Plus how many times are we going to hear Lab trot (geddit?) out the phrase "to fund the NHS"? As Cyclefree noted, not every bloody thing in this country should be structured around the NHS which, as readers will be aware I believe, is a useless, not fit for purpose organisation as interested in killing people as mending their broken legs.
How about farmers pay their taxes so we can fund our armed forces to deal with Russia?
The taxes from this measure might be enough to fund a decent condition GPMG-mounted Mini Metro off Autotrader, from what Dan Neidle says.
Steady. First let’s have a meeting to really bottom out the requirement. After a 6 month concept phase I think we’re quite likely to decide that we need our mini metro to have different windscreen wipers and a Rolls Royce engine.
Now, I know the budget won’t cover that, but it will cover the assessment phase while we plan for it. In the end we can have a mini metro delivered in two years, at twice the current quoted price, fitted “for but not with” an engine. That’s how we do things here.
Endeavour to.
Is the bit you're missing. Because it will never actually be delivered, or be stuck up a ramp for 24 months refurb before we get it, obvs.
The main reason public sector productivity is so poor is the inability to move unproductive people out. The ultimate tool for increasing output per worker is to shit can the least productive ones which is something that private sector businesses do all the time. Until that attitude is brought to the public sector no amount of "investment" will help. The lazy and the feckless are attracted to the public sector because they know once they're in it's impossible to be removed regardless of how shit they are at the job.
Change this and suddenly public sector productivity will shoot up as those lazy buggers start to fear for their next salary.
To broaden the point, where's the incentive to sack people who aren't performing - where is the incentive to perform at all? The money comes from Government grant, so the incentive is actually to fail, because failing services get more money thrown at them. The NHS has been very successful at failing for years. An efficient, high performance public service would see its budget reduced the next year.
What we really need is a total reordering of incentives within the public sector, where possible based on the money following the user, and the user having choice. If hospitals and schools had to attract patients and pupils to get funding, all the perverse incentives would be reversed and the services grow better and more efficient.
Meanwhile, one for you Brexitoloons who support our leaving the EU.
I am currently on the Eurostar and while I was still in the UK there was no wifi, literally none, despite trying to connect via the Eurostar app/web page.
Now I am in La France I can say it is lightning fast and I am able, finally, to bring my thoughts and wisdom to PB.
In this case, the Brexit dividend of peace and quiet went to the rest of us…
Cheeky. You're one of those rich ****ers that TFS was going on about, aren't you.
Plus how many times are we going to hear Lab trot (geddit?) out the phrase "to fund the NHS"? As Cyclefree noted, not every bloody thing in this country should be structured around the NHS which, as readers will be aware I believe, is a useless, not fit for purpose organisation as interested in killing people as mending their broken legs.
How about farmers pay their taxes so we can fund our armed forces to deal with Russia?
Farmers have done quite well out of Ukraine; wheat prices went up 50% during the start of the invasion.
Other sectors got whacked with a windfall tax when that happened...
Plus how many times are we going to hear Lab trot (geddit?) out the phrase "to fund the NHS"? As Cyclefree noted, not every bloody thing in this country should be structured around the NHS which, as readers will be aware I believe, is a useless, not fit for purpose organisation as interested in killing people as mending their broken legs.
How about farmers pay their taxes so we can fund our armed forces to deal with Russia?
Farmers have done quite well out of Ukraine; wheat prices went up 50% during the start of the invasion.
Other sectors got whacked with a windfall tax when that happened...
Hmm, I'd guess more than offset by energy and fertiliser costs. Would be interesting to see the net figure.
While Bademoch has promised to reverse the IHT changes for farmers and the VAT on school fees, she does not seem to have done the same for the end of the universal winter fuel allowance.
It is Tory policy to reverse the winter fuel cut too
It's labour's policy in Scotland - let Starmer explain that one
I'll be interested to see how Mr Sarwar promises to do that without budget cuts elsewhere, as the Barnett consequential of the DWP WFA has vanished (hence the SNP having to follow suit).
NB that this isn't grandstanding for the GE but the rather sooner Holyrood election which however isn't till May 2026, so time for him to quietly forget about it.
Tbf, the Barnett consequentials for Scotland are substantial this time round. There's enough cash to do it and the policy is now devolved (PAWHP).
Sure, but only the jmeans tested kind, and how can they do it except the same way as London? Which the SNP would have to do anyway. So no difference there. Troiuble is, any other way of doing it costs money to administer. Unless they do it as a tax allowance which is taxable? But then the SG don't get the tax back and the budget for that won't therefore balance.
Edit: also, the SG taxation powers are very limited. Might not allow the SG to organise anyuthing sensible to deal with the WFP replacement.
I think there is now enough slack to do it on a universal basis. But yes, in the medium term it would either be universal or PC-based. We kinda need a "Scottish Pensioner Payment" that is similar to the Scottish Child Payment rates of eligibility.
In theory the SG can change income tax however they want. They are going to get fewer/less receipts anyway due to depressing effect of employer NICs changes on salaries.
In NI, there's a one-off £100 payment this year to everyone facing WFA withdrawal, costing £17m. Not sure that that's the best use of the money, though, given that the Health & Social Care service is facing a £400m deficit...
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
This is going to devastate the entire university sector. As I predicted
When you graduate is possibly more important than how well you graduate, economy booming, off into a good graduate training scheme and a career, economy in the toilet no graduate training schemes, just have to hang on in there and hope that you get a break when things eventually pic up.
The main reason public sector productivity is so poor is the inability to move unproductive people out. The ultimate tool for increasing output per worker is to shit can the least productive ones which is something that private sector businesses do all the time. Until that attitude is brought to the public sector no amount of "investment" will help. The lazy and the feckless are attracted to the public sector because they know once they're in it's impossible to be removed regardless of how shit they are at the job.
Change this and suddenly public sector productivity will shoot up as those lazy buggers start to fear for their next salary.
To broaden the point, where's the incentive to sack people who aren't performing - where is the incentive to perform at all? The money comes from Government grant, so the incentive is actually to fail, because failing services get more money thrown at them. The NHS has been very successful at failing for years. An efficient, high performance public service would see its budget reduced the next year.
What we really need is a total reordering of incentives within the public sector, where possible based on the money following the user, and the user having choice. If hospitals and schools had to attract patients and pupils to get funding, all the perverse incentives would be reversed and the services grow better and more efficient.
The public sector is under immense pressure — from users, from taxpayers, from politicians — to perform well and efficiently. It’s complete nonsense to suggest otherwise. Services that demonstrate good outcomes get funding. With populations increasing and inflation high, an efficient public service will still need a larger budget.
Hospitals and schools already work within an internal market. You get choice of ver what hospital to go to and this affects what money that hospital gets. Ditto with schools. These reforms have not delivered efficiency gains, however. We should stop pretending that healthcare is the same as buying washing powder.
Without doubt one of the worst thread headers TSE has ever done.
No party wins general elections without shoring up their core vote first and for Tories they include private school parents and farmers. Voters also want a choice not an echo, if you want to hammer farmers with inheritance tax and hit private school parents with VAT you vote Labour anyway and if the Tories don't stand up for farmers and private school parents they will leak voters to Reform and the LDs who will.
Plus 57% of voters oppose the hated tractor tax anyway
Not to mention VAT on school fees will just reduce the scholarships they provide and hit smaller schools most making them even more exclusive. While we need family farms to produce our food, you can't make food from houses. Most farms may be asset rich but they are income poor
If you are asset rich but income poor, you can get a mortgage or similar sort of loan. It’s not difficult.
We need houses to live in. You can’t make houses from food (pace Hansel & Gretel).
Can you explain how you pay a mortgage from a poor income. The whole point is they will need to sell at least part of farm to pay it so making it even poorer income etc. Idiocy thought up by morons. It should be tax applied when any sale is made , inheriting land is worth nothing unless you sell.
How can the land be worth so much if it is impossible to generate any income from it?
Inheriting any possession is worth nothing unless you sell.
You should only pay when you sell , up till then you have zero cash/income passed on. Not beyond teh wit of man to devise a scheme where they get tax when that asset or another one in it's place is sold and profit made. Whreas saying those fields are worth 3M hand over cash please is insane.
The main reason public sector productivity is so poor is the inability to move unproductive people out. The ultimate tool for increasing output per worker is to shit can the least productive ones which is something that private sector businesses do all the time. Until that attitude is brought to the public sector no amount of "investment" will help. The lazy and the feckless are attracted to the public sector because they know once they're in it's impossible to be removed regardless of how shit they are at the job.
Change this and suddenly public sector productivity will shoot up as those lazy buggers start to fear for their next salary.
To broaden the point, where's the incentive to sack people who aren't performing - where is the incentive to perform at all? The money comes from Government grant, so the incentive is actually to fail, because failing services get more money thrown at them. The NHS has been very successful at failing for years. An efficient, high performance public service would see its budget reduced the next year.
What we really need is a total reordering of incentives within the public sector, where possible based on the money following the user, and the user having choice. If hospitals and schools had to attract patients and pupils to get funding, all the perverse incentives would be reversed and the services grow better and more efficient.
Not recessarily. You’d have to allow the business units access to capital to help them grow, in order to compete for the extra work from their neighbours. There are upfront costs after all. So you could create more capacity than we need and drive unnecessarily competition for the same labour, driving up wages.
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
This is going to devastate the entire university sector. As I predicted
When you graduate is possibly more important than how well you graduate, economy booming, off into a good graduate training scheme and a career, economy in the toilet no graduate training schemes, just have to hang on in there and hope that you get a break when things eventually pic up.
No this is different, new and bad
The university sector as we have known it for decades (centuries?) is about the vanish
PB is becoming a class ridden shithole. The very jobs you rich fuckers denigrate, the jobs you think are only fit for the the lazy and feckless, are the jobs you feckers won't do. You need someone to deliver your Hello Fresh food box because you're too fucking lazy to go to the shop yourself. You need someone to wipe your elderly parents arse because you certainly ain't going to do it. You're far too busy being important lawyers and bankers and financiers and fancy project managers to realise that having tossers doing the menial stuff means you get to have your new Apple iWank delivered by a minimum wage courier at a time and place of your choosing, so you can carry on doing the important stuff instead of having to meet poor people in shopping centres. I'd flounce, but I'm too lazy and feckless. And no one would notice anyway 🤡
Lol. In your list of jobs 'rich fuckers denigrate' do you have farmers?
Supposedly they are all multi -millionaires rolling in it.
Plus how many times are we going to hear Lab trot (geddit?) out the phrase "to fund the NHS"? As Cyclefree noted, not every bloody thing in this country should be structured around the NHS which, as readers will be aware I believe, is a useless, not fit for purpose organisation as interested in killing people as mending their broken legs.
How about farmers pay their taxes so we can fund our armed forces to deal with Russia?
Farmers have done quite well out of Ukraine; wheat prices went up 50% during the start of the invasion.
Other sectors got whacked with a windfall tax when that happened...
What happened to their input costs?…
He should be checking the price of his quinoa but probably never has to worry about and has no clue what it costs.
PB is becoming a class ridden shithole. The very jobs you rich fuckers denigrate, the jobs you think are only fit for the the lazy and feckless, are the jobs you feckers won't do. You need someone to deliver your Hello Fresh food box because you're too fucking lazy to go to the shop yourself. You need someone to wipe your elderly parents arse because you certainly ain't going to do it. You're far too busy being important lawyers and bankers and financiers and fancy project managers to realise that having tossers doing the menial stuff means you get to have your new Apple iWank delivered by a minimum wage courier at a time and place of your choosing, so you can carry on doing the important stuff instead of having to meet poor people in shopping centres. I'd flounce, but I'm too lazy and feckless. And no one would notice anyway 🤡
Please don't flounce. What a fantastic post.
We need common people such as yourself on here to remind us why we decided not to go the manual labour/leave school at 16 route and instead worked hard, achieved good jobs through hard work (albeit not breaking paving stones kind of hard work - yuk) and are now generally happy looking down on the rabble of which you form such an important part.
The organisation inside government that built the new Gov.uk won an award for their product.
To give credit where it’s due, I think Gov.UK is very good. I got my passport renewed in nine days.
I just wish that all government online services were as good. HMRC hasn’t even caught up with e-communications.
One of the bright spots of the public sector has been the Data science team in number 10. When the passport office was on its arse a few years ago, they stepped in to improve HMPOs processes and utilised AI where possible. It turned around the passport office from being one of the worse performing public facing government entities to one of the best.
Is it me or has Israel-Palestine completely gone off the news radar since the US election ?
Muslim-Americans (pre-election). "Biden is not doing enough for the Palestinians! We will vote against Kamala to send a message!" Muslim-Americans (post-election). "Oh shit"
Latinos (pre-election). "We are here to stay and Biden is not doing enough for us! We will vote against Kamala to send a message!" Latinos (post-election). "Oh shit"
Not all Latinos, obvs. But the new administration is likely to prove very unpleasant for a lot of people who aren't expecting it.
Meanwhile, one for you Brexitoloons who support our leaving the EU.
I am currently on the Eurostar and while I was still in the UK there was no wifi, literally none, despite trying to connect via the Eurostar app/web page.
Now I am in La France I can say it is lightning fast and I am able, finally, to bring my thoughts and wisdom to PB.
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
This is going to devastate the entire university sector. As I predicted
A Computer Science Professor, more a reflection of a decline in tech software jobs
'"We should be doing something about it today," he urged. O'Brien also cited a WSJ article about how tech jobs are seemingly drying up. The publication found that postings for software development jobs have been down more than 30% since February 2020, according to Indeed.com. '
The main reason public sector productivity is so poor is the inability to move unproductive people out. The ultimate tool for increasing output per worker is to shit can the least productive ones which is something that private sector businesses do all the time. Until that attitude is brought to the public sector no amount of "investment" will help. The lazy and the feckless are attracted to the public sector because they know once they're in it's impossible to be removed regardless of how shit they are at the job.
Change this and suddenly public sector productivity will shoot up as those lazy buggers start to fear for their next salary.
To broaden the point, where's the incentive to sack people who aren't performing - where is the incentive to perform at all? The money comes from Government grant, so the incentive is actually to fail, because failing services get more money thrown at them. The NHS has been very successful at failing for years. An efficient, high performance public service would see its budget reduced the next year.
What we really need is a total reordering of incentives within the public sector, where possible based on the money following the user, and the user having choice. If hospitals and schools had to attract patients and pupils to get funding, all the perverse incentives would be reversed and the services grow better and more efficient.
I'd vote for that.
Schools are funded per pupil, so that's already happening.
The main reason public sector productivity is so poor is the inability to move unproductive people out. The ultimate tool for increasing output per worker is to shit can the least productive ones which is something that private sector businesses do all the time. Until that attitude is brought to the public sector no amount of "investment" will help. The lazy and the feckless are attracted to the public sector because they know once they're in it's impossible to be removed regardless of how shit they are at the job.
Change this and suddenly public sector productivity will shoot up as those lazy buggers start to fear for their next salary.
To broaden the point, where's the incentive to sack people who aren't performing - where is the incentive to perform at all? The money comes from Government grant, so the incentive is actually to fail, because failing services get more money thrown at them. The NHS has been very successful at failing for years. An efficient, high performance public service would see its budget reduced the next year.
What we really need is a total reordering of incentives within the public sector, where possible based on the money following the user, and the user having choice. If hospitals and schools had to attract patients and pupils to get funding, all the perverse incentives would be reversed and the services grow better and more efficient.
The public sector is under immense pressure — from users, from taxpayers, from politicians — to perform well and efficiently. It’s complete nonsense to suggest otherwise. Services that demonstrate good outcomes get funding. With populations increasing and inflation high, an efficient public service will still need a larger budget.
Hospitals and schools already work within an internal market. You get choice of ver what hospital to go to and this affects what money that hospital gets. Ditto with schools. These reforms have not delivered efficiency gains, however. We should stop pretending that healthcare is the same as buying washing powder.
No it is not the same - buying washing powder is a lot better organised, because there is wide consumer choice in where, how, and which washing powder to buy.
It is absolutely not the way you describe with hospitals and schools, they absolutely depend on catchment area and the consumer is not empowered at all.
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
This is going to devastate the entire university sector. As I predicted
A Computer Science Professor, more a reflection of a decline in tech software jobs
'"We should be doing something about it today," he urged. O'Brien also cited a WSJ article about how tech jobs are seemingly drying up. The publication found that postings for software development jobs have been down more than 30% since February 2020, according to Indeed.com. '
If you read the article he says this phenomenon started in the tech sector, but is now expanding to every sector
"He noticed that even outstanding students with 4.0 GPAs were now reaching out to him, worried because, despite their impressive transcripts and experience, they weren't receiving any job offers. He concluded that this was happening because of an irreversible trend that is also part of a broader issue that's impacting almost every job seeker in every area."
Plus how many times are we going to hear Lab trot (geddit?) out the phrase "to fund the NHS"? As Cyclefree noted, not every bloody thing in this country should be structured around the NHS which, as readers will be aware I believe, is a useless, not fit for purpose organisation as interested in killing people as mending their broken legs.
How about farmers pay their taxes so we can fund our armed forces to deal with Russia?
Farmers have done quite well out of Ukraine; wheat prices went up 50% during the start of the invasion.
Other sectors got whacked with a windfall tax when that happened...
Hmm, I'd guess more than offset by energy and fertiliser costs. Would be interesting to see the net figure.
If you're not an arable farmer, that would be a negative net.
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
Plus how many times are we going to hear Lab trot (geddit?) out the phrase "to fund the NHS"? As Cyclefree noted, not every bloody thing in this country should be structured around the NHS which, as readers will be aware I believe, is a useless, not fit for purpose organisation as interested in killing people as mending their broken legs.
How about farmers pay their taxes so we can fund our armed forces to deal with Russia?
The taxes from this measure might be enough to fund a decent condition GPMG-mounted Mini Metro off Autotrader, from what Dan Neidle says.
Steady. First let’s have a meeting to really bottom out the requirement. After a 6 month concept phase I think we’re quite likely to decide that we need our mini metro to have different windscreen wipers and a Rolls Royce engine.
Now, I know the budget won’t cover that, but it will cover the assessment phase while we plan for it. In the end we can have a mini metro delivered in two years, at twice the current quoted price, fitted “for but not with” an engine. That’s how we do things here.
That's nonsense. For a start, the engine management system needs to be both all digital and all analogue. At the same time. The wheels need to be octagonal (Unique British Requirement)
Meanwhile the Ukrainians will find 1000 Toyota Hiluxes on eBay and bolt Ol' Painless to all of them.
I really wish this war against employees by other employees would end.
I don’t know what organisations people have worked for but I’d find it hard to believe Vodafone where I was for many years is any less bureaucratic than the public sector. Every decision or change I wanted to make had to go through five layers of management.
Perhaps it’s just that large organisations in general are like tankers? I hear much the same from friends at Apple and Google.
Oooh I have found my niche in PB:
My regular reminder that (as per More or Less) it takes just 3 minutes to turn a tanker. So if large organisations are like tankers then they are bloody quick.
A slightly less (only just I hear you say) irritating post than having your spelling corrected.
I’ll come down this rabbit hole with you. I had always taken the “turning a tanker” analogy to mean it is hard because you never have enough space and there’s always something or someone in the way. I would argue that holds true.
But is there enough room in the rabbit holes for both of us and a tanker.
If there is, you don't want to run into one of the rabbits
That's why you bring the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. Obviously.
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
This is going to devastate the entire university sector. As I predicted
When you graduate is possibly more important than how well you graduate, economy booming, off into a good graduate training scheme and a career, economy in the toilet no graduate training schemes, just have to hang on in there and hope that you get a break when things eventually pic up.
No this is different, new and bad
The university sector as we have known it for decades (centuries?) is about the vanish
Not centuries - when I (and you) attended Uni it was more like 5-10% of the population went, not 50%. We also uprated many of the old technical colleges into Universities in the 90's.
Meanwhile, one for you Brexitoloons who support our leaving the EU.
I am currently on the Eurostar and while I was still in the UK there was no wifi, literally none, despite trying to connect via the Eurostar app/web page.
Now I am in La France I can say it is lightning fast and I am able, finally, to bring my thoughts and wisdom to PB.
The main reason public sector productivity is so poor is the inability to move unproductive people out. The ultimate tool for increasing output per worker is to shit can the least productive ones which is something that private sector businesses do all the time. Until that attitude is brought to the public sector no amount of "investment" will help. The lazy and the feckless are attracted to the public sector because they know once they're in it's impossible to be removed regardless of how shit they are at the job.
Change this and suddenly public sector productivity will shoot up as those lazy buggers start to fear for their next salary.
To broaden the point, where's the incentive to sack people who aren't performing - where is the incentive to perform at all? The money comes from Government grant, so the incentive is actually to fail, because failing services get more money thrown at them. The NHS has been very successful at failing for years. An efficient, high performance public service would see its budget reduced the next year.
What we really need is a total reordering of incentives within the public sector, where possible based on the money following the user, and the user having choice. If hospitals and schools had to attract patients and pupils to get funding, all the perverse incentives would be reversed and the services grow better and more efficient.
The public sector is under immense pressure — from users, from taxpayers, from politicians — to perform well and efficiently. It’s complete nonsense to suggest otherwise. Services that demonstrate good outcomes get funding. With populations increasing and inflation high, an efficient public service will still need a larger budget.
Hospitals and schools already work within an internal market. You get choice of ver what hospital to go to and this affects what money that hospital gets. Ditto with schools. These reforms have not delivered efficiency gains, however. We should stop pretending that healthcare is the same as buying washing powder.
No it is not the same - buying washing powder is a lot better organised, because there is wide consumer choice in where, how, and which washing powder to buy.
It is absolutely not the way you describe with hospitals and schools, they absolutely depend on catchment area and the consumer is not empowered at all.
There isn't actually a great deal of choice in washing powder - it's almost all Unilever or P&G with badge engineering targeting different social sectors.
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
This is going to devastate the entire university sector. As I predicted
A Computer Science Professor, more a reflection of a decline in tech software jobs
'"We should be doing something about it today," he urged. O'Brien also cited a WSJ article about how tech jobs are seemingly drying up. The publication found that postings for software development jobs have been down more than 30% since February 2020, according to Indeed.com. '
If you read the article he says this phenomenon started in the tech sector, but is now expanding to every sector
"He noticed that even outstanding students with 4.0 GPAs were now reaching out to him, worried because, despite their impressive transcripts and experience, they weren't receiving any job offers. He concluded that this was happening because of an irreversible trend that is also part of a broader issue that's impacting almost every job seeker in every area."
If due to AI another reason why a UBI funded by a robot tax is inevitable, even if we have hardly any students left
The main reason public sector productivity is so poor is the inability to move unproductive people out. The ultimate tool for increasing output per worker is to shit can the least productive ones which is something that private sector businesses do all the time. Until that attitude is brought to the public sector no amount of "investment" will help. The lazy and the feckless are attracted to the public sector because they know once they're in it's impossible to be removed regardless of how shit they are at the job.
Change this and suddenly public sector productivity will shoot up as those lazy buggers start to fear for their next salary.
To broaden the point, where's the incentive to sack people who aren't performing - where is the incentive to perform at all? The money comes from Government grant, so the incentive is actually to fail, because failing services get more money thrown at them. The NHS has been very successful at failing for years. An efficient, high performance public service would see its budget reduced the next year.
What we really need is a total reordering of incentives within the public sector, where possible based on the money following the user, and the user having choice. If hospitals and schools had to attract patients and pupils to get funding, all the perverse incentives would be reversed and the services grow better and more efficient.
I'd vote for that.
Schools are funded per pupil, so that's already happening.
Give every family a budget and tell them they can go to whichever school they want.
The main reason public sector productivity is so poor is the inability to move unproductive people out. The ultimate tool for increasing output per worker is to shit can the least productive ones which is something that private sector businesses do all the time. Until that attitude is brought to the public sector no amount of "investment" will help. The lazy and the feckless are attracted to the public sector because they know once they're in it's impossible to be removed regardless of how shit they are at the job.
Change this and suddenly public sector productivity will shoot up as those lazy buggers start to fear for their next salary.
To broaden the point, where's the incentive to sack people who aren't performing - where is the incentive to perform at all? The money comes from Government grant, so the incentive is actually to fail, because failing services get more money thrown at them. The NHS has been very successful at failing for years. An efficient, high performance public service would see its budget reduced the next year.
What we really need is a total reordering of incentives within the public sector, where possible based on the money following the user, and the user having choice. If hospitals and schools had to attract patients and pupils to get funding, all the perverse incentives would be reversed and the services grow better and more efficient.
The public sector is under immense pressure — from users, from taxpayers, from politicians — to perform well and efficiently. It’s complete nonsense to suggest otherwise. Services that demonstrate good outcomes get funding. With populations increasing and inflation high, an efficient public service will still need a larger budget.
Hospitals and schools already work within an internal market. You get choice of ver what hospital to go to and this affects what money that hospital gets. Ditto with schools. These reforms have not delivered efficiency gains, however. We should stop pretending that healthcare is the same as buying washing powder.
No it is not the same - buying washing powder is a lot better organised, because there is wide consumer choice in where, how, and which washing powder to buy.
It is absolutely not the way you describe with hospitals and schools, they absolutely depend on catchment area and the consumer is not empowered at all.
I'm not sure about hospitals, but it certainly is the case with schools, as anyone why has sent a child to school knows. You fill in a form listing the schools in order of preference and hope that your first choice isn't too oversubscribed. Catchment areas are simply a means for oversubscribed schools to select who they will take, and their size is a function of the popularity of the school.
They have only around 50 ATACAMS. Rather more Storm Shadows & the French equivalent.
Neither Macron nor Starmer will authorise use of those into Kursk given Putin's threat to potentially use nukes even if conventional missiles launched on Russian territory.
Biden can get away with it as the US has a nuclear missile arsenal almost as big as Russia's and Putin knows he is a lame duck who will be replaced by Trump come January.
As I said Zelensky needs to get nukes himself by the middle of next year to get the best possible deal for Ukraine
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
The main reason public sector productivity is so poor is the inability to move unproductive people out. The ultimate tool for increasing output per worker is to shit can the least productive ones which is something that private sector businesses do all the time. Until that attitude is brought to the public sector no amount of "investment" will help. The lazy and the feckless are attracted to the public sector because they know once they're in it's impossible to be removed regardless of how shit they are at the job.
Change this and suddenly public sector productivity will shoot up as those lazy buggers start to fear for their next salary.
To broaden the point, where's the incentive to sack people who aren't performing - where is the incentive to perform at all? The money comes from Government grant, so the incentive is actually to fail, because failing services get more money thrown at them. The NHS has been very successful at failing for years. An efficient, high performance public service would see its budget reduced the next year.
What we really need is a total reordering of incentives within the public sector, where possible based on the money following the user, and the user having choice. If hospitals and schools had to attract patients and pupils to get funding, all the perverse incentives would be reversed and the services grow better and more efficient.
I'd vote for that.
Schools are funded per pupil, so that's already happening.
Give every family a budget and tell them they can go to whichever school they want.
You could do that - it's pretty well the case now, except it's not cash in hand - and they couldn't. Unless you want to triple spending per pupil ?
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
Plus how many times are we going to hear Lab trot (geddit?) out the phrase "to fund the NHS"? As Cyclefree noted, not every bloody thing in this country should be structured around the NHS which, as readers will be aware I believe, is a useless, not fit for purpose organisation as interested in killing people as mending their broken legs.
How about farmers pay their taxes so we can fund our armed forces to deal with Russia?
Farmers have done quite well out of Ukraine; wheat prices went up 50% during the start of the invasion.
Other sectors got whacked with a windfall tax when that happened...
Hmm, I'd guess more than offset by energy and fertiliser costs. Would be interesting to see the net figure.
If you're not an arable farmer, that would be a negative net.
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
This is going to devastate the entire university sector. As I predicted
No mention of AI though, so thats something. Currently at Bath more than 90% of our graduates are in work 9 months after graduation.
What do YOU think is underlying this phenomenon?
Difficult to say as I am not in America and not in computing. Maybe companies priorities changed after Covid? Who knows? Demand for pharmacists is still high, so I'm not that worried yet. We also have higher applications than last year, so the Leon message of doom isn't getting out there yet.
They're trying to change the facts on the ground before Trump comes in for The Deal.
Obvs.
Yes, but it means that the pressure on Ukraine to accept the Deal will be irresistible. Korea it is
Korea it isn't. Whatever happens.
It will likely be a frozen war, an arimistice, roughly along the front lines as they stand, when the deal is made
As happened in Korea
Unless one side totally destroys the other, by degrading their ability to fight or by occupation (see 1945 in Germany) then ALL conflicts end with discussion and negotiation. Much as we might like Russia and Putin not to 'win' something out of this horrific war, sadly he probably will.
The main reason public sector productivity is so poor is the inability to move unproductive people out. The ultimate tool for increasing output per worker is to shit can the least productive ones which is something that private sector businesses do all the time. Until that attitude is brought to the public sector no amount of "investment" will help. The lazy and the feckless are attracted to the public sector because they know once they're in it's impossible to be removed regardless of how shit they are at the job.
Change this and suddenly public sector productivity will shoot up as those lazy buggers start to fear for their next salary.
If you really fail to perform then you can still be moved out of a public sector role. Plus if you aren't even productive enough for the public sector you certainly won't be for the private sector which means you just end up with a higher welfare and UC bill to support them
The welfare bill will be lower than keeping them in a salaried role. It may also force them to find their level, delivery driving or shelf filling etc...
Not necessarily, depends on the wage, a low public sector wage may not be much higher than the welfare bill.
Delivery driving for example often has very demanding targets so they may not be able to do that either. Indeed the targets are often a disaster in my view, frequently we get delivery drivers ring the bell and dump parcels on the door 5 secs later rather than wait for us to pick them up. Targets which don't include quality of service are equally poor
I was listening to a presentation into a study on Couriers in cities, and the issues around them going everywhere in a huge rush.
One stat cited by someone there was that where they had worked 100 or 200 deliveries were allocated for an 8 hour shift. The business model, and regulation thereof, is problematic.
One reason cited for high powered e-mopeds (eg Sur-Rons or hacked e-cycles) was that the legal ones just weren't fast enough. Without getting into this vs that, it is an relevant question for all of us, I think.
I'll post a link to the video when it is published.
Without doubt one of the worst thread headers TSE has ever done.
No party wins general elections without shoring up their core vote first and for Tories they include private school parents and farmers. Voters also want a choice not an echo, if you want to hammer farmers with inheritance tax and hit private school parents with VAT you vote Labour anyway and if the Tories don't stand up for farmers and private school parents they will leak voters to Reform and the LDs who will.
Plus 57% of voters oppose the hated tractor tax anyway
Not to mention VAT on school fees will just reduce the scholarships they provide and hit smaller schools most making them even more exclusive. While we need family farms to produce our food, you can't make food from houses. Most farms may be asset rich but they are income poor
If you are asset rich but income poor, you can get a mortgage or similar sort of loan. It’s not difficult.
We need houses to live in. You can’t make houses from food (pace Hansel & Gretel).
Can you explain how you pay a mortgage from a poor income. The whole point is they will need to sell at least part of farm to pay it so making it even poorer income etc. Idiocy thought up by morons. It should be tax applied when any sale is made , inheriting land is worth nothing unless you sell.
How can the land be worth so much if it is impossible to generate any income from it?
Inheriting any possession is worth nothing unless you sell.
You should only pay when you sell , up till then you have zero cash/income passed on. Not beyond teh wit of man to devise a scheme where they get tax when that asset or another one in it's place is sold and profit made. Whreas saying those fields are worth 3M hand over cash please is insane.
Yay, @malcolmg and I actually agree on something (there maybe more things who knows?)!
So here is the thing for those that wish to buy Starmer's pack of lies on this subject: Farmers may be asset rich (land buildings equipment), but the reality is that when the elderly farmer dies there is no spare cash to pay the tax bill as farm incomes are now so low. The next generation will be forced to sell, meaning that their income is now even lower. This is how the family farm is killed off, particularly in areas such as Scotland and Wales.
The idea that only a small number of family farms will be affected is a complete lie. It is about as truthful as Rachel Reeves' CV ffs!
The right wing enthusiasm for school vouchers originated in the US, as a result of Supreme Court decisions (starting with Lemon v. Kurtzman) limiting the promotion of religion in public schools.
It had very little to do with economic or academic efficiency.
In the words of the police chief - "There are areas of the city, we need to be perfectly honest here, where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay to be more careful.”
They're trying to change the facts on the ground before Trump comes in for The Deal.
Obvs.
Yes, but it means that the pressure on Ukraine to accept the Deal will be irresistible. Korea it is
Korea it isn't. Whatever happens.
It will likely be a frozen war, an arimistice, roughly along the front lines as they stand, when the deal is made
As happened in Korea
Unless one side totally destroys the other, by degrading their ability to fight or by occupation (see 1945 in Germany) then ALL conflicts end with discussion and negotiation. Much as we might like Russia and Putin not to 'win' something out of this horrific war, sadly he probably will.
This was forbidden talk on PB not so long ago perhaps even now.
They're trying to change the facts on the ground before Trump comes in for The Deal.
Obvs.
Yes, but it means that the pressure on Ukraine to accept the Deal will be irresistible. Korea it is
Korea it isn't. Whatever happens.
It will likely be a frozen war, an arimistice, roughly along the front lines as they stand, when the deal is made
As happened in Korea
Unless one side totally destroys the other, by degrading their ability to fight or by occupation (see 1945 in Germany) then ALL conflicts end with discussion and negotiation. Much as we might like Russia and Putin not to 'win' something out of this horrific war, sadly he probably will.
Whisper it very quietly, but one possible set of UK strategic objectives might be:
- Kill a large chunk of the experienced Russian officer and NCO class. Tick.
- Expose the quality deficit between Russian and UK kit. Tick.
- Lure Putin into unsustainable defence spending to destabilise his regime in the medium term. Tick.
- Demonstrate the defence value of the UK to our neighbours and assure ourselves a decision making seat at whatever forums there are to discuss European defence. Tick.
The organisation inside government that built the new Gov.uk won an award for their product.
To give credit where it’s due, I think Gov.UK is very good. I got my passport renewed in nine days.
I just wish that all government online services were as good. HMRC hasn’t even caught up with e-communications.
Email isn't considered secure. And we have a lot of difficulty with fraud.
The Irish Revenue Commissioners communicate with messages within the website. You receive an email notification of a new message. The substantive message is not sent via email.
I feel like I'm in the minority here, in that I don't see why agricultural land should benefit from any special IHT rules compared to other family owned industries, e.g. engineering. Maybe there is a case that capital invested in productive capacity should be treated differently, but I can see difficulties in defining it and personally don't believe it should be treated any differently to money in the bank, or residential property.
There is a separate issue of land being transferred from being UK-family owned to foreign individuals or investment funds. Again, we haven't worried about it for any other industry and I don't see why agricultural land should be different. Actually I am worried about this, but my concern is across the board, not solely agriculture.
There is another issue that currently food production appears to be uneconomic in the country. Should we be concerned about food security? If we are then we should take steps to ensure that farmers get a fair return. But, again, why should we be more concerned about food than (say) energy, or steel production? There's no reason for farming to be singled out for special protection, in my view. However I would note (as an opponent of Brexit) that we now have an opportunity to do something about all those things except none of the pro-Brexit people appear to be proposing anything, which I find odd.
They're trying to change the facts on the ground before Trump comes in for The Deal.
Obvs.
Yes, but it means that the pressure on Ukraine to accept the Deal will be irresistible. Korea it is
What's Putin going to give up to get Russia back? NATO membership?
The number of vehicles being lost trying to regain it is staggering, without material results. Ditto manpower, but Putin doesn't seem to give a shit about them, whether Russian or North Korean. Having their logistics hammered at the rear by ATACMS isn't going to improve their situation.
In the words of the police chief - "There are areas of the city, we need to be perfectly honest here, where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay to be more careful.”
Tricky one. They certainly were being perfectly honest. To be perfectly honest a West Ham fan with a Hammers tattoo on his forehead should be more careful going into the Shed.
Not to say there is a value judgment in either case. One would hope they then went on to say "... and this is something we are working to address." Or some such.
The right wing enthusiasm for school vouchers originated in the US, as a result of Supreme Court decisions (starting with Lemon v. Kurtzman) limiting the promotion of religion in public schools.
It had very little to do with economic or academic efficiency.
The main reason public sector productivity is so poor is the inability to move unproductive people out. The ultimate tool for increasing output per worker is to shit can the least productive ones which is something that private sector businesses do all the time. Until that attitude is brought to the public sector no amount of "investment" will help. The lazy and the feckless are attracted to the public sector because they know once they're in it's impossible to be removed regardless of how shit they are at the job.
Change this and suddenly public sector productivity will shoot up as those lazy buggers start to fear for their next salary.
If you really fail to perform then you can still be moved out of a public sector role. Plus if you aren't even productive enough for the public sector you certainly won't be for the private sector which means you just end up with a higher welfare and UC bill to support them
The welfare bill will be lower than keeping them in a salaried role. It may also force them to find their level, delivery driving or shelf filling etc...
Not necessarily, depends on the wage, a low public sector wage may not be much higher than the welfare bill.
Delivery driving for example often has very demanding targets so they may not be able to do that either. Indeed the targets are often a disaster in my view, frequently we get delivery drivers ring the bell and dump parcels on the door 5 secs later rather than wait for us to pick them up. Targets which don't include quality of service are equally poor
I was listening to a presentation into a study on Couriers in cities, and the issues around them going everywhere in a huge rush.
One stat cited by someone there was that where they had worked 100 or 200 deliveries were allocated for an 8 hour shift. The business model, and regulation thereof, is problematic.
One reason cited for high powered e-mopeds (eg Sur-Rons or hacked e-cycles) was that the legal ones just weren't fast enough. Without getting into this vs that, it is an relevant question for all of us, I think.
I'll post a link to the video when it is published.
What we need is some very clear court cases showing that if the item is not handed to the customer or their nominated second, any damage done to the item on the doorstep (or its theft) is the responsibility of be delivery firm, and it should not just fund a replacement, but also compensation.
Without doubt one of the worst thread headers TSE has ever done.
No party wins general elections without shoring up their core vote first and for Tories they include private school parents and farmers. Voters also want a choice not an echo, if you want to hammer farmers with inheritance tax and hit private school parents with VAT you vote Labour anyway and if the Tories don't stand up for farmers and private school parents they will leak voters to Reform and the LDs who will.
Plus 57% of voters oppose the hated tractor tax anyway
Not to mention VAT on school fees will just reduce the scholarships they provide and hit smaller schools most making them even more exclusive. While we need family farms to produce our food, you can't make food from houses. Most farms may be asset rich but they are income poor
If you are asset rich but income poor, you can get a mortgage or similar sort of loan. It’s not difficult.
We need houses to live in. You can’t make houses from food (pace Hansel & Gretel).
Can you explain how you pay a mortgage from a poor income. The whole point is they will need to sell at least part of farm to pay it so making it even poorer income etc. Idiocy thought up by morons. It should be tax applied when any sale is made , inheriting land is worth nothing unless you sell.
How can the land be worth so much if it is impossible to generate any income from it?
Inheriting any possession is worth nothing unless you sell.
You should only pay when you sell , up till then you have zero cash/income passed on. Not beyond teh wit of man to devise a scheme where they get tax when that asset or another one in it's place is sold and profit made. Whreas saying those fields are worth 3M hand over cash please is insane.
Yay, @malcolmg and I actually agree on something (there maybe more things who knows?)!
So here is the thing for those that wish to buy Starmer's pack of lies on this subject: Farmers may be asset rich (land buildings equipment), but the reality is that when the elderly farmer dies there is no spare cash to pay the tax bill as farm incomes are now so low. The next generation will be forced to sell, meaning that their income is now even lower. This is how the family farm is killed off, particularly in areas such as Scotland and Wales.
The idea that only a small number of family farms will be affected is a complete lie. It is about as truthful as Rachel Reeves' CV ffs!
How are the assets of the farm valued for IHT purposes - e.g. Is it better to die when you have a 7 year old combine harvester that's worth 25% of it's original value (18% reducing balance as per HMRC's main rate pool capital allowance) rather than a new one ?
They're trying to change the facts on the ground before Trump comes in for The Deal.
Obvs.
Yes, but it means that the pressure on Ukraine to accept the Deal will be irresistible. Korea it is
Korea it isn't. Whatever happens.
It will likely be a frozen war, an arimistice, roughly along the front lines as they stand, when the deal is made
As happened in Korea
1) Korea started as a genuine civil war, not an invasion. Millions on both sides migrated in opposite directions, and ended in territories they wanted to fight for. 2) The US was, of course, directly involved in the fighting. 3) Unlike Ukraine - where there have already been several ceasefires, followed by further Russian aggression, the Panmunjom settlement has lasted 70 years. 4) The US was willing to station substantial armed forces there for those seven decades to ensure the settlement. 5) The border something like a seventh as long as Russia/Ukraine, is largely mountainous, and readily policeable and defencible. 6) The opposing great power (China) has no territorial ambitions on the south. Inlike, of course, Russia.
Plus how many times are we going to hear Lab trot (geddit?) out the phrase "to fund the NHS"? As Cyclefree noted, not every bloody thing in this country should be structured around the NHS which, as readers will be aware I believe, is a useless, not fit for purpose organisation as interested in killing people as mending their broken legs.
How about farmers pay their taxes so we can fund our armed forces to deal with Russia?
Farmers have done quite well out of Ukraine; wheat prices went up 50% during the start of the invasion.
Other sectors got whacked with a windfall tax when that happened...
Hmm, I'd guess more than offset by energy and fertiliser costs. Would be interesting to see the net figure.
If you're not an arable farmer, that would be a negative net.
Jeez, you really don't have a clue.
Are you saying non-arable farms benefitted from Ukraine ?
They're trying to change the facts on the ground before Trump comes in for The Deal.
Obvs.
Yes, but it means that the pressure on Ukraine to accept the Deal will be irresistible. Korea it is
Korea it isn't. Whatever happens.
It will likely be a frozen war, an arimistice, roughly along the front lines as they stand, when the deal is made
As happened in Korea
Erodgan floated such a proposal to Putin, recently. He was not interested. He still thinks he can achieve total victory.
The ISW report on which the BBC story is based, is less pessimistic. The ISW notes that over the course of two months, Russia has suffered 80,000 casualties, lost 200 tanks, and 650 armoured vehicles, in the process of capturing 1,500 square kilometres, principally open fields, and small settlements. The ISW concludes that Russia cannot now make good that rate of losses.
Without doubt one of the worst thread headers TSE has ever done.
No party wins general elections without shoring up their core vote first and for Tories they include private school parents and farmers. Voters also want a choice not an echo, if you want to hammer farmers with inheritance tax and hit private school parents with VAT you vote Labour anyway and if the Tories don't stand up for farmers and private school parents they will leak voters to Reform and the LDs who will.
Plus 57% of voters oppose the hated tractor tax anyway
Not to mention VAT on school fees will just reduce the scholarships they provide and hit smaller schools most making them even more exclusive. While we need family farms to produce our food, you can't make food from houses. Most farms may be asset rich but they are income poor
If you are asset rich but income poor, you can get a mortgage or similar sort of loan. It’s not difficult.
We need houses to live in. You can’t make houses from food (pace Hansel & Gretel).
Can you explain how you pay a mortgage from a poor income. The whole point is they will need to sell at least part of farm to pay it so making it even poorer income etc. Idiocy thought up by morons. It should be tax applied when any sale is made , inheriting land is worth nothing unless you sell.
How can the land be worth so much if it is impossible to generate any income from it?
Inheriting any possession is worth nothing unless you sell.
You should only pay when you sell , up till then you have zero cash/income passed on. Not beyond teh wit of man to devise a scheme where they get tax when that asset or another one in it's place is sold and profit made. Whreas saying those fields are worth 3M hand over cash please is insane.
Yay, @malcolmg and I actually agree on something (there maybe more things who knows?)!
So here is the thing for those that wish to buy Starmer's pack of lies on this subject: Farmers may be asset rich (land buildings equipment), but the reality is that when the elderly farmer dies there is no spare cash to pay the tax bill as farm incomes are now so low. The next generation will be forced to sell, meaning that their income is now even lower. This is how the family farm is killed off, particularly in areas such as Scotland and Wales.
The idea that only a small number of family farms will be affected is a complete lie. It is about as truthful as Rachel Reeves' CV ffs!
How are the assets of the farm valued for IHT purposes - e.g. Is it better to die when you have a 7 year old combine harvester that's worth 25% of it's original value (18% reducing balance as per HMRC's main rate pool capital allowance) rather than a new one ?
The farm can claim business asset relief to get them taxed at a lower rate of IHT. The land is valued on the basis that it could only ever be used for farming.
To compensate for the fact that farms are not cash rich, they get 10 years to pay their IHT bill - another privilege which is not extended to the rest of us.
My Uber driver has just the best taste in music. Etta James currently playing.
An uber driver with good music taste? At last.
Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox now playing.
Hmm, find that to be a more serious version of Mike Flowers Pops or the upbeat sister of Nouvelle Vague so beloved once of John Lewis Christmas adverts.
They're trying to change the facts on the ground before Trump comes in for The Deal.
Obvs.
Yes, but it means that the pressure on Ukraine to accept the Deal will be irresistible. Korea it is
What's Putin going to give up to get Russia back? NATO membership?
The number of vehicles being lost trying to regain it is staggering, without material results. Ditto manpower, but Putin doesn't seem to give a shit about them, whether Russian or North Korean. Having their logistics hammered at the rear by ATACMS isn't going to improve their situation.
From Ukraine the Latest, yesterday, two items around Putin's war reaching 1000 days.
A review of the status in Ukraine, with a Kiev Independent reporter who is based there. It is very much worth a listen, and is much bleaker than what we have been hearing here, especially the contrast between Western waffling, and preventable missiles (if use permissions for weapons had been granted) raining down and killing people.
There was also a fascinating interview with one of the Russia team from BBC Monitoring. That took me back to my teenage years, when I sometimes used to listen to the Foreign Service of Radio Moscow, alongside the BBC World Service, in the early hours.
Plus how many times are we going to hear Lab trot (geddit?) out the phrase "to fund the NHS"? As Cyclefree noted, not every bloody thing in this country should be structured around the NHS which, as readers will be aware I believe, is a useless, not fit for purpose organisation as interested in killing people as mending their broken legs.
How about farmers pay their taxes so we can fund our armed forces to deal with Russia?
Farmers have done quite well out of Ukraine; wheat prices went up 50% during the start of the invasion.
Other sectors got whacked with a windfall tax when that happened...
Do farmers only produce wheat? Fertiliser costs went up by up to 400% during the start of the invasion through 2022 and are still 50% higher. Apart from that hey.
My Uber driver has just the best taste in music. Etta James currently playing.
An uber driver with good music taste? At last.
Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox now playing.
Hmm, find that to be a more serious version of Mike Flowers Pops or the upbeat sister of Nouvelle Vague so beloved once of John Lewis Christmas adverts.
Etta James though, excellent.
Yep I hear you. Ragdoll by Lucy Woodward now. And I've arrived.
Is it me or has Israel-Palestine completely gone off the news radar since the US election ?
Muslim-Americans (pre-election). "Biden is not doing enough for the Palestinians! We will vote against Kamala to send a message!" Muslim-Americans (post-election). "Oh shit"
Latinos (pre-election). "We are here to stay and Biden is not doing enough for us! We will vote against Kamala to send a message!" Latinos (post-election). "Oh shit"
I saw one vox pox with a latino who when asked about his undocumented mother and whether he was worried replied that they wouldn't deport her, she's been her years and worked all her life and has no criminal record.
Yeh. I guess he might be right.
What's really nuts about the MAGA-GOP plans is the never mind the undocumented/illegal immigrants, they are even talking about denaturalization of people who are citizens now, looking to strip the citizenship of as many people as they can find, when such actions are typically only used against serious criminals.
The right wing enthusiasm for school vouchers originated in the US, as a result of Supreme Court decisions (starting with Lemon v. Kurtzman) limiting the promotion of religion in public schools.
It had very little to do with economic or academic efficiency.
Without doubt one of the worst thread headers TSE has ever done.
No party wins general elections without shoring up their core vote first and for Tories they include private school parents and farmers. Voters also want a choice not an echo, if you want to hammer farmers with inheritance tax and hit private school parents with VAT you vote Labour anyway and if the Tories don't stand up for farmers and private school parents they will leak voters to Reform and the LDs who will.
Plus 57% of voters oppose the hated tractor tax anyway
Not to mention VAT on school fees will just reduce the scholarships they provide and hit smaller schools most making them even more exclusive. While we need family farms to produce our food, you can't make food from houses. Most farms may be asset rich but they are income poor
If you are asset rich but income poor, you can get a mortgage or similar sort of loan. It’s not difficult.
We need houses to live in. You can’t make houses from food (pace Hansel & Gretel).
Can you explain how you pay a mortgage from a poor income. The whole point is they will need to sell at least part of farm to pay it so making it even poorer income etc. Idiocy thought up by morons. It should be tax applied when any sale is made , inheriting land is worth nothing unless you sell.
How can the land be worth so much if it is impossible to generate any income from it?
Inheriting any possession is worth nothing unless you sell.
You should only pay when you sell , up till then you have zero cash/income passed on. Not beyond teh wit of man to devise a scheme where they get tax when that asset or another one in it's place is sold and profit made. Whreas saying those fields are worth 3M hand over cash please is insane.
Yay, @malcolmg and I actually agree on something (there maybe more things who knows?)!
So here is the thing for those that wish to buy Starmer's pack of lies on this subject: Farmers may be asset rich (land buildings equipment), but the reality is that when the elderly farmer dies there is no spare cash to pay the tax bill as farm incomes are now so low. The next generation will be forced to sell, meaning that their income is now even lower. This is how the family farm is killed off, particularly in areas such as Scotland and Wales.
The idea that only a small number of family farms will be affected is a complete lie. It is about as truthful as Rachel Reeves' CV ffs!
How are the assets of the farm valued for IHT purposes - e.g. Is it better to die when you have a 7 year old combine harvester that's worth 25% of it's original value (18% reducing balance as per HMRC's main rate pool capital allowance) rather than a new one ?
The farm can claim business asset relief to get them taxed at a lower rate of IHT. The land is valued on the basis that it could only ever be used for farming.
To compensate for the fact that farms are not cash rich, they get 10 years to pay their IHT bill - another privilege which is not extended to the rest of us.
So HMRC won't pursue the implications of Palliser v HMRC (hope value) in the case of farm valuation for IHT ?
They're trying to change the facts on the ground before Trump comes in for The Deal.
Obvs.
Yes, but it means that the pressure on Ukraine to accept the Deal will be irresistible. Korea it is
Korea it isn't. Whatever happens.
It will likely be a frozen war, an arimistice, roughly along the front lines as they stand, when the deal is made
As happened in Korea
1) Korea started as a genuine civil war, not an invasion. Millions on both sides migrated in opposite directions, and ended in territories they wanted to fight for. 2) The US was, of course, directly involved in the fighting. 3) Unlike Ukraine - where there have already been several ceasefires, followed by further Russian aggression, the Panmunjom settlement has lasted 70 years. 4) The US was willing to station substantial armed forces there for those seven decades to ensure the settlement. 5) The border something like a seventh as long as Russia/Ukraine, is largely mountainous, and readily policeable and defencible. 6) The opposing great power (China) has no territorial ambitions on the south. Inlike, of course, Russia.
Apart from that, it's similar-ish, if you squint.
It's a brutal bloody war involving Russia, China and the USA all in a foreign country, close to Russia/China - just like Korea. It's also two systems fighting each other by proxy, just like Korea
It will likely end in an armistice because both sides are exhausted and running out of men, and both sides have nukes and perhaps the only way you can now win this war is with nukes: and no one will use nukes. As happened in Korea
Do the people involved have slitty eyes and eat a lot of bibimbap? No. Well done for pointing out that crucial geopolitical difference
FWIW I think the only alternative to Korea ,now, is outright Russian victory
In the words of the police chief - "There are areas of the city, we need to be perfectly honest here, where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay to be more careful.”
Tricky one. They certainly were being perfectly honest. To be perfectly honest a West Ham fan with a Hammers tattoo on his forehead should be more careful going into the Shed.
Not to say there is a value judgment in either case. One would hope they then went on to say "... and this is something we are working to address." Or some such.
One would hope.
It's a tricky one for me as it causes an error in my liberal-metropolitan-values module, the one that espouses tolerance and lives and works with and is friends with all manner of people from all walks of life.
Yet also increasingly feels under threat from people from different cultures who don't share my world view.
But the only people really speaking up about it are the far right, with whom I don't share a world view, either.
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
This is going to devastate the entire university sector. As I predicted
We've been hiring for a few IT posts recently. And we're seeing a glut of both bootcamp people and regular graduates & masters students. The supply side still seems to be in a 2020/2021 'gold rush' mode (which kind of aligns for when recent grad's would have been half-looking at the job market to make a final degree decision) and the demand side is in a 'woahhhhh there!' one.
Not especially seeing any effect of AI on hiring (other than LLM generated CV's, which are grim reading).
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
This is going to devastate the entire university sector. As I predicted
No mention of AI though, so thats something. Currently at Bath more than 90% of our graduates are in work 9 months after graduation.
What do YOU think is underlying this phenomenon?
Difficult to say as I am not in America and not in computing. Maybe companies priorities changed after Covid? Who knows? Demand for pharmacists is still high, so I'm not that worried yet. We also have higher applications than last year, so the Leon message of doom isn't getting out there yet.
I fear you are now borderline delusional
HOWEVER I wish no ill on any PB-er so I hope you're blind denialism turns out right, and my more gloomy analysis is laughably wrong. Then you are free to hurl the stale scones of scorn at me
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
This is going to devastate the entire university sector. As I predicted
We've been hiring for a few IT posts recently. And we're seeing a glut of both bootcamp people and regular graduates & masters students. The supply side still seems to be in a 2020/2021 'gold rush' mode (which kind of aligns for when recent grad's would have been half-looking at the job market to make a final degree decision) and the demand side is in a 'woahhhhh there!' one.
Not especially seeing any effect of AI on hiring (other than LLM generated CV's, which are grim reading).
The main reason public sector productivity is so poor is the inability to move unproductive people out. The ultimate tool for increasing output per worker is to shit can the least productive ones which is something that private sector businesses do all the time. Until that attitude is brought to the public sector no amount of "investment" will help. The lazy and the feckless are attracted to the public sector because they know once they're in it's impossible to be removed regardless of how shit they are at the job.
Change this and suddenly public sector productivity will shoot up as those lazy buggers start to fear for their next salary.
To broaden the point, where's the incentive to sack people who aren't performing - where is the incentive to perform at all? The money comes from Government grant, so the incentive is actually to fail, because failing services get more money thrown at them. The NHS has been very successful at failing for years. An efficient, high performance public service would see its budget reduced the next year.
What we really need is a total reordering of incentives within the public sector, where possible based on the money following the user, and the user having choice. If hospitals and schools had to attract patients and pupils to get funding, all the perverse incentives would be reversed and the services grow better and more efficient.
I'm plowing thru (I know, I know ) Abby Innes's "Late Soviet Britain" and she makes a very convincing case as to why that simply doesn't work. Basically if you run the public sector like the private sector you lose control due to the principle-agent problem, so to regain control you impose authorities, regulators, targets etc, and you end up with a brundlefly hybrid with the disadvantages of both, lying on the lab floor pleading to be killed.
It sounds good in theory. It isn't in practice. And we have about forty years of evidence for that now.
In the words of the police chief - "There are areas of the city, we need to be perfectly honest here, where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay to be more careful.”
Tricky one. They certainly were being perfectly honest. To be perfectly honest a West Ham fan with a Hammers tattoo on his forehead should be more careful going into the Shed.
Not to say there is a value judgment in either case. One would hope they then went on to say "... and this is something we are working to address." Or some such.
One would hope.
It's a tricky one for me as it causes an error in my liberal-metropolitan-values module, the one that espouses tolerance and lives and works with and is friends with all manner of people from all walks of life.
Yet also increasingly feels under threat from people from different cultures who don't share my world view.
But the only people really speaking up about it are the far right, with whom I don't share a world view, either.
Just as Jaguar are abandoning any relic of their past, Land Rover's latest model is
a Defender
and I don't mean the modern vehicle assembled in Slovakia
I mean the 60 year old design spannered together in Solihull.
If you give Land Rover a huge wedge, they will find one secondhand and 'refurbish' it, including fitting a V8 motor. None of this electric malarkey...
If I've learned anything from High Peak Autos, it is that Land Rover Defenders are terrible cars that have inexplicably huge second-hand values. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd3cOdqHU08
Plus how many times are we going to hear Lab trot (geddit?) out the phrase "to fund the NHS"? As Cyclefree noted, not every bloody thing in this country should be structured around the NHS which, as readers will be aware I believe, is a useless, not fit for purpose organisation as interested in killing people as mending their broken legs.
How about farmers pay their taxes so we can fund our armed forces to deal with Russia?
Farmers have done quite well out of Ukraine; wheat prices went up 50% during the start of the invasion.
Other sectors got whacked with a windfall tax when that happened...
Hmm, I'd guess more than offset by energy and fertiliser costs. Would be interesting to see the net figure.
If you're not an arable farmer, that would be a negative net.
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
This is going to devastate the entire university sector. As I predicted
We've been hiring for a few IT posts recently. And we're seeing a glut of both bootcamp people and regular graduates & masters students. The supply side still seems to be in a 2020/2021 'gold rush' mode (which kind of aligns for when recent grad's would have been half-looking at the job market to make a final degree decision) and the demand side is in a 'woahhhhh there!' one.
Not especially seeing any effect of AI on hiring (other than LLM generated CV's, which are grim reading).
Seems to be paucity of really experienced/knowledgeable developers. Keep finding people who have worked for long periods of time in various role. But have huge gaps in knowledge....
The main reason public sector productivity is so poor is the inability to move unproductive people out. The ultimate tool for increasing output per worker is to shit can the least productive ones which is something that private sector businesses do all the time. Until that attitude is brought to the public sector no amount of "investment" will help. The lazy and the feckless are attracted to the public sector because they know once they're in it's impossible to be removed regardless of how shit they are at the job.
Change this and suddenly public sector productivity will shoot up as those lazy buggers start to fear for their next salary.
If you really fail to perform then you can still be moved out of a public sector role. Plus if you aren't even productive enough for the public sector you certainly won't be for the private sector which means you just end up with a higher welfare and UC bill to support them
The welfare bill will be lower than keeping them in a salaried role. It may also force them to find their level, delivery driving or shelf filling etc...
Not necessarily, depends on the wage, a low public sector wage may not be much higher than the welfare bill.
Delivery driving for example often has very demanding targets so they may not be able to do that either. Indeed the targets are often a disaster in my view, frequently we get delivery drivers ring the bell and dump parcels on the door 5 secs later rather than wait for us to pick them up. Targets which don't include quality of service are equally poor
I was listening to a presentation into a study on Couriers in cities, and the issues around them going everywhere in a huge rush.
One stat cited by someone there was that where they had worked 100 or 200 deliveries were allocated for an 8 hour shift. The business model, and regulation thereof, is problematic.
One reason cited for high powered e-mopeds (eg Sur-Rons or hacked e-cycles) was that the legal ones just weren't fast enough. Without getting into this vs that, it is an relevant question for all of us, I think.
I'll post a link to the video when it is published.
There was a Chris Evans story about always trying to get one particular motorcycle courier who was a lot faster than the rest. So remember to ask for Damon Hill.
A couple of days ago my Deliveroo chap turned up in a 24-plate Transit.
Without doubt one of the worst thread headers TSE has ever done.
No party wins general elections without shoring up their core vote first and for Tories they include private school parents and farmers. Voters also want a choice not an echo, if you want to hammer farmers with inheritance tax and hit private school parents with VAT you vote Labour anyway and if the Tories don't stand up for farmers and private school parents they will leak voters to Reform and the LDs who will.
Plus 57% of voters oppose the hated tractor tax anyway
Not to mention VAT on school fees will just reduce the scholarships they provide and hit smaller schools most making them even more exclusive. While we need family farms to produce our food, you can't make food from houses. Most farms may be asset rich but they are income poor
If you are asset rich but income poor, you can get a mortgage or similar sort of loan. It’s not difficult.
We need houses to live in. You can’t make houses from food (pace Hansel & Gretel).
Can you explain how you pay a mortgage from a poor income. The whole point is they will need to sell at least part of farm to pay it so making it even poorer income etc. Idiocy thought up by morons. It should be tax applied when any sale is made , inheriting land is worth nothing unless you sell.
How can the land be worth so much if it is impossible to generate any income from it?
Inheriting any possession is worth nothing unless you sell.
You should only pay when you sell , up till then you have zero cash/income passed on. Not beyond teh wit of man to devise a scheme where they get tax when that asset or another one in it's place is sold and profit made. Whreas saying those fields are worth 3M hand over cash please is insane.
Yay, @malcolmg and I actually agree on something (there maybe more things who knows?)!
So here is the thing for those that wish to buy Starmer's pack of lies on this subject: Farmers may be asset rich (land buildings equipment), but the reality is that when the elderly farmer dies there is no spare cash to pay the tax bill as farm incomes are now so low. The next generation will be forced to sell, meaning that their income is now even lower.
Given that the return on farming assets is 0.5%, i.e. sharply negative in real terms, and you can get 4% in a bank with negligible risk, forcing them to sell their unproductive assets is actually doing them a favour. They may have to part with 20% of it, but they'd still put their money to far better use than in a value-destroying farm, and be better off in about five years.
Actually 0.5% probably overstates the return, as the assets are probably recorded at historic cost and it's an industry average, while family farms are less productive even than the dire industry mean. So they might be better off after 4 years or less.
Without doubt one of the worst thread headers TSE has ever done.
No party wins general elections without shoring up their core vote first and for Tories they include private school parents and farmers. Voters also want a choice not an echo, if you want to hammer farmers with inheritance tax and hit private school parents with VAT you vote Labour anyway and if the Tories don't stand up for farmers and private school parents they will leak voters to Reform and the LDs who will.
Plus 57% of voters oppose the hated tractor tax anyway
Not to mention VAT on school fees will just reduce the scholarships they provide and hit smaller schools most making them even more exclusive. While we need family farms to produce our food, you can't make food from houses. Most farms may be asset rich but they are income poor
If you are asset rich but income poor, you can get a mortgage or similar sort of loan. It’s not difficult.
We need houses to live in. You can’t make houses from food (pace Hansel & Gretel).
Actually no, you can’t
Banks don’t like calling in loans and taking over the security. They want to know that the loan can be repaid on a reasonable timeframe and generate their return requirements
I feel like I'm in the minority here, in that I don't see why agricultural land should benefit from any special IHT rules compared to other family owned industries, e.g. engineering. Maybe there is a case that capital invested in productive capacity should be treated differently, but I can see difficulties in defining it and personally don't believe it should be treated any differently to money in the bank, or residential property.
There is a separate issue of land being transferred from being UK-family owned to foreign individuals or investment funds. Again, we haven't worried about it for any other industry and I don't see why agricultural land should be different. Actually I am worried about this, but my concern is across the board, not solely agriculture.
There is another issue that currently food production appears to be uneconomic in the country. Should we be concerned about food security? If we are then we should take steps to ensure that farmers get a fair return. But, again, why should we be more concerned about food than (say) energy, or steel production? There's no reason for farming to be singled out for special protection, in my view. However I would note (as an opponent of Brexit) that we now have an opportunity to do something about all those things except none of the pro-Brexit people appear to be proposing anything, which I find odd.
You are rather missing the point already made by a number if us that no genuine family businesses should be paying IHT. Farmers happen to be the main point of discussion but Cyclefree, JJ and myself have all spoken about other family firms as well.
The whole basis of the IHT tax raid on businesses is flawed and will lead to businesses going bust.
The right wing enthusiasm for school vouchers originated in the US, as a result of Supreme Court decisions (starting with Lemon v. Kurtzman) limiting the promotion of religion in public schools.
It had very little to do with economic or academic efficiency.
One might well argue that hasn't changed.
There is a "left wing" country with a voucher system - Sweden. The catch is top-ups are not allowed. So any-one could go to Eton, if Eton only charged what it costs to educate a child in a state school in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.
“Berkeley Professor Says Even His ‘Outstanding’ Students With 4.0 GPAs Aren’t Getting Any Job Offers — ‘I Suspect This Trend Is Irreversible’”
“The professor hypothesizes that even people starting college today will find themselves in a bit of a bind 4 years down road when they are looking for employment.”
This is going to devastate the entire university sector. As I predicted
We've been hiring for a few IT posts recently. And we're seeing a glut of both bootcamp people and regular graduates & masters students. The supply side still seems to be in a 2020/2021 'gold rush' mode (which kind of aligns for when recent grad's would have been half-looking at the job market to make a final degree decision) and the demand side is in a 'woahhhhh there!' one.
Not especially seeing any effect of AI on hiring (other than LLM generated CV's, which are grim reading).
Tsch - bringing facts to a Leon opinion rant.
Leon has arrived and is using racial epithets. Time to go elsewhere.
In the words of the police chief - "There are areas of the city, we need to be perfectly honest here, where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay to be more careful.”
Tricky one. They certainly were being perfectly honest. To be perfectly honest a West Ham fan with a Hammers tattoo on his forehead should be more careful going into the Shed.
Not to say there is a value judgment in either case. One would hope they then went on to say "... and this is something we are working to address." Or some such.
One would hope.
It's a tricky one for me as it causes an error in my liberal-metropolitan-values module, the one that espouses tolerance and lives and works with and is friends with all manner of people from all walks of life.
Yet also increasingly feels under threat from people from different cultures who don't share my world view.
But the only people really speaking up about it are the far right, with whom I don't share a world view, either.
What else marks them out as far right.
Just google anything Farage has said or done on the subject over the last decade. Submitted for your approval is the 'turning point' poster, his comments describing muslims as a 'fifth column' and his spirited defence of Enoch Powell. Hardly a plea for tolerance and understanding. And Reform's record on, say, trans rights, doesn't suggest they'll be particularly keen on the LGBT community, either.
The problem is with news like the quote posted above happening in Berlin, people like me are going to keep sticking our head in the sand because we're too damn liberal to support the far right and don't want to raise our heads above the parapet and say "hang on, this is wrong" for fear of being lumped in with them.
Comments
Is the bit you're missing. Because it will never actually be delivered, or be stuck up a ramp for 24 months refurb before we get it, obvs.
I just wish that all government online services were as good. HMRC hasn’t even caught up with e-communications.
Hospitals and schools already work within an internal market. You get choice of ver what hospital to go to and this affects what money that hospital gets. Ditto with schools. These reforms have not delivered efficiency gains, however. We should stop pretending that healthcare is the same as buying washing powder.
Whreas saying those fields are worth 3M hand over cash please is insane.
The university sector as we have known it for decades (centuries?) is about the vanish
"Ukraine front could 'collapse' as Russia gains accelerate, experts warn"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0dpdx420lo
I suspect Zelensky may well be trying to develop a nuclear bomb himself by the middle of next year to secure Ukranian sovereignty once Trump comes in
https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/zelensky-nuclear-weapons-bomb-0ddjrs5hw
Obvs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smm5e5_vvMc
But the new administration is likely to prove very unpleasant for a lot of people who aren't expecting it.
'"We should be doing something about it today," he urged. O'Brien also cited a WSJ article about how tech jobs are seemingly drying up. The publication found that postings for software development jobs have been down more than 30% since February 2020, according to Indeed.com. '
https://www.yourtango.com/sekf/berkeley-professor-says-even-outstanding-students-arent-getting-jobs
Rather more Storm Shadows & the French equivalent.
It is absolutely not the way you describe with hospitals and schools, they absolutely depend on catchment area and the consumer is not empowered at all.
"He noticed that even outstanding students with 4.0 GPAs were now reaching out to him, worried because, despite their impressive transcripts and experience, they weren't receiving any job offers. He concluded that this was happening because of an irreversible trend that is also part of a broader issue that's impacting almost every job seeker in every area."
Meanwhile the Ukrainians will find 1000 Toyota Hiluxes on eBay and bolt Ol' Painless to all of them.
EDIT: Does it work on Spiny Norman?
Whatever happens.
Biden can get away with it as the US has a nuclear missile arsenal almost as big as Russia's and Putin knows he is a lame duck who will be replaced by Trump come January.
As I said Zelensky needs to get nukes himself by the middle of next year to get the best possible deal for Ukraine
Unless you want to triple spending per pupil ?
As happened in Korea
One stat cited by someone there was that where they had worked 100 or 200 deliveries were allocated for an 8 hour shift. The business model, and regulation thereof, is problematic.
One reason cited for high powered e-mopeds (eg Sur-Rons or hacked e-cycles) was that the legal ones just weren't fast enough. Without getting into this vs that, it is an relevant question for all of us, I think.
I'll post a link to the video when it is published.
Outline of the study:
https://www.wearepossible.org/hotwheels
So here is the thing for those that wish to buy Starmer's pack of lies on this subject: Farmers may be asset rich (land buildings equipment), but the reality is that when the elderly farmer dies there is no spare cash to pay the tax bill as farm incomes are now so low. The next generation will be forced to sell, meaning that their income is now even lower. This is how the family farm is killed off, particularly in areas such as Scotland and Wales.
The idea that only a small number of family farms will be affected is a complete lie. It is about as truthful as Rachel Reeves' CV ffs!
The right wing enthusiasm for school vouchers originated in the US, as a result of Supreme Court decisions (starting with Lemon v. Kurtzman) limiting the promotion of religion in public schools.
It had very little to do with economic or academic efficiency.
One might well argue that hasn't changed.
https://www.thejc.com/news/world/police-chief-warns-jews-and-lgbtq-people-to-hide-their-identity-in-berlin-c5p2eydg
In the words of the police chief - "There are areas of the city, we need to be perfectly honest here, where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay to be more careful.”
- Kill a large chunk of the experienced Russian officer and NCO class. Tick.
- Expose the quality deficit between Russian and UK kit. Tick.
- Lure Putin into unsustainable defence spending to destabilise his regime in the medium term. Tick.
- Demonstrate the defence value of the UK to our neighbours and assure ourselves a decision making seat at whatever forums there are to discuss European defence. Tick.
There is a separate issue of land being transferred from being UK-family owned to foreign individuals or investment funds. Again, we haven't worried about it for any other industry and I don't see why agricultural land should be different. Actually I am worried about this, but my concern is across the board, not solely agriculture.
There is another issue that currently food production appears to be uneconomic in the country. Should we be concerned about food security? If we are then we should take steps to ensure that farmers get a fair return. But, again, why should we be more concerned about food than (say) energy, or steel production? There's no reason for farming to be singled out for special protection, in my view. However I would note (as an opponent of Brexit) that we now have an opportunity to do something about all those things except none of the pro-Brexit people appear to be proposing anything, which I find odd.
The number of vehicles being lost trying to regain it is staggering, without material results. Ditto manpower, but Putin doesn't seem to give a shit about them, whether Russian or North Korean. Having their logistics hammered at the rear by ATACMS isn't going to improve their situation.
Not to say there is a value judgment in either case. One would hope they then went on to say "... and this is something we are working to address." Or some such.
2) The US was, of course, directly involved in the fighting.
3) Unlike Ukraine - where there have already been several ceasefires, followed by further Russian aggression, the Panmunjom settlement has lasted 70 years.
4) The US was willing to station substantial armed forces there for those seven decades to ensure the settlement.
5) The border something like a seventh as long as Russia/Ukraine, is largely mountainous, and readily policeable and defencible.
6) The opposing great power (China) has
no territorial ambitions on the south. Inlike, of course, Russia.
Apart from that, it's similar-ish, if you squint.
The ISW report on which the BBC story is based, is less pessimistic. The ISW notes that over the course of two months, Russia has suffered 80,000 casualties, lost 200 tanks, and 650 armoured vehicles, in the process of capturing 1,500 square kilometres, principally open fields, and small settlements. The ISW concludes that Russia cannot now make good that rate of losses.
The farm can claim business asset relief to get them taxed at a lower rate of IHT. The land is valued on the basis that it could only ever be used for farming.
To compensate for the fact that farms are not cash rich, they get 10 years to pay their IHT bill - another privilege which is not extended to the rest of us.
Etta James though, excellent.
A review of the status in Ukraine, with a Kiev Independent reporter who is based there. It is very much worth a listen, and is much bleaker than what we have been hearing here, especially the contrast between Western waffling, and preventable missiles (if use permissions for weapons had been granted) raining down and killing people.
https://youtu.be/wYpNTXIPTjc?list=PLJnf_DDTfIVCYlsANGtNkzMeM9Fdmqzxr&t=2546
There was also a fascinating interview with one of the Russia team from BBC Monitoring. That took me back to my teenage years, when I sometimes used to listen to the Foreign Service of Radio Moscow, alongside the BBC World Service, in the early hours.
https://youtu.be/wYpNTXIPTjc?list=PLJnf_DDTfIVCYlsANGtNkzMeM9Fdmqzxr&t=1332
But religious schooling was a huge part of it in the 70s/80s.
It will likely end in an armistice because both sides are exhausted and running out of men, and both sides have nukes and perhaps the only way you can now win this war is with nukes: and no one will use nukes. As happened in Korea
Do the people involved have slitty eyes and eat a lot of bibimbap? No. Well done for pointing out that crucial geopolitical difference
FWIW I think the only alternative to Korea ,now, is outright Russian victory
It's a tricky one for me as it causes an error in my liberal-metropolitan-values module, the one that espouses tolerance and lives and works with and is friends with all manner of people from all walks of life.
Yet also increasingly feels under threat from people from different cultures who don't share my world view.
But the only people really speaking up about it are the far right, with whom I don't share a world view, either.
Not especially seeing any effect of AI on hiring (other than LLM generated CV's, which are grim reading).
HOWEVER I wish no ill on any PB-er so I hope you're blind denialism turns out right, and my more gloomy analysis is laughably wrong. Then you are free to hurl the stale scones of scorn at me
It sounds good in theory. It isn't in practice. And we have about forty years of evidence for that now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd3cOdqHU08
A couple of days ago my Deliveroo chap turned up in a 24-plate Transit.
Actually 0.5% probably overstates the return, as the assets are probably recorded at historic cost and it's an industry average, while family farms are less productive even than the dire industry mean. So they might be better off after 4 years or less.
Banks don’t like calling in loans and taking over the security. They want to know that the loan can be repaid on a reasonable timeframe and generate their return requirements
The whole basis of the IHT tax raid on businesses is flawed and will lead to businesses going bust.
The catch is top-ups are not allowed.
So any-one could go to Eton, if Eton only charged what it costs to educate a child in a state school in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.
The problem is with news like the quote posted above happening in Berlin, people like me are going to keep sticking our head in the sand because we're too damn liberal to support the far right and don't want to raise our heads above the parapet and say "hang on, this is wrong" for fear of being lumped in with them.
And so it continues to fester, year by year...