the argument, processing overseas and letting successful applicants live in your country in line with your international legal obligations on refugee’s, and processing abroad and not allow successful applicants to live in your country in line with your international legal obligations on refugee’s, are two completely different things?
A few months ago, Meloni’s overseas processing schemes were being held up as an example for us, and rest of Europe - now those schemes are in tatters, and Meloni could be on the way out soon.
I take a much tougher line on it. I'd only accept refugees where we have invited them, so only in the case of Ukraine, Hong Kong, Afghans who worked with the UK and Syrians from the camps more recently. It's a firm no to everyone else from me. Asylum rules are too easy to abuse otherwise and you end up with a free for all as we see now where people are coached by charities to say the right phrases to get into the asylum system and then abscond. Having mandatory deportation for anyone who just arrives in the UK uninvited is the only way to prevent this. If that breaks international law then so be it. We need to look after our own citizens and those we have chosen to help, not every Tom, Dick and Harry who pays the people smugglers enough money to get here illegally.
So you do understand there is that key difference, why UK signed up to the international asylum laws in the first place - Churchill and his cabinets were so keen on them and helped set them up, and remaining in them is still so important to many Conservative Party members even today, despite asylum system under pressure amidst waves of economic migration?
I understand that those decisions were taken in an age that never envisioned the kind of mobility in global populations that we have today and applied to people displaced by WW2, it's time to revisit them. I also think if you polled conservative members on my approach you'd get overwhelming majority support for it. I'm a member and meet these people on a very regular basis. There is very little ideological support for asylum seekers, the most common refrain is that illegal immigrants are abusing the system so we need to rewrite it to stop that. An invitation only asylum system would get wide support among Tory members and voters and it would bring back a big chunk of reform voters.
Aside from the moral arguments of asylum historic and present, recognising an issue still doesn’t excuse lack of delivery on putting it right. Does not excuse the bad politics strapping self to any proposed solution, defending the indefensible impracticalities of delivering it, and going down the political u bend of history with that solution, as Sunak and Meloni have done.
Do you believe the scheme Starmer has scrapped calling it a gimmick, would have worked as a deterrent? The Starmer government has scrapped a deterrent?
It seems so obvious, like writing on a wall, something was never going to work whilst international commitments were as they were, yet still money was pissed up the wall, over that writing in the wall, and zilch delivered year after year on what was talked up as a priority issue.
The World at One had a piece on the issue.
Where Meloni has been successful is in paying African countries not to let immigrants through their territory. Throughout Europe, nothing is off the table now, including redrafting treaties and conventions.
Mainstream parties are finally taking notice that they are losing votes to the populist right.
Interesting about Selzer - she states she took the decision to step down before the election. One wonders whether that influenced her poll findings in a deliberate or undeliberate way.
Why? To have stfu and retained her reputation would seem optimal to me. Her error was even more unforgiveable for giving many of us false hope.
She was just unlucky that her poll was one of the one in twenty outliers.
In response to @Leon 's enquiry yesterday about Bluesky.
I've just dropped a toe in the water for the last few weeks, and just tipped over 100 followers. For those familiar with the Twitter timeline, I'd say it is in roughly autumn 2007 by comparison. UK politicos going onto Twitter started in about spring 2007 with early adopters or media tarts, and the process was largely done by about autumn 2008.
I like there being an absence of deliberate manipulation by Musk and the Muskovites.
I have a decent Twitter community of a little under 5k followers, since I have been cross-partisan and cross-cutting by design since I started my blog in 2007, and I have maintained my community by trimming dormant follows and followers every year or so. It's going to take some effort to rebuild on Bluesky, but that is currently possible - with lots of new people around. I get follow backs from most.
On Twitter strategy-type people (eg Mark Pack) are putting in the plumbing interconnection and future influence for their communities. A different set of hub / distributor accounts will emerge from Twitter.
Automated and ease-of-use tools are not so available. Remember the difference made by Tweetdeck and Hootsuite? I'm not sure how this will go.
I'm also not sure about Bluesky's future business model.
One test will be what happens when people who have other platforms to cross-promote from start feeling they have to be on Bluesky, and take their followers with them.
For me, a couple of my current core niches are shifting to Bluesky - active travel and disabled. Which makes the decision to transfer more likely.
From my point of view, if I lose the "patriots" and the trolls I won't miss them. Nor the Pfaffers - people focused on football, autos, flags and the far right, which seem to go together, including the Usonian types who have never left Alabama and think their laws rule everywhere. Reform UK can have them.
An absence of drive by abuse artists posting "the pedestrian should have got out of the way" (tbf I don't get that many), every time someone is run down on a zebra crossing, will be welcome. And they are irrelevant in the UK for the next several years, as in my niche it is all about delivery not diversionary debates.
Equally, an account with a small number of followers is great for self-expression, just like a blog which only gets 100 readers a week.
What do you want from it ,and what do you want to put in?
I just want it to fail because it is full of wankers
I'll give you that that's succinct.
Do you wish the same on any chain of hotels for the same reason?
Sorry, couldn't resist the amusement of a one line reply after your eloquent and lengthy explanation (for which I am grateful)
That said, I do think it will fail, in the end, for several reasons
1. It is full of wankers, mainly on the left
so
2. It will become an echo chamber, and boring
therefore
3. In their boredom, and absent rightwingers to argue with, the users will turn on each other and it will descend into fratricidal chaos, and they don't have the money/skill to moderate it
That's fine - it's Friday or Sunday.
Quippage is the norm (not the noom), when one engages The Leon.
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
That's another outrageous sweeping statement a without citation.
If they were that concerned they shouldn't have voted Brexit. If they voted Brexit it is their own fault that the Bentley Bentaga has to last four rather than two years.
If their farming portfolio is below £3m they have nothing to fear.
“If their farming portfolio is below £3m they have nothing to fear.”
That is an outrageous sweeping statement that needs a citation. Because HY is right, a lot of farming is income/profit poor, requiring help with investment and planning, not money taken out of investment and planning.
I’ve argued that this argument is being argued all wrong - Labour want to be seen as enemy’s of privilege at time of belt tightening/black hole filling (that we all ain’t dumb and know as war chest building for later in parliament). So it’s politically dumb for Labours opponents to also paint Labour as the enemy of what it sees as privilege, it misses the point being the danger here, as with all Reeves unraveling budget Starmer is so proud of, are the unintended consequences of budget measures, more land lost to non farming, less planning and less investment, more money surrendered to insurance and accountants than employing staff or investing in the business, the business being food security of UK, maintaining consumer choice, and protecting the environment - that’s where Labour money grab is taking the money from.
If you think you are whacking spiders, you are actually shrinking the song bird population, Labour.
One in ten to be hit with £3,000 council tax bills after Keir Starmer gives local authorities permission to raise it by nearly three times the rate of inflation
Labour were disingenuous to say taxes on working people were out of bounds without agreeing to swingeing wealth taxes.
Despite the Conservative pretence that taxes are not a requirement to provide public services how do we fund, health, education and defence without a growth plan? Likewise who empties our bins when local authorities are flat on their arse?
I'm also fuming at Labour now talking up migrant deportation schemes with Vietnam and Kurdistan. We had a deal in place and they fucking scrapped it for no good reason. Record illegal immigrant arrivals and now he's realised that axing the deterrent was a bad idea. As @Casino_Royale said, it's sixth form politics.
You don’t buy the argument, processing overseas and letting successful applicants live in your country in line with your international legal obligations on refugee’s, and processing abroad and not allow successful applicants to live in your country in line with your international legal obligations on refugee’s, are two completely different things?
A few months ago, Meloni’s overseas processing schemes were being held up as an example for us, and rest of Europe - now those schemes are in tatters, and Meloni could be on the way out soon.
I take a much tougher line on it. I'd only accept refugees where we have invited them, so only in the case of Ukraine, Hong Kong, Afghans who worked with the UK and Syrians from the camps more recently. It's a firm no to everyone else from me. Asylum rules are too easy to abuse otherwise and you end up with a free for all as we see now where people are coached by charities to say the right phrases to get into the asylum system and then abscond. Having mandatory deportation for anyone who just arrives in the UK uninvited is the only way to prevent this. If that breaks international law then so be it. We need to look after our own citizens and those we have chosen to help, not every Tom, Dick and Harry who pays the people smugglers enough money to get here illegally.
So you do understand there is that key difference, why UK signed up to the international asylum laws in the first place - Churchill and his cabinets were so keen on them and helped set them up, and remaining in them is still so important to many Conservative Party members even today, despite asylum system under pressure amidst waves of economic migration?
I understand that those decisions were taken in an age that never envisioned the kind of mobility in global populations that we have today and applied to people displaced by WW2, it's time to revisit them. I also think if you polled conservative members on my approach you'd get overwhelming majority support for it. I'm a member and meet these people on a very regular basis. There is very little ideological support for asylum seekers, the most common refrain is that illegal immigrants are abusing the system so we need to rewrite it to stop that. An invitation only asylum system would get wide support among Tory members and voters and it would bring back a big chunk of reform voters.
Aside from the moral arguments of asylum historic and present, recognising an issue still doesn’t excuse lack of delivery on putting it right. Does not excuse the bad politics strapping self to any proposed solution, defending the indefensible impracticalities of delivering it, and going down the political u bend of history with that solution, as Sunak and Meloni have done.
Do you believe the scheme Starmer has scrapped calling it a gimmick, would have worked as a deterrent? The Starmer government has scrapped a deterrent?
It seems so obvious, like writing on a wall, something was never going to work whilst international commitments were as they were, yet still money was pissed up the wall, over that writing in the wall, and zilch delivered year after year on what was talked up as a priority issue.
The World at One had a piece on the issue.
Where Meloni has been successful is in paying African countries not to let immigrants through their territory. Throughout Europe, nothing is off the table now, including redrafting treaties and conventions.
Mainstream parties are finally taking notice that they are losing votes to the populist right.
How are countries being paid for that service discharging that service? Putting them behind barbed wire then machine gunning them, I suggest is not something mainstream parties should want to get into.
I'm also fuming at Labour now talking up migrant deportation schemes with Vietnam and Kurdistan. We had a deal in place and they fucking scrapped it for no good reason. Record illegal immigrant arrivals and now he's realised that axing the deterrent was a bad idea. As @Casino_Royale said, it's sixth form politics.
You don’t buy the argument, processing overseas and letting successful applicants live in your country in line with your international legal obligations on refugee’s, and processing abroad and not allow successful applicants to live in your country in line with your international legal obligations on refugee’s, are two completely different things?
A few months ago, Meloni’s overseas processing schemes were being held up as an example for us, and rest of Europe - now those schemes are in tatters, and Meloni could be on the way out soon.
I take a much tougher line on it. I'd only accept refugees where we have invited them, so only in the case of Ukraine, Hong Kong, Afghans who worked with the UK and Syrians from the camps more recently. It's a firm no to everyone else from me. Asylum rules are too easy to abuse otherwise and you end up with a free for all as we see now where people are coached by charities to say the right phrases to get into the asylum system and then abscond. Having mandatory deportation for anyone who just arrives in the UK uninvited is the only way to prevent this. If that breaks international law then so be it. We need to look after our own citizens and those we have chosen to help, not every Tom, Dick and Harry who pays the people smugglers enough money to get here illegally.
So you do understand there is that key difference, why UK signed up to the international asylum laws in the first place - Churchill and his cabinets were so keen on them and helped set them up, and remaining in them is still so important to many Conservative Party members even today, despite asylum system under pressure amidst waves of economic migration?
I have made the same argument as @MaxPB on this repeatedly. Our asylum system reflects the guilt of a generation that turned Jews away and then discovered the horrors of the camps. Understandable, but simply not sustainable in a much more mobile world that is still full of chaos, bigotry and threats.
I would not want the UK to be unilateral about this but the current asylum system needs radical change. We need to work with others to ensure that asylum is not a right but a gift which we can make or withhold according to our judgment and our interests. The collapse of the current system is one beacon of light in the deep darkness of a second Trump Presidency.
If Labour wanted to keep the Tories out for a generation then they would lead on this with the US and other European countries and be the party that fixed the illegal immigration problem. They won't because the idea probably disgusts Starmer and he probably views anyone who wants to stop illegal immigration as bigots and racists.
I am unclear what you are talking about. Most illegal immigration to the UK involves people overstaying visas and is unrelated to those seeking asylum. It is not illegal to seek asylum. Those who have their asylum claims rejected and those who have abused the visa rules should be deported, something the Conservatives failed to do. Deportations completely collapsed over the 14 years of Tory rule. The number of asylum seekers the UK takes in is not high compared to much of Europe or North America.
The US is in a very different situation, with vastly higher numbers of illegal immigrants and of asylum seekers, but also the US is a country built from immigration.
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
That's another outrageous sweeping statement a without citation.
If they were that concerned they shouldn't have voted Brexit. If they voted Brexit it is their own fault that the Bentley Bentaga has to last four rather than two years.
If their farming portfolio is below £3m they have nothing to fear.
“If their farming portfolio is below £3m they have nothing to fear.”
That is an outrageous sweeping statement that needs a citation. Because HY is right, a lot of farming is income/profit poor, requiring help with investment and planning, not money taken out of investment and planning.
I’ve argued that this argument is being argued all wrong - Labour want to be seen as enemy’s of privilege at time of belt tightening/black hole filling (that we all ain’t dumb and know as war chest building for later in parliament). So it’s politically dumb for Labours opponents to also paint Labour as the enemy of what it sees as privilege, it misses the point being the danger here, as with all Reeves unraveling budget Starmer is so proud of, are the unintended consequences of budget measures, more land lost to non farming, less planning and less investment, more money surrendered to insurance and accountants than employing staff or investing in the business, the business being food security of UK, maintaining consumer choice, and protecting the environment - that’s where Labour money grab is taking the money from.
If you think you are whacking spiders, you are actually shrinking the song bird population, Labour.
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
A lot of people have heard the rumours. Surely only a matter of time...
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
I do - it's all nonsense.
I'd be surprised if you know more than me, and I only know 5% of what is a known unknown, what about the unknown unknown and how does this fit in with the Anglesey Situation, and the involvement of the Argentine?
One in ten to be hit with £3,000 council tax bills after Keir Starmer gives local authorities permission to raise it by nearly three times the rate of inflation
That's the joys of compound inflation 5% you on you and the numbers get big.
The problem however is that council costs are rising far faster than 5% a year.
Worth saying that when asked last week the Local Government Minister did not rule out more council tax bands, a revaluations or even shifting to a property price based system (which simplifies any revaluation issues because there isn't enough staff to do that before this the next election).
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
I wondered over there to see that Manchester Airport was trending - turns out their have a new traffic system that allows 2 planes to taxi side by side after landing / before departure...
I'm also fuming at Labour now talking up migrant deportation schemes with Vietnam and Kurdistan. We had a deal in place and they fucking scrapped it for no good reason. Record illegal immigrant arrivals and now he's realised that axing the deterrent was a bad idea. As @Casino_Royale said, it's sixth form politics.
You don’t buy the argument, processing overseas and letting successful applicants live in your country in line with your international legal obligations on refugee’s, and processing abroad and not allow successful applicants to live in your country in line with your international legal obligations on refugee’s, are two completely different things?
A few months ago, Meloni’s overseas processing schemes were being held up as an example for us, and rest of Europe - now those schemes are in tatters, and Meloni could be on the way out soon.
They aren't, if anything they are being held up by liberal judges and Meloni's party still has a comfortable 7% lead in the latest Italian poll
I think you will find the following points are accurate.
Meloni’s governments argument in court was their scheme was okay by internal commitments because it was obviously more humane than the UK Tory Governments that was consigning people to developing countries.
Polling shows already 55% of Italians hate this costly fiasco of a policy, But despite what opinion polls show right now, the political scandal of wasting money, on what they were told would not work and would waste money, is what costs votes and credibility, as this part of it is exactly what hurt the recent Tory government too - shredded credibility from years talking up a priority and delivering zilch on it in face of rising costs. The Italian government is concurrently struggling to balance the budget – austerity budget for education, health and social security – so the “financial disaster” of wasting money on something that so obviously couldn’t happen with Italy’s international agreements as they are, has certainly sunk Meloni’s government. If you don’t believe me just watch.
And it all sounds so very similar?
The policy was blocked by judges in line with EU law.
If there is any backlash it won't be to Meloni but potentially for ItalExit from the EU
If backlash? There’s already backlash, on cost and lack of delivery, trying to blame EU and domestic judges, also in full swing, isn’t working - the costs and lack of delivery on the issue is coming out on top, not least because they were told it won’t work because of, but insisted it will work despite of, and it failed because of.
I'm also fuming at Labour now talking up migrant deportation schemes with Vietnam and Kurdistan. We had a deal in place and they fucking scrapped it for no good reason. Record illegal immigrant arrivals and now he's realised that axing the deterrent was a bad idea. As @Casino_Royale said, it's sixth form politics.
You don’t buy the argument, processing overseas and letting successful applicants live in your country in line with your international legal obligations on refugee’s, and processing abroad and not allow successful applicants to live in your country in line with your international legal obligations on refugee’s, are two completely different things?
A few months ago, Meloni’s overseas processing schemes were being held up as an example for us, and rest of Europe - now those schemes are in tatters, and Meloni could be on the way out soon.
They aren't, if anything they are being held up by liberal judges and Meloni's party still has a comfortable 7% lead in the latest Italian poll
I think you will find the following points are accurate.
Meloni’s governments argument in court was their scheme was okay by internal commitments because it was obviously more humane than the UK Tory Governments that was consigning people to developing countries.
Polling shows already 55% of Italians hate this costly fiasco of a policy, But despite what opinion polls show right now, the political scandal of wasting money, on what they were told would not work and would waste money, is what costs votes and credibility, as this part of it is exactly what hurt the recent Tory government too - shredded credibility from years talking up a priority and delivering zilch on it in face of rising costs. The Italian government is concurrently struggling to balance the budget – austerity budget for education, health and social security – so the “financial disaster” of wasting money on something that so obviously couldn’t happen with Italy’s international agreements as they are, has certainly sunk Meloni’s government. If you don’t believe me just watch.
And it all sounds so very similar?
The policy was blocked by judges in line with EU law.
If there is any backlash it won't be to Meloni but potentially for ItalExit from the EU
If backlash? There’s already backlash, on cost and lack of delivery, trying to blame EU and domestic judges, also in full swing, isn’t working - the costs and lack of delivery on the issue is coming out on top, not least because they were told it won’t work because of, but insisted it will work despite of, and it failed because of.
Clearly it is working given Meloni's coalition still has a comfortable poll lead
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
I wondered over there to see that Manchester Airport was trending - turns out their have a new traffic system that allows 2 planes to taxi side by side after landing / before departure...
One in ten to be hit with £3,000 council tax bills after Keir Starmer gives local authorities permission to raise it by nearly three times the rate of inflation
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
That's another outrageous sweeping statement a without citation.
If they were that concerned they shouldn't have voted Brexit. If they voted Brexit it is their own fault that the Bentley Bentaga has to last four rather than two years.
If their farming portfolio is below £3m they have nothing to fear.
“If their farming portfolio is below £3m they have nothing to fear.”
That is an outrageous sweeping statement that needs a citation. Because HY is right, a lot of farming is income/profit poor, requiring help with investment and planning, not money taken out of investment and planning.
I’ve argued that this argument is being argued all wrong - Labour want to be seen as enemy’s of privilege at time of belt tightening/black hole filling (that we all ain’t dumb and know as war chest building for later in parliament). So it’s politically dumb for Labours opponents to also paint Labour as the enemy of what it sees as privilege, it misses the point being the danger here, as with all Reeves unraveling budget Starmer is so proud of, are the unintended consequences of budget measures, more land lost to non farming, less planning and less investment, more money surrendered to insurance and accountants than employing staff or investing in the business, the business being food security of UK, maintaining consumer choice, and protecting the environment - that’s where Labour money grab is taking the money from.
If you think you are whacking spiders, you are actually shrinking the song bird population, Labour.
One in ten to be hit with £3,000 council tax bills after Keir Starmer gives local authorities permission to raise it by nearly three times the rate of inflation
Labour were disingenuous to say taxes on working people were out of bounds without agreeing to swingeing wealth taxes.
Despite the Conservative pretence that taxes are not a requirement to provide public services how do we fund, health, education and defence without a growth plan? Likewise who empties our bins when local authorities are flat on their arse?
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
A lot of people have heard the rumours. Surely only a matter of time...
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
I do - it's all nonsense.
I would say that twitter is awash today with speculation as @Leon says
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
A lot of people have heard the rumours. Surely only a matter of time...
Cummings thinks people are mistaken.
Really? I'm shocked. Shocked, that Cummings might think other people are wrong.
Edit - although to be fair, if you're referring to what I think you are he's probably right.
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
A lot of people have heard the rumours. Surely only a matter of time...
Cummings thinks people are mistaken.
There are in fact more substantial rumours out there, backed up with evidence. It is nothing to do with the fluff referenced by Big Bad Dom
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
A lot of people have heard the rumours. Surely only a matter of time...
Cummings thinks people are mistaken.
There are in fact more substantial rumours out there, backed up with evidence. It is nothing to do with the fluff referenced by Big Bad Dom
It's backed up with fake documents that people are taking as real...
In response to @Leon 's enquiry yesterday about Bluesky.
I've just dropped a toe in the water for the last few weeks, and just tipped over 100 followers. For those familiar with the Twitter timeline, I'd say it is in roughly autumn 2007 by comparison. UK politicos going onto Twitter started in about spring 2007 with early adopters or media tarts, and the process was largely done by about autumn 2008.
I like there being an absence of deliberate manipulation by Musk and the Muskovites.
I have a decent Twitter community of a little under 5k followers, since I have been cross-partisan and cross-cutting by design since I started my blog in 2007, and I have maintained my community by trimming dormant follows and followers every year or so. It's going to take some effort to rebuild on Bluesky, but that is currently possible - with lots of new people around. I get follow backs from most.
On Twitter strategy-type people (eg Mark Pack) are putting in the plumbing interconnection and future influence for their communities. A different set of hub / distributor accounts will emerge from Twitter.
Automated and ease-of-use tools are not so available. Remember the difference made by Tweetdeck and Hootsuite? I'm not sure how this will go.
I'm also not sure about Bluesky's future business model.
One test will be what happens when people who have other platforms to cross-promote from start feeling they have to be on Bluesky, and take their followers with them.
For me, a couple of my current core niches are shifting to Bluesky - active travel and disabled. Which makes the decision to transfer more likely.
From my point of view, if I lose the "patriots" and the trolls I won't miss them. Nor the Pfaffers - people focused on football, autos, flags and the far right, which seem to go together, including the Usonian types who have never left Alabama and think their laws rule everywhere. Reform UK can have them.
An absence of drive by abuse artists posting "the pedestrian should have got out of the way" (tbf I don't get that many), every time someone is run down on a zebra crossing, will be welcome. And they are irrelevant in the UK for the next several years, as in my niche it is all about delivery not diversionary debates.
Equally, an account with a small number of followers is great for self-expression, just like a blog which only gets 100 readers a week.
What do you want from it ,and what do you want to put in?
I just want it to fail because it is full of wankers
I'll give you that that's succinct.
Do you wish the same on any chain of hotels for the same reason?
Sorry, couldn't resist the amusement of a one line reply after your eloquent and lengthy explanation (for which I am grateful)
That said, I do think it will fail, in the end, for several reasons
1. It is full of wankers, mainly on the left
so
2. It will become an echo chamber, and boring
therefore
3. In their boredom, and absent rightwingers to argue with, the users will turn on each other and it will descend into fratricidal chaos, and they don't have the money/skill to moderate it
That's fine - it's Friday or Sunday.
Quippage is the norm (not the noom), when one engages The Leon.
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
A lot of people have heard the rumours. Surely only a matter of time...
Cummings thinks people are mistaken.
There are in fact more substantial rumours out there, backed up with evidence. It is nothing to do with the fluff referenced by Big Bad Dom
It's backed up with fake documents that people are taking as real...
I am not referring to THAT
Do a bit of digging and you can find people that are speaking with a certain open-ness, approaching it from a very different angle, and they are in a position to talk with authority
I'll say no more because it's all lawyered to fuck, and I have work to do!
I'm also fuming at Labour now talking up migrant deportation schemes with Vietnam and Kurdistan. We had a deal in place and they fucking scrapped it for no good reason. Record illegal immigrant arrivals and now he's realised that axing the deterrent was a bad idea. As @Casino_Royale said, it's sixth form politics.
You don’t buy the argument, processing overseas and letting successful applicants live in your country in line with your international legal obligations on refugee’s, and processing abroad and not allow successful applicants to live in your country in line with your international legal obligations on refugee’s, are two completely different things?
A few months ago, Meloni’s overseas processing schemes were being held up as an example for us, and rest of Europe - now those schemes are in tatters, and Meloni could be on the way out soon.
I take a much tougher line on it. I'd only accept refugees where we have invited them, so only in the case of Ukraine, Hong Kong, Afghans who worked with the UK and Syrians from the camps more recently. It's a firm no to everyone else from me. Asylum rules are too easy to abuse otherwise and you end up with a free for all as we see now where people are coached by charities to say the right phrases to get into the asylum system and then abscond. Having mandatory deportation for anyone who just arrives in the UK uninvited is the only way to prevent this. If that breaks international law then so be it. We need to look after our own citizens and those we have chosen to help, not every Tom, Dick and Harry who pays the people smugglers enough money to get here illegally.
So you do understand there is that key difference, why UK signed up to the international asylum laws in the first place - Churchill and his cabinets were so keen on them and helped set them up, and remaining in them is still so important to many Conservative Party members even today, despite asylum system under pressure amidst waves of economic migration?
I have made the same argument as @MaxPB on this repeatedly. Our asylum system reflects the guilt of a generation that turned Jews away and then discovered the horrors of the camps. Understandable, but simply not sustainable in a much more mobile world that is still full of chaos, bigotry and threats.
I would not want the UK to be unilateral about this but the current asylum system needs radical change. We need to work with others to ensure that asylum is not a right but a gift which we can make or withhold according to our judgment and our interests. The collapse of the current system is one beacon of light in the deep darkness of a second Trump Presidency.
If Labour wanted to keep the Tories out for a generation then they would lead on this with the US and other European countries and be the party that fixed the illegal immigration problem. They won't because the idea probably disgusts Starmer and he probably views anyone who wants to stop illegal immigration as bigots and racists.
I am unclear what you are talking about. Most illegal immigration to the UK involves people overstaying visas and is unrelated to those seeking asylum. It is not illegal to seek asylum. Those who have their asylum claims rejected and those who have abused the visa rules should be deported, something the Conservatives failed to do. Deportations completely collapsed over the 14 years of Tory rule. The number of asylum seekers the UK takes in is not high compared to much of Europe or North America.
The US is in a very different situation, with vastly higher numbers of illegal immigrants and of asylum seekers, but also the US is a country built from immigration.
Also, Starmer and Cooper have ramped up deportations very quickly. The idea that they are soft on illegal immigration doesn't bear scrutiny.
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
A lot of people have heard the rumours. Surely only a matter of time...
Cummings thinks people are mistaken.
There are in fact more substantial rumours out there, backed up with evidence. It is nothing to do with the fluff referenced by Big Bad Dom
It's backed up with fake documents that people are taking as real...
I am not referring to THAT
Do a bit of digging and you can find people that are speaking with a certain open-ness, approaching it from a very different angle, and they are in a position to talk with authority
I'll say no more because it's all lawyered to fuck, and I have work to do!
One in ten to be hit with £3,000 council tax bills after Keir Starmer gives local authorities permission to raise it by nearly three times the rate of inflation
I don’t like it either. But we need to maintain positive thinking, and keep active and get outside as much as we can.
Aside from that, I’ve watched Agatha All Along, The Franchise and Nobody Wants This, this week.
It’s only Agatha All Along I’d recommend. I’m not sure The Franchise is actually made as a comedy. Though it doesn’t work as a drama.
I managed 10 minutes of the Franchise because it wasn't funny and they somehow managed to make the back stage of a TV studio completely uninteresting (which takes a lot of skill).
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
I do - it's all nonsense.
I'd be surprised if you know more than me, and I only know 5% of what is a known unknown, what about the unknown unknown and how does this fit in with the Anglesey Situation, and the involvement of the Argentine?
He wouldn't do that. Not Barry. Sometimes things are that simple.
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
I do - it's all nonsense.
I would say that twitter is awash today with speculation as @Leon says
I have no knowledge of its veracity
You could post this every day and be bang on the money.
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
I do - it's all nonsense.
I'd be surprised if you know more than me, and I only know 5% of what is a known unknown, what about the unknown unknown and how does this fit in with the Anglesey Situation, and the involvement of the Argentine?
He wouldn't do that. Not Barry. Sometimes things are that simple.
I agree with that. But why was the thin man waiting at the airfield, like he knew all along?
And when you look at the website, it's 98 not 92 so it can't be true about The Vermont Incident
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
I do - it's all nonsense.
I would say that twitter is awash today with speculation as @Leon says
I have no knowledge of its veracity
You could post this every day and be bang on the money.
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
I do - it's all nonsense.
I would say that twitter is awash today with speculation as @Leon says
I have no knowledge of its veracity
As our man on or near the spot, how does Anglesey fit into it? Or is it Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch?
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
Hutton's argument is that they can sell off part of the farm. It might even depress land values.
They have loads of options. Gift slices of the farm to their inheritors every 7 years and they need pay nothing at all.
The most obvious way to do this is by means of a partnership through which the capital can be transferred from one generation to the next over time whilst regulating the shares of profits (or losses) to reflect the work actually done on the farm.
There is a group with no obvious options: very old farmers who have held on to ownership, correctly under the exisiting law, and who won't have 7 years to rectify and rearrange. They should receive special treatment.
The slightly odd thing is that the government is sticking to the plan, suggesting that very few are affected because of exemptions, (that therefore it will raise little cash), but that the economy requires this change. This does its image little good at the very moment it holds rural seats for the first time in ages.
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
A lot of people have heard the rumours. Surely only a matter of time...
Cummings thinks people are mistaken.
There are in fact more substantial rumours out there, backed up with evidence. It is nothing to do with the fluff referenced by Big Bad Dom
It's backed up with fake documents that people are taking as real...
Seems like some people on social media fancy Christmas in pokey.
I'm also fuming at Labour now talking up migrant deportation schemes with Vietnam and Kurdistan. We had a deal in place and they fucking scrapped it for no good reason. Record illegal immigrant arrivals and now he's realised that axing the deterrent was a bad idea. As @Casino_Royale said, it's sixth form politics.
You don’t buy the argument, processing overseas and letting successful applicants live in your country in line with your international legal obligations on refugee’s, and processing abroad and not allow successful applicants to live in your country in line with your international legal obligations on refugee’s, are two completely different things?
A few months ago, Meloni’s overseas processing schemes were being held up as an example for us, and rest of Europe - now those schemes are in tatters, and Meloni could be on the way out soon.
They aren't, if anything they are being held up by liberal judges and Meloni's party still has a comfortable 7% lead in the latest Italian poll
I think you will find the following points are accurate.
Meloni’s governments argument in court was their scheme was okay by internal commitments because it was obviously more humane than the UK Tory Governments that was consigning people to developing countries.
Polling shows already 55% of Italians hate this costly fiasco of a policy, But despite what opinion polls show right now, the political scandal of wasting money, on what they were told would not work and would waste money, is what costs votes and credibility, as this part of it is exactly what hurt the recent Tory government too - shredded credibility from years talking up a priority and delivering zilch on it in face of rising costs. The Italian government is concurrently struggling to balance the budget – austerity budget for education, health and social security – so the “financial disaster” of wasting money on something that so obviously couldn’t happen with Italy’s international agreements as they are, has certainly sunk Meloni’s government. If you don’t believe me just watch.
And it all sounds so very similar?
The policy was blocked by judges in line with EU law.
If there is any backlash it won't be to Meloni but potentially for ItalExit from the EU
If backlash? There’s already backlash, on cost and lack of delivery, trying to blame EU and domestic judges, also in full swing, isn’t working - the costs and lack of delivery on the issue is coming out on top, not least because they were told it won’t work because of, but insisted it will work despite of, and it failed because of.
Clearly it is working given Meloni's coalition still has a comfortable poll lead
No, change is afoot. Raised taxes, a billion euros of taxpayers’ money wasted on the migrant centres, nearly 5 million people cannot get any health care each year. It’s not the “must do something about migration” questioned, or the specific scheme being hated, it’s how the wasted money from centres and military transport costs fits into the tax up, austerity on, lack of delivery bigger picture. It’s a typical weakness of PB to know foreign governments only though specific policies or leader loved or hated, and not the bigger picture locally.
Millennium Stadium not full for a proper Test rugby international against Tier 1 Australia. Quite shocking
Welsh rugby is in a dreadful state, possibly almost as bad as English rugby
The thing is club rugby, at least Premiership rugby, is more entertaining than ever due in no small part to the rule changes. The international game can still be more stodgy.
Could the lack of full house at Millennium be cost? How much is a ticket for todays game? Some rugby tickets have really stupid prices e.g. a mate invited me down to Bath vs Bristol a few weeks ago, but I politely declined when I found it was £110. With travel, beers and food, thats a £200+ day out.
Clearly I am not going to say anything specific, but TwiX today is full of extraordinary rumours. So much so, I have non-political friends whatsapping me and saying "is this true? What do you know???"
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
A lot of people have heard the rumours. Surely only a matter of time...
Cummings thinks people are mistaken.
There are in fact more substantial rumours out there, backed up with evidence. It is nothing to do with the fluff referenced by Big Bad Dom
I love twitter Steve Inman is a god for example and I wouldn't miss an Owen Jones tweet. But you really have to discount 99.98% of what is posted in circumstances such as these.
Because even if one rumour is true, for every one of those there are five hundred which are bollocks. It is indeed the stopped clock of the internet.
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
Hutton's argument is that they can sell off part of the farm. It might even depress land values.
They have loads of options. Gift slices of the farm to their inheritors every 7 years and they need pay nothing at all.
The most obvious way to do this is by means of a partnership through which the capital can be transferred from one generation to the next over time whilst regulating the shares of profits (or losses) to reflect the work actually done on the farm.
There is a group with no obvious options: very old farmers who have held on to ownership, correctly under the exisiting law, and who won't have 7 years to rectify and rearrange. They should receive special treatment.
The slightly odd thing is that the government is sticking to the plan, suggesting that very few are affected because of exemptions, (that therefore it will raise little cash), but that the economy requires this change. This does its image little good at the very moment it holds rural seats for the first time in ages.
On the farming thing, farmers, a fair few of which I know, must tread carefully. And they realise this.
A million pounds you say (some say £3m)? Whatever the iniquities in the individual cases, as with VAT on school fees, there are too many people, Labour voters many of them who can only dream of such riches.
But if you are allergic to Schoffels then steer clear of central London on Tuesday.
Oh that's super boring. I was just about to ask PB about a modern day dilemma.
Father and young son (say 10 yrs old) sitting diagonally opposite each other, and across the aisle from me on the train, both on their phones, and the kid just put his feet on the seat in front.
What do you say and to whom.
(Note: they both just this minute stood up and got off the train.)
Millennium Stadium not full for a proper Test rugby international against Tier 1 Australia. Quite shocking
Welsh rugby is in a dreadful state, possibly almost as bad as English rugby
The thing is club rugby, at least Premiership rugby, is more entertaining than ever due in no small part to the rule changes. The international game can still be more stodgy.
Could the lack of full house at Millennium be cost? How much is a ticket for todays game? Some rugby tickets have really stupid prices e.g. a mate invited me down to Bath vs Bristol a few weeks ago, but I politely declined when I found it was £110. With travel, beers and food, thats a £200+ day out.
And if you'd taken in a show in the evening in London that would have been £500.
Millennium Stadium not full for a proper Test rugby international against Tier 1 Australia. Quite shocking
Welsh rugby is in a dreadful state, possibly almost as bad as English rugby
The thing is club rugby, at least Premiership rugby, is more entertaining than ever due in no small part to the rule changes. The international game can still be more stodgy.
Could the lack of full house at Millennium be cost? How much is a ticket for todays game? Some rugby tickets have really stupid prices e.g. a mate invited me down to Bath vs Bristol a few weeks ago, but I politely declined when I found it was £110. With travel, beers and food, thats a £200+ day out.
And if you'd taken in a show in the evening in London that would have been £500.
Club rugby used to be a pretty cheap day out.
We have seen how £150 test match cricket tickets have now started to result in plenty of empty seats at places.
Oh that's super boring. I was just about to ask PB about a modern day dilemma.
Father and young son (say 10 yrs old) sitting diagonally opposite each other, and across the aisle from me on the train, both on their phones, and the kid just put his feet on the seat in front.
What do you say and to whom.
(Note: they both just this minute stood up and got off the train.)
When did they rename it the Principality Stadium? Annoying change
I don't like change
Are you up in Arms about it?
(The answer's 2016, by the way. Before that it was the Millenium Stadium, before that the National Stadium although nobody ever called it that, and before that, of course, Cardiff Arms Park.)
In response to @Leon 's enquiry yesterday about Bluesky.
I've just dropped a toe in the water for the last few weeks, and just tipped over 100 followers. For those familiar with the Twitter timeline, I'd say it is in roughly autumn 2007 by comparison. UK politicos going onto Twitter started in about spring 2007 with early adopters or media tarts, and the process was largely done by about autumn 2008.
I like there being an absence of deliberate manipulation by Musk and the Muskovites.
I have a decent Twitter community of a little under 5k followers, since I have been cross-partisan and cross-cutting by design since I started my blog in 2007, and I have maintained my community by trimming dormant follows and followers every year or so. It's going to take some effort to rebuild on Bluesky, but that is currently possible - with lots of new people around. I get follow backs from most.
On Twitter strategy-type people (eg Mark Pack) are putting in the plumbing interconnection and future influence for their communities. A different set of hub / distributor accounts will emerge from Twitter.
Automated and ease-of-use tools are not so available. Remember the difference made by Tweetdeck and Hootsuite? I'm not sure how this will go.
I'm also not sure about Bluesky's future business model.
One test will be what happens when people who have other platforms to cross-promote from start feeling they have to be on Bluesky, and take their followers with them.
For me, a couple of my current core niches are shifting to Bluesky - active travel and disabled. Which makes the decision to transfer more likely.
From my point of view, if I lose the "patriots" and the trolls I won't miss them. Nor the Pfaffers - people focused on football, autos, flags and the far right, which seem to go together, including the Usonian types who have never left Alabama and think their laws rule everywhere. Reform UK can have them.
An absence of drive by abuse artists posting "the pedestrian should have got out of the way" (tbf I don't get that many), every time someone is run down on a zebra crossing, will be welcome. And they are irrelevant in the UK for the next several years, as in my niche it is all about delivery not diversionary debates.
Equally, an account with a small number of followers is great for self-expression, just like a blog which only gets 100 readers a week.
What do you want from it ,and what do you want to put in?
I just want it to fail because it is full of wankers
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
Hutton's argument is that they can sell off part of the farm. It might even depress land values.
They have loads of options. Gift slices of the farm to their inheritors every 7 years and they need pay nothing at all.
They need to pay an annual market rent on the gifted property otherwise it is a gift with reservation which doesn’t work for IHT
Oh that's super boring. I was just about to ask PB about a modern day dilemma.
Father and young son (say 10 yrs old) sitting diagonally opposite each other, and across the aisle from me on the train, both on their phones, and the kid just put his feet on the seat in front.
What do you say and to whom.
(Note: they both just this minute stood up and got off the train.)
That ship sailed long ago. Say nothing to anyone.
Nah it irritates me. Like in the Quiet Coach. Not having people on the phone.
If UK bill payers are about to be forced to fund this infrastructure spending (which seems likely), then we shouldn't have to bail out the effectively bankrupt company's shareholders (largely overseas). We should own it.
Will Hutton makes a good argument for the changes to farming death duties in The Observer. I hadn't realised Thatcher had introduced it in 1984. So long as the wealthy prioritise and are incentivised to prioritise land ownership we will be a country in decline.
Most farmers aren't wealthy but income poor even if asset rich
Hutton's argument is that they can sell off part of the farm. It might even depress land values.
They have loads of options. Gift slices of the farm to their inheritors every 7 years and they need pay nothing at all.
They need to pay an annual market rent on the gifted property otherwise it is a gift with reservation which doesn’t work for IHT
Set up a trust...
There are changes occurring there as well - so probably not the best advice.
Comments
There's an assumption of a proportionate equation that the Tories would have lost an extra 10 seats per month for every extra month they held on, but without any evidence for it.
Politics doesn't work like that, even if it does make a good story.
Meanwhile how would Farage's relationship with Trump be impacting voters - Reform on 20 seats+ ??
It uses scarce inputs wastefully, destroying epic amounts of value. Many family farms are particularly inefficient (though some, generally making niche products, are more viable). The sooner we close most of it down and redeploy the inputs the better, and leaving the EU was a great opportunity to do that.
But you are right on the optics
Votes received and percentages of total vote
Candidate Votes Pct.
Ruben Gallego DEM 1,669,135 50.1
Kari Lake GOP 1,589,790 47.7
Eduardo Quintana GRN 75,337 2.3
Lead 79,345
Gallego (D) is projected to win by the Associated Press.
That is an outrageous sweeping statement that needs a citation. Because HY is right, a lot of farming is income/profit poor, requiring help with investment and planning, not money taken out of investment and planning.
I’ve argued that this argument is being argued all wrong - Labour want to be seen as enemy’s of privilege at time of belt tightening/black hole filling (that we all ain’t dumb and know as war chest building for later in parliament). So it’s politically dumb for Labours opponents to also paint Labour as the enemy of what it sees as privilege, it misses the point being the danger here, as with all Reeves unraveling budget Starmer is so proud of, are the unintended consequences of budget measures, more land lost to non farming, less planning and less investment, more money surrendered to insurance and accountants than employing staff or investing in the business, the business being food security of UK, maintaining consumer choice, and protecting the environment - that’s where Labour money grab is taking the money from.
If you think you are whacking spiders, you are actually shrinking the song bird population, Labour.
Burnham may well have won the 2017 GE I agree. Picking Corbyn over him in 2015 probably had the cost of giving Labour another 7 years in opposition
https://taxjustice.uk/blog/dont-be-fooled-its-super-rich-landowners-who-are-attacking-agricultural-tax-relief-changes/
P.S. Gutted that I missed out on a spot in your Hot 100 of PB posters. Did I at least make the Hot 1000?
Land yields are only 2-2.5% which is not much good when interest rates are over 4%
Do you wish the same on any chain of hotels for the same reason?
In fact the average rent of the 45,000 rental agreements in the UK is £5000...
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/farm-rents
and even you example below of 3000 acres and £650,000 income shows that it's probably £200 an acre per year...
That said, I do think it will fail, in the end, for several reasons
1. It is full of wankers, mainly on the left
so
2. It will become an echo chamber, and boring
therefore
3. In their boredom, and absent rightwingers to argue with, the users will turn on each other and it will descend into fratricidal chaos, and they don't have the money/skill to moderate it
I have concerns about Musk, having read his biography I don't think he has experience working as a team player so it is concerning that he is so close to the decision making.
They think that as I am mildly connected I have some further details. I do not. Wish I did!
It's an hour long, so perhaps one to use as wallpaper listening.
Brian Taylor-Cohen and Glen Kirschner, so progressive opinion, but also domain specialists.
https://youtu.be/ORiQqcLfpxc?t=85
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14092829/one-ten-3000-council-tax-permission-raise-inflation.html
Labour may be paving our way to hell with their ignorance and unintended consequences - but PB Pirates will run a shuttle service A to B down it.
Where Meloni has been successful is in paying African countries not to let immigrants through their territory. Throughout Europe, nothing is off the table now, including redrafting treaties and conventions.
Mainstream parties are finally taking notice that they are losing votes to the populist right.
Quippage is the norm (not the noom), when one engages The Leon.
Provide one avoids Absinthe O Clock
But the list was just whatever came into my head at the moment. At least you are not living rent free there, eh?
Despite the Conservative pretence that taxes are not a requirement to provide public services how do we fund, health, education and defence without a growth plan? Likewise who empties our bins when local authorities are flat on their arse?
The US is in a very different situation, with vastly higher numbers of illegal immigrants and of asylum seekers, but also the US is a country built from immigration.
The problem however is that council costs are rising far faster than 5% a year.
Worth saying that when asked last week the Local Government Minister did not rule out more council tax bands, a revaluations or even shifting to a property price based system (which simplifies any revaluation issues because there isn't enough staff to do that before this the next election).
.
This follows 10% and 9% increases under Welsh labour
You are lucky it is only 5%
Spun nonsense from “tax justice” is your thing now?
I have no knowledge of its veracity
Edit - although to be fair, if you're referring to what I think you are he's probably right.
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/nov/16/absinthe-uk-revival-spirit-banned-france
Do a bit of digging and you can find people that are speaking with a certain open-ness, approaching it from a very different angle, and they are in a position to talk with authority
I'll say no more because it's all lawyered to fuck, and I have work to do!
E'en and anon
Aside from that, I’ve watched Agatha All Along, The Franchise and Nobody Wants This, this week.
It’s only Agatha All Along I’d recommend. I’m not sure The Franchise is actually made as a comedy. Though it doesn’t work as a drama.
And when you look at the website, it's 98 not 92 so it can't be true about The Vermont Incident
Welsh rugby is in a dreadful state, possibly almost as bad as English rugby
The slightly odd thing is that the government is sticking to the plan, suggesting that very few are affected because of exemptions, (that therefore it will raise little cash), but that the economy requires this change. This does its image little good at the very moment it holds rural seats for the first time in ages.
Could the lack of full house at Millennium be cost? How much is a ticket for todays game? Some rugby tickets have really stupid prices e.g. a mate invited me down to Bath vs Bristol a few weeks ago, but I politely declined when I found it was £110. With travel, beers and food, thats a £200+ day out.
Because even if one rumour is true, for every one of those there are five hundred which are bollocks. It is indeed the stopped clock of the internet.
A million pounds you say (some say £3m)? Whatever the iniquities in the individual cases, as with VAT on school fees, there are too many people, Labour voters many of them who can only dream of such riches.
But if you are allergic to Schoffels then steer clear of central London on Tuesday.
Father and young son (say 10 yrs old) sitting diagonally opposite each other, and across the aisle from me on the train, both on their phones, and the kid just put his feet on the seat in front.
What do you say and to whom.
(Note: they both just this minute stood up and got off the train.)
We have seen how £150 test match cricket tickets have now started to result in plenty of empty seats at places.
I don't like change
(The answer's 2016, by the way. Before that it was the Millenium Stadium, before that the National Stadium although nobody ever called it that, and before that, of course, Cardiff Arms Park.)
UK cheeses miss out on international prize after getting stuck in customs
At the World Cheese Awards in Portugal, British entries were conspicuous by their absence after failing to clear import controls
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/nov/16/uk-cheeses-miss-out-on-international-prize-after-getting-stuck-in-customs
We should own it.
Thames Water supply ‘on knife-edge’ with £23bn repairs needed
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/17/thames-water-supply-knife-edge-23bn-repairs-needed