I loved my wedding but would not say it was the happiest day of my life, nor should it be in my view.
Birth of my children would get that title I think.
Happiest day of one's life is a toughie
It was neither my wedding nor the birth of my children, nor the day my best flint became the number one seller in the UK. They were all standouts but not the happiest.....
But what was it?
Fuck. I dunno.
Actually, it MIGHT have been the day I keyed the door to my own property. At the late age of about 42, after a wastrel life of fun and partying that turned into drug addiction and near-death. Then I got clean, but it was still hard, but then my flints made money, and finally I bought a really nice flat, my first, where I sit now, where I have had a lot of great times, and it is all I ever wanted. My own place. A room of one's own. In a fine location in the city I love (for all its flaws). And 2 minutes from Regents Park
Yes, that's probably it. The day I turned the lock on this flat and stepped inside and thought "I own this. I bought it with hard work. No one can throw me out"
Can people who are dying and in severe pain not just be given control of the pain medication switch, with a warnings not to risk going too high, along with a theatrical wink? If the pain gets too much, do what feels right. I know that's oversimplified but it seems more British than hospitals DISPENSING DEATH. I don't think we want doctors given the power to even suggest it to be honest.
It's a fairly normal approach in the UK to crank up pain medication if someone is dying in pain, even if it speeds the end. Similarly sedation for respiratory distress.
This is done as symptom control rather than euthanasia, but I can see why some might think that distinction isn't really genuine.
So you’re saying euthanasia is OK, so long as doctors call it something else ?
I’d prefer something explicit, and capable of regulation.
I am not sure that it is OK, but it is normal practice.
It can get out of control, as it did at Gosport some years ago.
When Gosport comes to trial there is going to be have to heavy reliance on the memories of elderly professionals.
One of my pharmacist colleagues tells of the Brompton cocktail, which was a lethal mix of something to finish you off delivered in a delicious single malt.
Uhm, no, not really. I have written quite often of the Brompton
It was a mix of heroin and cocaine in brandy. It was devised by an end-of-life doctor as part of palliative care, a pick-me-up for the doomed, and he noticed that it made his patients "notably sociable" and apparently happier
It was discontinued, probably on the grounds that dying people should be MISERABLE as well as dying
I despair of this attitude. We have advanced pharmacology, we could invent amazing drugs that would not only make dying painless but positively gladsome. We refuse to do so, I have no idea why other than some lingering religious ascetic weirdness
I make the same point about mind-altering drugs. Why is there not research into drugs that would provide a safe high that could then become a legal alternative to heroin/cocaine/cannabis/etc?
Because drugs are bad, m’kay?
We do have a real issue with attitudes to drugs in this country (we are not alone in this). And politicians are usually complete dunces with respect to statistics about risk and harm. David Nutt is bang right about much of this.
I also think there is something rather puritanical about it - if there was a perfectly safe drug that gave unbelievable highs, no risk at all, many would still want it banned.
Like ecstasy.
Would that be good or bad for U.K. productivity ?
It was said, back in the day of legal prescription of drugs, that heroin addicts were quite capable of working and working well, if their fix was reliably available.
Now tough choices are being revealed and these decisions are indeed proving unpopular. So the government is beset by foes whose discontent is amplified by a largely hostile media.
Some contend that Labour would be in a better place had it not boxed itself in by ruling out increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. The argument goes that it would not then have had to target particular groups with vocal lobbies to express their anger about being “singled out”. But I’m rather sceptical that the government would be more popular had the chancellor used her first budget to up the amount of tax deducted from tens of millions of payslips, or made it more expensive to go to the shops.
Another critique heard within Labour circles is that there are a lot of first-time ministers too preoccupied with learning how to be administrators to remember that they are also supposed to be politicians. Attacks are too often answered with managerial and bloodless arguments when the government as a collective should be on the front foot proselytising its choices. Veterans of past Labour governments worry that this one only plays defence when it should be remorseless in taking the fight into its critics’ territory.
Even with improvements to how the government communicates its case, Labour will have to live with unpopularity for the foreseeable future. The party’s MPs will have to get used to relentless bombardment from those who resist change while receiving little visible gratitude from groups who are benefiting. The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives. Sir Keir should expect to be the target of more and nastier nicknames. At least he now knows the wisdom of an old adage. If you are in politics and want a friend, get a dog.
Can people who are dying and in severe pain not just be given control of the pain medication switch, with a warnings not to risk going too high, along with a theatrical wink? If the pain gets too much, do what feels right. I know that's oversimplified but it seems more British than hospitals DISPENSING DEATH. I don't think we want doctors given the power to even suggest it to be honest.
It's a fairly normal approach in the UK to crank up pain medication if someone is dying in pain, even if it speeds the end. Similarly sedation for respiratory distress.
This is done as symptom control rather than euthanasia, but I can see why some might think that distinction isn't really genuine.
So you’re saying euthanasia is OK, so long as doctors call it something else ?
I’d prefer something explicit, and capable of regulation.
I am not sure that it is OK, but it is normal practice.
It can get out of control, as it did at Gosport some years ago.
When Gosport comes to trial there is going to be have to heavy reliance on the memories of elderly professionals.
One of my pharmacist colleagues tells of the Brompton cocktail, which was a lethal mix of something to finish you off delivered in a delicious single malt.
Uhm, no, not really. I have written quite often of the Brompton
It was a mix of heroin and cocaine in brandy. It was devised by an end-of-life doctor as part of palliative care, a pick-me-up for the doomed, and he noticed that it made his patients "notably sociable" and apparently happier
It was discontinued, probably on the grounds that dying people should be MISERABLE as well as dying
I despair of this attitude. We have advanced pharmacology, we could invent amazing drugs that would not only make dying painless but positively gladsome. We refuse to do so, I have no idea why other than some lingering religious ascetic weirdness
I make the same point about mind-altering drugs. Why is there not research into drugs that would provide a safe high that could then become a legal alternative to heroin/cocaine/cannabis/etc?
Because drugs are bad, m’kay?
We do have a real issue with attitudes to drugs in this country (we are not alone in this). And politicians are usually complete dunces with respect to statistics about risk and harm. David Nutt is bang right about much of this.
I also think there is something rather puritanical about it - if there was a perfectly safe drug that gave unbelievable highs, no risk at all, many would still want it banned.
Like ecstasy.
I can't remember which Iain M. Banks novel it was - but he had the idea of getting massively, massively wrecked on anything you wanted, but then when you got a bit bored/hungover/withdrawn just kinda pressing "off" and being entirely back to yourself again. We need this tech.
I loved my wedding but would not say it was the happiest day of my life, nor should it be in my view.
Birth of my children would get that title I think.
Happiest day of one's life is a toughie
It was neither my wedding nor the birth of my children, nor the day my best flint became the number one seller in the UK. They were all standouts but not the happiest.....
But what was it?
Fuck. I dunno.
Actually, it MIGHT have been the day I keyed the door to my own property. At the late age of about 42, after a wastrel life of fun and partying that turned into drug addiction and near-death. Then I got clean, but it was still hard, but then my flints made money, and finally I bought a really nice flat, my first, where I sit now, where I have had a lot of great times, and it is all I ever wanted. My own place. A room of one's own. In a fine location in the city I love (for all its flaws). And 2 minutes from Regents Park
Yes, that's probably it. The day I turned the lock on this flat and stepped inside and thought "I own this. I bought it with hard work. No one can throw me out"
Aw. You sentimental old fucker.
It was sold to me by a cunning, wily, conniving old estate agent who - I think - cleverly squeezed an extra few K out of me right at the end. However I still have fond feelings for him. Because he sized me up, realised I was a "late first time buyer", and he sensed that it would mean a lot
So he gave me good emotional advice, and left tools for me to put up pics and stuff. And he said, "prepare youself, it will be quite a moment, if this is the first time you've ever owned"
And it really was. And he made it easier and better. I think people outside London who don't understand how hard it is to buy, from scratch, in London, cannot grasp what it means if and when it happens
I burned through parental cash as a young man but there was none by the time I reached my 40s (nor did I deserve any at that stage). So I had to make a massive deposit by working hard and succeeding. And I did
Obviously the idea of having a general election based on a petition is absurd. The more important thing is to wonder why it is happening.
Labour have more than 63% of the seats in the Commons on less than 35% of the vote, so there's a massive mismatch between their Parliamentary power and the popular consent for that power.
Before he left PB.com Alistair Meeks regularly made a great argument that the winners of the Brexit referendum had failed to gain the losers' consent for Brexit. There had been no attempt to reach out to Remainers in order to create a Brexit that the whole country could live with.
In a similar way a new government will normally make an attempt to reach out beyond its voters in order to govern for the whole country. It cannot be said that Labour have succeeded with such an attempt. Thus we could say that they are struggling to obtain the losers' consent to govern.
This is a bit of a problem when the losers are >65% of the electorate.
David Cameron and George Osborne seemed like the wrong people at the wrong time in 2010. I'm starting to think that a Human Rights lawyer might be completely the wrong person to be Prime minister in 2024.
Maybe the best way to understand the political parties is in terms of lobbies and industries. For the Tories they're the political wing of financial services, whilst Labour are the political wing of the legal industry.
David Cameron and George Osborne seemed like the wrong people at the wrong time in 2010. I'm starting to think that a Human Rights lawyer might be completely the wrong person to be Prime minister in 2024.
Maybe the best way to understand the political parties is in terms of lobbies and industries. For the Tories they're the political wing of financial services, whilst Labour are the political wing of the legal industry.
The Tories since Brexit are more the political wing of small businesses and farmers along with Reform, Labour are the political wing of trade unions and HR lawyers but plenty of lawyers are LDs too.
I don't know if anyone shared the latest opinion poll for the Irish general election (coming up on Friday). FG 22% FF 20% SF 20% SDP 5% Aontú 5% Lab 4% Grn 3% PBP-S 2% Others/Independents 19%
This is Fine Gael's equal worst score since June and Sinn Fein's best score since September.
Has Mary-Lou got the big mo? Did Harris acting the rude berk in Kanturk scupper his re-election chances? Will Holly Cairns give birth before election day?
I think I'd currently give FG-FF-Independent Ireland the edge on forming the next government. But there's a long way to go.
Though interestingly the biggest gainers since the last poll are actually Aontu not SF and Aontu are taking the hardest line on immigration in this Irish election campaign
I do wish people would lay off @HYUFD and the abuse. Yes, he likes to post slightly dogmatic highly traditionalist High Tory views, and then stubbornly digs in when challenged, but that's no reason to be nasty.
I'd say the best way to lower divorce rates would be more marriage courses and marriage counselling.
Marriage is hard and we've had some tough moments. We still hark back to the all weekend marriage course the CofE ran for us before we got hitched in our local church, which we still find useful.
We could reduce divorce rates by abolishing marriage its a pretty useless institution these days
We have over 60 years marriage and of course there were up and downs but we have never been closer and one thing that binds us together is a good sense of humour, and of course the family and our grandchildren
I think marriage is a wonderful institution but there are times couples grow apart and they move on
My imputation was more marriage is a useless institution when it is transient. There are people like you however the average marriage I believe lasts about 7 years. It is now merely a contract for most not a life long commitment. For those that marriage has worked I salute you but there are not many now and getting fewer
Marriage should be a life long commitment for love and partnership and bringing up children. Some encouraging news as posted earlier that the divorce rate of those married may finally be starting to decline
David Cameron and George Osborne seemed like the wrong people at the wrong time in 2010. I'm starting to think that a Human Rights lawyer might be completely the wrong person to be Prime minister in 2024.
Maybe the best way to understand the political parties is in terms of lobbies and industries. For the Tories they're the political wing of financial services, whilst Labour are the political wing of the legal industry.
I think Labour are still the party of the trade union movement, but the vast majority of the trade unions had the shit kicked out of them during the Thatcher years. With the failure of a mass-mobilization strike-based approach the trade unions turned to obtaining redress through the courts.
So, back in the day, women went on strike in Dagenham and elsewhere to obtain better conditions. Now a union brings a court case for equal pay.
I do wish people would lay off @HYUFD and the abuse. Yes, he likes to post slightly dogmatic highly traditionalist High Tory views, and then stubbornly digs in when challenged, but that's no reason to be nasty.
I'd say the best way to lower divorce rates would be more marriage courses and marriage counselling.
Marriage is hard and we've had some tough moments. We still hark back to the all weekend marriage course the CofE ran for us before we got hitched in our local church, which we still find useful.
Thanks but it doesn't particularly bother me, in fact I like winding up ultra social liberals on here
Went to see Gladiator 2 this evening which was surprisingly good, some excellent arena and battle scenes if a bit gory. Paul Mescal a strong lead and Denzel Washington hammed it up and even Sir Derek Jacobi and Matt Lucas appeared
I do wish people would lay off @HYUFD and the abuse. Yes, he likes to post slightly dogmatic highly traditionalist High Tory views, and then stubbornly digs in when challenged, but that's no reason to be nasty.
I'd say the best way to lower divorce rates would be more marriage courses and marriage counselling.
Marriage is hard and we've had some tough moments. We still hark back to the all weekend marriage course the CofE ran for us before we got hitched in our local church, which we still find useful.
We could reduce divorce rates by abolishing marriage its a pretty useless institution these days
We have over 60 years marriage and of course there were up and downs but we have never been closer and one thing that binds us together is a good sense of humour, and of course the family and our grandchildren
I think marriage is a wonderful institution but there are times couples grow apart and they move on
My imputation was more marriage is a useless institution when it is transient. There are people like you however the average marriage I believe lasts about 7 years. It is now merely a contract for most not a life long commitment. For those that marriage has worked I salute you but there are not many now and getting fewer
Marriage should be a life long commitment for love and partnership and bringing up children. Some encouraging news as posted earlier that the divorce rate of those married may finally be starting to decline
Largely, I think, because fewer get married - so a greater percentage of those getting married are doing it for the right reasons, rather than because it's the next step on the line.
I agree with you that it should be intended to be a lifelong commitment - but a lifelong commitment is not for everyone, and is highly dependent on your good fortune in finding someone you can commit for a lifetime to.
I don't know if anyone shared the latest opinion poll for the Irish general election (coming up on Friday). FG 22% FF 20% SF 20% SDP 5% Aontú 5% Lab 4% Grn 3% PBP-S 2% Others/Independents 19%
This is Fine Gael's equal worst score since June and Sinn Fein's best score since September.
Has Mary-Lou got the big mo? Did Harris acting the rude berk in Kanturk scupper his re-election chances? Will Holly Cairns give birth before election day?
I think I'd currently give FG-FF-Independent Ireland the edge on forming the next government. But there's a long way to go.
Though interestingly the biggest gainers since the last poll are actually Aontu not SF and Aontu are taking the hardest line on immigration in this Irish election campaign
Both Aontú and SF are +2 compared to the previous poll by the same firm. FG -4, Greens and SocDems both -1. Others/Independents +3.
I felt that Aontú's leader did pretty well in the half of the leadership debate that I saw. They will be in strong competition with Independent candidates for the anti-immigration vote, so it will depend on whether any of their candidates have gained any traction in a particular locality, or if their national vote share is enough to put them ahead of Independent candidates and gain transfers.
By way of example, at the recent Cork County Council elections Aontú had zero councillors elected with 3,071 votes. Independent Ireland elected 4 councillors with 9,828 votes and there were 8 Independents elected with 23,782 votes.
I'd expect Independent Ireland to do a lot better at hoovering up the anti-immigration vote than Aontú, but the later did gain 5 councillors to reach a total of 8 nationwide, so that would be a guide to where they could make an advance in the general election.
Second round with just two candidates, it is suggested. The third place candidate is too far behind. So the "far right independent" vs the social democrat. Très français.
"Ed Davey: Assisted dying risks making elderly feel like a ‘burden’ Legalisation could pressure vulnerable pensioners into ending their lives, says Lib Dem leader ahead of likely Commons vote"
"Ed Davey: Assisted dying risks making elderly feel like a ‘burden’ Legalisation could pressure vulnerable pensioners into ending their lives, says Lib Dem leader ahead of likely Commons vote"
"Ed Davey: Assisted dying risks making elderly feel like a ‘burden’ Legalisation could pressure vulnerable pensioners into ending their lives, says Lib Dem leader ahead of likely Commons vote"
Sadly the Lib Dems have long been an illiberal party.
Davey has been a carer to his disabled son which I expect explains his position, unfortunately on BigG's chart it seems most of his fellow LD MPs will be voting for assisted dying however
Very surprised by how many Labour MPs are said to be planning to vote against Assisted Dying according to this spreadsheet. Includes people like Bridget Phillipson, Angela Rayner and Jonathan Reynolds.
Now tough choices are being revealed and these decisions are indeed proving unpopular. So the government is beset by foes whose discontent is amplified by a largely hostile media.
Some contend that Labour would be in a better place had it not boxed itself in by ruling out increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. The argument goes that it would not then have had to target particular groups with vocal lobbies to express their anger about being “singled out”. But I’m rather sceptical that the government would be more popular had the chancellor used her first budget to up the amount of tax deducted from tens of millions of payslips, or made it more expensive to go to the shops.
Another critique heard within Labour circles is that there are a lot of first-time ministers too preoccupied with learning how to be administrators to remember that they are also supposed to be politicians. Attacks are too often answered with managerial and bloodless arguments when the government as a collective should be on the front foot proselytising its choices. Veterans of past Labour governments worry that this one only plays defence when it should be remorseless in taking the fight into its critics’ territory.
Even with improvements to how the government communicates its case, Labour will have to live with unpopularity for the foreseeable future. The party’s MPs will have to get used to relentless bombardment from those who resist change while receiving little visible gratitude from groups who are benefiting. The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives. Sir Keir should expect to be the target of more and nastier nicknames. At least he now knows the wisdom of an old adage. If you are in politics and want a friend, get a dog.
" The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives."
I am struggling to see where anyone is going to experience palpable improvements to their lives following that Labour budget. If anything, the longer term wider impact could well be to make everyones lives worse across a whole range of areas rather than just the clear high profile losers so far.
Put it this way, I don't see the song Things Can Only Get Better taking off again in Labour circles far less among the wider electorate anytime soon, and it is because this new Labour Government is already coming across as very ill prepared, totally out of touch, and utterly rudderless across all departments with an absolutely invisible Comms operation. While Starmer's team may have leant from the mistakes of the 1992 GE Labour campaign, they have then failed to take on board or copied the far more successful policy/political strategy grid deployed in the first few months and years of the Blair/Brown government.
I was listening to the radio last Tuesday and a journalist who had been at the Farmers protest in London had been chatting to a former Conservative MP who had lost his seat back in July only to be told that they had just bumped into the Labour MP who had replaced them and the Labour MP had said 'do you want your job back?'. There are a lot of Labour MPs who stood in constituencies across the UK on the back of Labour pledges that their new new Government have now ditched and I bet that is already beginning to make it more uncomfortable on the doorsteps.
Now tough choices are being revealed and these decisions are indeed proving unpopular. So the government is beset by foes whose discontent is amplified by a largely hostile media.
Some contend that Labour would be in a better place had it not boxed itself in by ruling out increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. The argument goes that it would not then have had to target particular groups with vocal lobbies to express their anger about being “singled out”. But I’m rather sceptical that the government would be more popular had the chancellor used her first budget to up the amount of tax deducted from tens of millions of payslips, or made it more expensive to go to the shops.
Another critique heard within Labour circles is that there are a lot of first-time ministers too preoccupied with learning how to be administrators to remember that they are also supposed to be politicians. Attacks are too often answered with managerial and bloodless arguments when the government as a collective should be on the front foot proselytising its choices. Veterans of past Labour governments worry that this one only plays defence when it should be remorseless in taking the fight into its critics’ territory.
Even with improvements to how the government communicates its case, Labour will have to live with unpopularity for the foreseeable future. The party’s MPs will have to get used to relentless bombardment from those who resist change while receiving little visible gratitude from groups who are benefiting. The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives. Sir Keir should expect to be the target of more and nastier nicknames. At least he now knows the wisdom of an old adage. If you are in politics and want a friend, get a dog.
" The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives."
I am struggling to see where anyone is going to experience palpable improvements to their lives following that Labour budget. If anything, the longer term wider impact could well be to make everyones lives worse across a whole range of areas rather than just the clear high profile losers so far.
Put it this way, I don't see the song Things Can Only Get Better taking off again in Labour circles far less among the wider electorate anytime soon, and it is because this new Labour Government is already coming across as very ill prepared, totally out of touch, and utterly rudderless across all departments with an absolutely invisible Comms operation. While Starmer's team may have leant from the mistakes of the 1992 GE Labour campaign, they have then failed to take on board or copied the far more successful policy/political strategy grid deployed in the first few months and years of the Blair/Brown government.
I was listening to the radio last Tuesday and a journalist who had been at the Farmers protest in London had been chatting to a former Conservative MP who had lost his seat back in July only to be told that they had just bumped into the Labour MP who had replaced them and the Labour MP had said 'do you want your job back?'. There are a lot of Labour MPs who stood in constituencies across the UK on the back of Labour pledges that their new new Government have now ditched and I bet that is already beginning to make it more uncomfortable on the doorsteps.
Even Kinnock in 1992 got 34.7%, Starmer in 2024 got just 33.7%. Sir Keir was elected almost entirely due to the divide on the right between Tories and Reform letting Labour come through the middle under FPTP, it was certainly nowhere near a 1997 landslide of enthusiasm for him. Back then Blair got 43.2%, so New Labour got almost 10% more than Starmer Labour did in July
Now tough choices are being revealed and these decisions are indeed proving unpopular. So the government is beset by foes whose discontent is amplified by a largely hostile media.
Some contend that Labour would be in a better place had it not boxed itself in by ruling out increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. The argument goes that it would not then have had to target particular groups with vocal lobbies to express their anger about being “singled out”. But I’m rather sceptical that the government would be more popular had the chancellor used her first budget to up the amount of tax deducted from tens of millions of payslips, or made it more expensive to go to the shops.
Another critique heard within Labour circles is that there are a lot of first-time ministers too preoccupied with learning how to be administrators to remember that they are also supposed to be politicians. Attacks are too often answered with managerial and bloodless arguments when the government as a collective should be on the front foot proselytising its choices. Veterans of past Labour governments worry that this one only plays defence when it should be remorseless in taking the fight into its critics’ territory.
Even with improvements to how the government communicates its case, Labour will have to live with unpopularity for the foreseeable future. The party’s MPs will have to get used to relentless bombardment from those who resist change while receiving little visible gratitude from groups who are benefiting. The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives. Sir Keir should expect to be the target of more and nastier nicknames. At least he now knows the wisdom of an old adage. If you are in politics and want a friend, get a dog.
" The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives."
I am struggling to see where anyone is going to experience palpable improvements to their lives following that Labour budget. If anything, the longer term wider impact could well be to make everyones lives worse across a whole range of areas rather than just the clear high profile losers so far.
snip...
They are betting the farm(s) that improvements in public services, particularly the NHS, will provide the feel good factor.
Kicking the problem of lack of growth / budget deficit / high taxes into the long grass.
Very surprised by how many Labour MPs are said to be planning to vote against Assisted Dying according to this spreadsheet. Includes people like Bridget Phillipson, Angela Rayner and Jonathan Reynolds.
If I'm reading that spreadsheet correctly there seems to be an error in the forecasted totals for independents.
Most independents are forecast to be abstaining (presumably as SF are class as independents on that list as they are not listed as a party with the other parties and all of SF will of course abstain) but then in the forecasted totals they're all assigned to against and not abstain.
EDIT: No I'm wrong, they're genuinely against and it isn't SF. Its all the Hamas and far left extremists of course.
David Cameron and George Osborne seemed like the wrong people at the wrong time in 2010. I'm starting to think that a Human Rights lawyer might be completely the wrong person to be Prime minister in 2024.
Maybe the best way to understand the political parties is in terms of lobbies and industries. For the Tories they're the political wing of financial services, whilst Labour are the political wing of the legal industry.
I think Labour are still the party of the trade union movement, but the vast majority of the trade unions had the shit kicked out of them during the Thatcher years. With the failure of a mass-mobilization strike-based approach the trade unions turned to obtaining redress through the courts.
So, back in the day, women went on strike in Dagenham and elsewhere to obtain better conditions. Now a union brings a court case for equal pay.
That’s more to do with the progress of employment rights.
And also both employers and unions reading the Economist. Back in the 90s, they did an analysis of the result of strikes going back to the 60s. In nearly every case, both sides lost.
So the sane move was to move to legally binding arbitration mechanisms between unions and management.
Now tough choices are being revealed and these decisions are indeed proving unpopular. So the government is beset by foes whose discontent is amplified by a largely hostile media.
Some contend that Labour would be in a better place had it not boxed itself in by ruling out increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. The argument goes that it would not then have had to target particular groups with vocal lobbies to express their anger about being “singled out”. But I’m rather sceptical that the government would be more popular had the chancellor used her first budget to up the amount of tax deducted from tens of millions of payslips, or made it more expensive to go to the shops.
Another critique heard within Labour circles is that there are a lot of first-time ministers too preoccupied with learning how to be administrators to remember that they are also supposed to be politicians. Attacks are too often answered with managerial and bloodless arguments when the government as a collective should be on the front foot proselytising its choices. Veterans of past Labour governments worry that this one only plays defence when it should be remorseless in taking the fight into its critics’ territory.
Even with improvements to how the government communicates its case, Labour will have to live with unpopularity for the foreseeable future. The party’s MPs will have to get used to relentless bombardment from those who resist change while receiving little visible gratitude from groups who are benefiting. The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives. Sir Keir should expect to be the target of more and nastier nicknames. At least he now knows the wisdom of an old adage. If you are in politics and want a friend, get a dog.
" The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives."
I am struggling to see where anyone is going to experience palpable improvements to their lives following that Labour budget. If anything, the longer term wider impact could well be to make everyones lives worse across a whole range of areas rather than just the clear high profile losers so far.
snip...
They are betting the farm(s) that improvements in public services, particularly the NHS, will provide the feel good factor.
Kicking the problem of lack of growth / budget deficit / high taxes into the long grass.
I must admit that it took me back when I saw this Labour government dusting off that old Blair/Brown Labour slogan of 'borrow to invest in public services' recently, have they learnt nothing from what happened last time?
Now tough choices are being revealed and these decisions are indeed proving unpopular. So the government is beset by foes whose discontent is amplified by a largely hostile media.
Some contend that Labour would be in a better place had it not boxed itself in by ruling out increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. The argument goes that it would not then have had to target particular groups with vocal lobbies to express their anger about being “singled out”. But I’m rather sceptical that the government would be more popular had the chancellor used her first budget to up the amount of tax deducted from tens of millions of payslips, or made it more expensive to go to the shops.
Another critique heard within Labour circles is that there are a lot of first-time ministers too preoccupied with learning how to be administrators to remember that they are also supposed to be politicians. Attacks are too often answered with managerial and bloodless arguments when the government as a collective should be on the front foot proselytising its choices. Veterans of past Labour governments worry that this one only plays defence when it should be remorseless in taking the fight into its critics’ territory.
Even with improvements to how the government communicates its case, Labour will have to live with unpopularity for the foreseeable future. The party’s MPs will have to get used to relentless bombardment from those who resist change while receiving little visible gratitude from groups who are benefiting. The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives. Sir Keir should expect to be the target of more and nastier nicknames. At least he now knows the wisdom of an old adage. If you are in politics and want a friend, get a dog.
" The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives."
I am struggling to see where anyone is going to experience palpable improvements to their lives following that Labour budget. If anything, the longer term wider impact could well be to make everyones lives worse across a whole range of areas rather than just the clear high profile losers so far.
snip...
They are betting the farm(s) that improvements in public services, particularly the NHS, will provide the feel good factor.
Kicking the problem of lack of growth / budget deficit / high taxes into the long grass.
I must admit that it took me back when I saw this Labour government dusting off that old Blair/Brown Labour slogan of 'borrow to invest in public services' recently, have they learnt nothing from what happened last time?
It far worse. Not only are we starting from a worse economic legacy, but Blair / Brown first term was fairly sensible on the spending front. If we are to believe the current governments plans they are borrowing massively, taxing a lot more, then front loading all this extra spending into 2 year period, and the result of which is less growth over 5 years. Its special kind of Keynesian economics that spends huge amounts of money on public works and gets negative economic benefit in the short / mid term.
Now tough choices are being revealed and these decisions are indeed proving unpopular. So the government is beset by foes whose discontent is amplified by a largely hostile media.
Some contend that Labour would be in a better place had it not boxed itself in by ruling out increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. The argument goes that it would not then have had to target particular groups with vocal lobbies to express their anger about being “singled out”. But I’m rather sceptical that the government would be more popular had the chancellor used her first budget to up the amount of tax deducted from tens of millions of payslips, or made it more expensive to go to the shops.
Another critique heard within Labour circles is that there are a lot of first-time ministers too preoccupied with learning how to be administrators to remember that they are also supposed to be politicians. Attacks are too often answered with managerial and bloodless arguments when the government as a collective should be on the front foot proselytising its choices. Veterans of past Labour governments worry that this one only plays defence when it should be remorseless in taking the fight into its critics’ territory.
Even with improvements to how the government communicates its case, Labour will have to live with unpopularity for the foreseeable future. The party’s MPs will have to get used to relentless bombardment from those who resist change while receiving little visible gratitude from groups who are benefiting. The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives. Sir Keir should expect to be the target of more and nastier nicknames. At least he now knows the wisdom of an old adage. If you are in politics and want a friend, get a dog.
" The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives."
I am struggling to see where anyone is going to experience palpable improvements to their lives following that Labour budget. If anything, the longer term wider impact could well be to make everyones lives worse across a whole range of areas rather than just the clear high profile losers so far.
snip...
They are betting the farm(s) that improvements in public services, particularly the NHS, will provide the feel good factor.
Kicking the problem of lack of growth / budget deficit / high taxes into the long grass.
I must admit that it took me back when I saw this Labour government dusting off that old Blair/Brown Labour slogan of 'borrow to invest in public services' recently, have they learnt nothing from what happened last time?
It’s about constraints.
Aside from there being no magic money tree, there is the issue of mind set and ideology.
Starmer can’t attack the Process State - his instincts, training and social vocabulary are all that complex legal and regulatory processes are a good, of themselves.
Reform of public services has been battered about, until most on the left of centre (and many to the right) no longer believe they are possible.
So they are left with spending more. But trying to raise more without doing so.
Very surprised by how many Labour MPs are said to be planning to vote against Assisted Dying according to this spreadsheet. Includes people like Bridget Phillipson, Angela Rayner and Jonathan Reynolds.
If I'm reading that spreadsheet correctly there seems to be an error in the forecasted totals for independents.
Most independents are forecast to be abstaining (presumably as SF are class as independents on that list as they are not listed as a party with the other parties and all of SF will of course abstain) but then in the forecasted totals they're all assigned to against and not abstain.
EDIT: No I'm wrong, they're genuinely against and it isn't SF. Its all the Hamas and far left extremists of course.
I recently lost my phone (walking around Shepperton of all places, when I was visiting JG Ballard's backyard since I'm a fan of his), and since then I haven't been able to log into my Gmail account because the only way you can get into it is with a message sent to your phone. Since then I've had to set up a temporary email address. Is there any way round this? Google seem to be so intent on stopping hackers that they're making it very difficult for genuine users when unfortunate things happen like losing your phone. (The problem didn't manifest itself immediately because I was using my normal laptop where a sign-in was okay without a phone message, but when I tried using another one belonging to a family member it suddenly wanted to send me the code since it wasn't the usual device).
I recently lost my phone (walking around Shepperton of all places, when I was visiting JG Ballard's backyard since I'm a fan of his), and since then I haven't been able to log into my Gmail account because the only way you can get into it is with a message sent to your phone. Since then I've had to set up a temporary email address. Is there any way round this? Google seem to be so intent on stopping hackers that they're making it very difficult for genuine users when unfortunate things happen like losing your phone. (The problem didn't manifest itself immediately because I was using my normal laptop where a sign-in was okay without a phone message, but when I tried using another one belonging to a family member it suddenly wanted to send me the code since it wasn't the usual device).
Have you tried the Google Account Recovery Page?
I've never had to use it but it's what the company site steers one towards.
I recently lost my phone (walking around Shepperton of all places, when I was visiting JG Ballard's backyard since I'm a fan of his), and since then I haven't been able to log into my Gmail account because the only way you can get into it is with a message sent to your phone. Since then I've had to set up a temporary email address. Is there any way round this? Google seem to be so intent on stopping hackers that they're making it very difficult for genuine users when unfortunate things happen like losing your phone. (The problem didn't manifest itself immediately because I was using my normal laptop where a sign-in was okay without a phone message, but when I tried using another one belonging to a family member it suddenly wanted to send me the code since it wasn't the usual device).
You probably set up a recovery email address. Check your other email accounts (including their spam folders) for messages from Google.
Now tough choices are being revealed and these decisions are indeed proving unpopular. So the government is beset by foes whose discontent is amplified by a largely hostile media.
Some contend that Labour would be in a better place had it not boxed itself in by ruling out increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. The argument goes that it would not then have had to target particular groups with vocal lobbies to express their anger about being “singled out”. But I’m rather sceptical that the government would be more popular had the chancellor used her first budget to up the amount of tax deducted from tens of millions of payslips, or made it more expensive to go to the shops.
Another critique heard within Labour circles is that there are a lot of first-time ministers too preoccupied with learning how to be administrators to remember that they are also supposed to be politicians. Attacks are too often answered with managerial and bloodless arguments when the government as a collective should be on the front foot proselytising its choices. Veterans of past Labour governments worry that this one only plays defence when it should be remorseless in taking the fight into its critics’ territory.
Even with improvements to how the government communicates its case, Labour will have to live with unpopularity for the foreseeable future. The party’s MPs will have to get used to relentless bombardment from those who resist change while receiving little visible gratitude from groups who are benefiting. The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives. Sir Keir should expect to be the target of more and nastier nicknames. At least he now knows the wisdom of an old adage. If you are in politics and want a friend, get a dog.
" The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives."
I am struggling to see where anyone is going to experience palpable improvements to their lives following that Labour budget. If anything, the longer term wider impact could well be to make everyones lives worse across a whole range of areas rather than just the clear high profile losers so far.
snip...
They are betting the farm(s) that improvements in public services, particularly the NHS, will provide the feel good factor.
Kicking the problem of lack of growth / budget deficit / high taxes into the long grass.
I must admit that it took me back when I saw this Labour government dusting off that old Blair/Brown Labour slogan of 'borrow to invest in public services' recently, have they learnt nothing from what happened last time?
It far worse. Not only are we starting from a worse economic legacy, but Blair / Brown first term was fairly sensible on the spending front. If we are to believe the current governments plans they are borrowing massively, taxing a lot more, then front loading all this extra spending into 2 year period, and the result of which is less growth over 5 years. Its special kind of Keynesian economics that spends huge amounts of money on public works and gets negative economic benefit in the short / mid term.
"Not only are we starting from a worse economic legacy, but Blair / Brown first term was fairly sensible on the spending front."
Totally agree, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have mistakenly decided to ignore the more successful early Blair/Brown strategy of sticking to Ken Clarke's sensible spending plans in the first couple of years in Office before they gradually laid out their on longer term economic/public spending policies therefore earning the public's trust.
But Starmer and Reeves have now done the exact opposite, they have used this budget to renege on many clear pre GE pledges to the electorate and left them blindsided totally undermining any trust in this Government before it even gets its feet under the table. I am struggling to understand why they thought this budget gamble would be anymore successful than the Liz Truss/Kwasi Kwarteng one for the very same reasons, it may not have got the immediate negative market reaction of the latter, but it will do in the longer term.
But the fact remains that Starmer/Reeves like Truss/Kwarteng have got the politics of this horrible wrong because they didn't do the proper planning and preparation far less stress testing what they should have done, and then they didn't even bother to come up with a coherent political plan to sell it. I cannot see any economic upside to this Labour budget over the next five years, and that includes more importantly providing sustainable funding for the public sector in the longer term. If they are hoping that better public services in five years are going to be visible deliverable enough that it will give them an electoral boost on that back of that economically negative budget they are taking a hell of a gamble.
Because local democracy is all about money and not democracy.
It can also be very useful if you want urban to have more control over rural areas.....say for planning permission for houses and wind farms in the green belt....as the number of councillors given to more densely populated urban areas trump the rural when you bundle it all togther.
Yet another article about leasehold service fees...anybody would think they were running a campaign to get reform of this area. I remember GB News got a fine for something similar.
Was thinking about the altercation on Westminster Bridge yesterday, wondering if it had anything to do with this.
Again the authorities just let all this stuff slide....although the broken window theory cleanup of NYC is not the magic bullet and the stats show crime decreasing in other American cities at that time, as somebody who regular visited, it was undeniable that it was just a much better place to be.
Was thinking about the altercation on Westminster Bridge yesterday, wondering if it had anything to do with this.
Again the authorities just let all this stuff slide....although the broken window theory cleanup of NYC is not the magic bullet and the stats show crime decreasing in other American cities at that time, as somebody who regular visited, it was undeniable that it was just a much better place to be.
Its not just London, Paris, Barcelona, etc are also bad now too.
Three things.
Yes, probably.
It was a heart attack rather than a stabbing as first reported.
Broken window theory started here, not in America, but everyone ignored it because it was in schools! See Michael Rutter's 15,000 hours.
But to get back to your point, you do have to wonder why grifters and criminals are allowed to flourish in a prime tourist spot so close to Parliament.
Was thinking about the altercation on Westminster Bridge yesterday, wondering if it had anything to do with this.
Again the authorities just let all this stuff slide....although the broken window theory cleanup of NYC is not the magic bullet and the stats show crime decreasing in other American cities at that time, as somebody who regular visited, it was undeniable that it was just a much better place to be.
Its not just London, Paris, Barcelona, etc are also bad now too.
Three things.
Yes, probably.
It was a heart attack rather than a stabbing as first reported.
Broken window theory started here, not in America, but everyone ignored it because it was in schools! See Michael Rutter's 15,000 hours.
But to get back to your point, you do have to wonder why grifters and criminals are allowed to flourish in a prime tourist spot so close to Parliament.
I know it wasn't a stabbing, 3 people were still arrested under charges relating to attempted murder and another has been arrested on suspicion of affray. So I don't think the police think he was a random middled aged bloke whose ticker just gave out as they strolled along the bridge. Hence why I wondered if it is related to these gangs, who are known to get very aggressive.
These guys got attacked when they try to film similar gangs in Paris (I believe they are normally always Romanian across Europe) https://www.youtube.com/@HONESTGUIDE
Now tough choices are being revealed and these decisions are indeed proving unpopular. So the government is beset by foes whose discontent is amplified by a largely hostile media.
Some contend that Labour would be in a better place had it not boxed itself in by ruling out increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. The argument goes that it would not then have had to target particular groups with vocal lobbies to express their anger about being “singled out”. But I’m rather sceptical that the government would be more popular had the chancellor used her first budget to up the amount of tax deducted from tens of millions of payslips, or made it more expensive to go to the shops.
Another critique heard within Labour circles is that there are a lot of first-time ministers too preoccupied with learning how to be administrators to remember that they are also supposed to be politicians. Attacks are too often answered with managerial and bloodless arguments when the government as a collective should be on the front foot proselytising its choices. Veterans of past Labour governments worry that this one only plays defence when it should be remorseless in taking the fight into its critics’ territory.
Even with improvements to how the government communicates its case, Labour will have to live with unpopularity for the foreseeable future. The party’s MPs will have to get used to relentless bombardment from those who resist change while receiving little visible gratitude from groups who are benefiting. The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives. Sir Keir should expect to be the target of more and nastier nicknames. At least he now knows the wisdom of an old adage. If you are in politics and want a friend, get a dog.
" The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives."
I am struggling to see where anyone is going to experience palpable improvements to their lives following that Labour budget. If anything, the longer term wider impact could well be to make everyones lives worse across a whole range of areas rather than just the clear high profile losers so far.
snip...
They are betting the farm(s) that improvements in public services, particularly the NHS, will provide the feel good factor.
Kicking the problem of lack of growth / budget deficit / high taxes into the long grass.
I must admit that it took me back when I saw this Labour government dusting off that old Blair/Brown Labour slogan of 'borrow to invest in public services' recently, have they learnt nothing from what happened last time?
It far worse. Not only are we starting from a worse economic legacy, but Blair / Brown first term was fairly sensible on the spending front. If we are to believe the current governments plans they are borrowing massively, taxing a lot more, then front loading all this extra spending into 2 year period, and the result of which is less growth over 5 years. Its special kind of Keynesian economics that spends huge amounts of money on public works and gets negative economic benefit in the short / mid term.
"Not only are we starting from a worse economic legacy, but Blair / Brown first term was fairly sensible on the spending front."
Totally agree, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have mistakenly decided to ignore the more successful early Blair/Brown strategy of sticking to Ken Clarke's sensible spending plans in the first couple of years in Office before they gradually laid out their on longer term economic/public spending policies therefore earning the public's trust.
But Starmer and Reeves have now done the exact opposite, they have used this budget to renege on many clear pre GE pledges to the electorate and left them blindsided totally undermining any trust in this Government before it even gets its feet under the table. I am struggling to understand why they thought this budget gamble would be anymore successful than the Liz Truss/Kwasi Kwarteng one for the very same reasons, it may not have got the immediate negative market reaction of the latter, but it will do in the longer term.
But the fact remains that Starmer/Reeves like Truss/Kwarteng have got the politics of this horrible wrong because they didn't do the proper planning and preparation far less stress testing what they should have done, and then they didn't even bother to come up with a coherent political plan to sell it. I cannot see any economic upside to this Labour budget over the next five years, and that includes more importantly providing sustainable funding for the public sector in the longer term. If they are hoping that better public services in five years are going to be visible deliverable enough that it will give them an electoral boost on that back of that economically negative budget they are taking a hell of a gamble.
Starmer might have drawn the wrong lesson from Blair's out-of-power musing about forcing unpopular measures through at the start. And possibly on ‘reform of the public services’ where Streeting has swallowed the Blairite kool-aid even down to hiring Milburn and Darzi.
Now tough choices are being revealed and these decisions are indeed proving unpopular. So the government is beset by foes whose discontent is amplified by a largely hostile media.
Some contend that Labour would be in a better place had it not boxed itself in by ruling out increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. The argument goes that it would not then have had to target particular groups with vocal lobbies to express their anger about being “singled out”. But I’m rather sceptical that the government would be more popular had the chancellor used her first budget to up the amount of tax deducted from tens of millions of payslips, or made it more expensive to go to the shops.
Another critique heard within Labour circles is that there are a lot of first-time ministers too preoccupied with learning how to be administrators to remember that they are also supposed to be politicians. Attacks are too often answered with managerial and bloodless arguments when the government as a collective should be on the front foot proselytising its choices. Veterans of past Labour governments worry that this one only plays defence when it should be remorseless in taking the fight into its critics’ territory.
Even with improvements to how the government communicates its case, Labour will have to live with unpopularity for the foreseeable future. The party’s MPs will have to get used to relentless bombardment from those who resist change while receiving little visible gratitude from groups who are benefiting. The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives. Sir Keir should expect to be the target of more and nastier nicknames. At least he now knows the wisdom of an old adage. If you are in politics and want a friend, get a dog.
" The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives."
I am struggling to see where anyone is going to experience palpable improvements to their lives following that Labour budget. If anything, the longer term wider impact could well be to make everyones lives worse across a whole range of areas rather than just the clear high profile losers so far.
snip...
They are betting the farm(s) that improvements in public services, particularly the NHS, will provide the feel good factor.
Kicking the problem of lack of growth / budget deficit / high taxes into the long grass.
I must admit that it took me back when I saw this Labour government dusting off that old Blair/Brown Labour slogan of 'borrow to invest in public services' recently, have they learnt nothing from what happened last time?
It far worse. Not only are we starting from a worse economic legacy, but Blair / Brown first term was fairly sensible on the spending front. If we are to believe the current governments plans they are borrowing massively, taxing a lot more, then front loading all this extra spending into 2 year period, and the result of which is less growth over 5 years. Its special kind of Keynesian economics that spends huge amounts of money on public works and gets negative economic benefit in the short / mid term.
"Not only are we starting from a worse economic legacy, but Blair / Brown first term was fairly sensible on the spending front."
Totally agree, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have mistakenly decided to ignore the more successful early Blair/Brown strategy of sticking to Ken Clarke's sensible spending plans in the first couple of years in Office before they gradually laid out their on longer term economic/public spending policies therefore earning the public's trust.
But Starmer and Reeves have now done the exact opposite, they have used this budget to renege on many clear pre GE pledges to the electorate and left them blindsided totally undermining any trust in this Government before it even gets its feet under the table. I am struggling to understand why they thought this budget gamble would be anymore successful than the Liz Truss/Kwasi Kwarteng one for the very same reasons, it may not have got the immediate negative market reaction of the latter, but it will do in the longer term.
But the fact remains that Starmer/Reeves like Truss/Kwarteng have got the politics of this horrible wrong because they didn't do the proper planning and preparation far less stress testing what they should have done, and then they didn't even bother to come up with a coherent political plan to sell it. I cannot see any economic upside to this Labour budget over the next five years, and that includes more importantly providing sustainable funding for the public sector in the longer term. If they are hoping that better public services in five years are going to be visible deliverable enough that it will give them an electoral boost on that back of that economically negative budget they are taking a hell of a gamble.
Starmer might have drawn the wrong lesson from Blair's out-of-power musing about forcing unpopular measures through at the start. And possibly on ‘reform of the public services’ where Streeting has swallowed the Blairite kool-aid even down to hiring Milburn and Darzi.
I am not convinced there has been much planning done and so the unpopular decisions aren't coming from a place in which there was clear strategic planning e.g. the Tractor Tax is reported to have been a thing the treasury had down the back of the sofa if some extra money needed raising and DEFRA weren't consulted as it was all very last minute. Resulting in what appears to be that rather than catching rich people buying land to avoid IHT, they are going to catch small / mid sized family farms in the net.
New Labour can be accused of lots of things, but not planning their first term isn't one of them.
Or the Coalition, Osborne had a very clear plan of where he was going to get some money from e.g. VAT increase and which areas were for the public spending freezes. They got all that done ASAP and set the course for the 5 years. And the cock-ups were then nonsense over the weirdness of VAT* for things like pasties.
* VAT is another thing that really should be reformed. The whole it / isn't luxury on food is just nonsense these days. Walk around CostCo and try to find any logic in it, there isn't any.
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
Now tough choices are being revealed and these decisions are indeed proving unpopular. So the government is beset by foes whose discontent is amplified by a largely hostile media.
Some contend that Labour would be in a better place had it not boxed itself in by ruling out increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. The argument goes that it would not then have had to target particular groups with vocal lobbies to express their anger about being “singled out”. But I’m rather sceptical that the government would be more popular had the chancellor used her first budget to up the amount of tax deducted from tens of millions of payslips, or made it more expensive to go to the shops.
Another critique heard within Labour circles is that there are a lot of first-time ministers too preoccupied with learning how to be administrators to remember that they are also supposed to be politicians. Attacks are too often answered with managerial and bloodless arguments when the government as a collective should be on the front foot proselytising its choices. Veterans of past Labour governments worry that this one only plays defence when it should be remorseless in taking the fight into its critics’ territory.
Even with improvements to how the government communicates its case, Labour will have to live with unpopularity for the foreseeable future. The party’s MPs will have to get used to relentless bombardment from those who resist change while receiving little visible gratitude from groups who are benefiting. The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives. Sir Keir should expect to be the target of more and nastier nicknames. At least he now knows the wisdom of an old adage. If you are in politics and want a friend, get a dog.
" The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives."
I am struggling to see where anyone is going to experience palpable improvements to their lives following that Labour budget. If anything, the longer term wider impact could well be to make everyones lives worse across a whole range of areas rather than just the clear high profile losers so far.
snip...
They are betting the farm(s) that improvements in public services, particularly the NHS, will provide the feel good factor.
Kicking the problem of lack of growth / budget deficit / high taxes into the long grass.
I must admit that it took me back when I saw this Labour government dusting off that old Blair/Brown Labour slogan of 'borrow to invest in public services' recently, have they learnt nothing from what happened last time?
It far worse. Not only are we starting from a worse economic legacy, but Blair / Brown first term was fairly sensible on the spending front. If we are to believe the current governments plans they are borrowing massively, taxing a lot more, then front loading all this extra spending into 2 year period, and the result of which is less growth over 5 years. Its special kind of Keynesian economics that spends huge amounts of money on public works and gets negative economic benefit in the short / mid term.
"Not only are we starting from a worse economic legacy, but Blair / Brown first term was fairly sensible on the spending front."
Totally agree, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have mistakenly decided to ignore the more successful early Blair/Brown strategy of sticking to Ken Clarke's sensible spending plans in the first couple of years in Office before they gradually laid out their on longer term economic/public spending policies therefore earning the public's trust.
But Starmer and Reeves have now done the exact opposite, they have used this budget to renege on many clear pre GE pledges to the electorate and left them blindsided totally undermining any trust in this Government before it even gets its feet under the table. I am struggling to understand why they thought this budget gamble would be anymore successful than the Liz Truss/Kwasi Kwarteng one for the very same reasons, it may not have got the immediate negative market reaction of the latter, but it will do in the longer term.
But the fact remains that Starmer/Reeves like Truss/Kwarteng have got the politics of this horrible wrong because they didn't do the proper planning and preparation far less stress testing what they should have done, and then they didn't even bother to come up with a coherent political plan to sell it. I cannot see any economic upside to this Labour budget over the next five years, and that includes more importantly providing sustainable funding for the public sector in the longer term. If they are hoping that better public services in five years are going to be visible deliverable enough that it will give them an electoral boost on that back of that economically negative budget they are taking a hell of a gamble.
Starmer might have drawn the wrong lesson from Blair's out-of-power musing about forcing unpopular measures through at the start. And possibly on ‘reform of the public services’ where Streeting has swallowed the Blairite kool-aid even down to hiring Milburn and Darzi.
I am not convinced there has been much planning done and so the unpopular decisions aren't coming from a place in which there was clear strategic planning e.g. the Tractor Tax is reported to have been a thing the treasury had down the back of the sofa if some extra money needed raising and DEFRA weren't consulted as it was all very last minute. Resulting in what appears to be that rather than catching rich people buying land to avoid IHT, they are going to catch small / mid sized family farms in the net.
New Labour can be accused of lots of things, but not planning their first term isn't one of them.
Or the Coalition, Osborne had a very clear plan of where he was going to get some money from e.g. VAT increase and which areas were for the public spending freezes. They got all that done ASAP and set the course for the 5 years. And the cock-ups were then nonsense over the weirdness of VAT* for things like pasties.
* VAT is another thing that really should be reformed. The whole it / isn't luxury on food is just nonsense these days. Walk around CostCo and try to find any logic in it, there isn't any.
Agreed on tractors and I have previously made the comparison with George Osborne's omnishambles budget – a ragbag of pre-existing and previously rejected Treasury proposals that make bureaucratic but not political sense.
Alas I've never been to Costco but was recently surprised and secretly pleased to learn that Costco sells gold bars!
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
Even worse, for Starmer and Reeves, is that the new US administration appear to be determined to give supply-side reform and deregulation a good go, pushing against the vested interests and lobbyists to push deregulation and public spending reductions.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
Even worse, for Starmer and Reeves, is that the new US administration appear to be determined to give supply-side reform and deregulation a good go, pushing against the vested interests and lobbyists to push deregulation and public spending reductions.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
Tariffs might be a larger problem. If ACME Inc wants to sell into the USA, it needs to build a factory there. Unless there are retaliatory sanctions, there is no reason to keep open their factory here. And even if there are, if ACME can afford only a single factory, the American market is probably larger than ours.
So either we lose because there is a trade war, or we lose because there is not.
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
Even worse, for Starmer and Reeves, is that the new US administration appear to be determined to give supply-side reform and deregulation a good go, pushing against the vested interests and lobbyists to push deregulation and public spending reductions.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
It may well work for the rich and well-off. For the poorer people tough, it will be a disaster.
Surprised but also very pleased to see there is a chance this assisted death bill can be beaten
An assisted dying measure is overwhelmingly popular in the country. Even accepting the faults in the current bill, if Parliament cannot pass a bill that is noth needed and popular, I think plenty of voters will be very angry. I respect the feelings of people like Ed Davey, but a measure, however limited, must surely be passed
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
Even worse, for Starmer and Reeves, is that the new US administration appear to be determined to give supply-side reform and deregulation a good go, pushing against the vested interests and lobbyists to push deregulation and public spending reductions.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
Like all administrations, there's a mixture of good and bad. However, there's little doubt that - if imposed - external tariffs will be bad for both American consumers, and countries (like the UK) that are exporters.
It also carries with it two significant risks: firstly that other countries respond in kind, and we see a repeat of the collapse of world trade that followed Smoot-Hawley; second, that it drives other liberal democracies into China's arms.
Surprised but also very pleased to see there is a chance this assisted death bill can be beaten
An assisted dying measure is overwhelmingly popular in the country. Even accepting the faults in the current bill, if Parliament cannot pass a bill that is noth needed and popular, I think plenty of voters will be very angry. I respect the feelings of people like Ed Davey, but a measure, however limited, must surely be passed
It's been a very interesting discussion. Whilst I'm generally in favour of assisted dying, there are plenty of sane, rational voices on the other side of the debate who have put plenty of thought into the issue, and come up against.
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
Even worse, for Starmer and Reeves, is that the new US administration appear to be determined to give supply-side reform and deregulation a good go, pushing against the vested interests and lobbyists to push deregulation and public spending reductions.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
Tariffs might be a larger problem. If ACME Inc wants to sell into the USA, it needs to build a factory there. Unless there are retaliatory sanctions, there is no reason to keep open their factory here. And even if there are, if ACME can afford only a single factory, the American market is probably larger than ours.
So either we lose because there is a trade war, or we lose because there is not.
The best thing to do, as much as the UK government might not like the idea, is to get as cozy as possible with the new US administration.
Most imports from the UK to the US are services, and the goods that are exported are mostly high-end and rely on British brands (Scotch Whisky, Rolls-Royce cars etc), so it makes little sense for the US to impose tariffs on the UK - as opposed to the EU for example, where there is a much wider range of products traded.
Surprised but also very pleased to see there is a chance this assisted death bill can be beaten
An assisted dying measure is overwhelmingly popular in the country. Even accepting the faults in the current bill, if Parliament cannot pass a bill that is noth needed and popular, I think plenty of voters will be very angry. I respect the feelings of people like Ed Davey, but a measure, however limited, must surely be passed
Just because there’s support for *a* piece of legislation on the subject, doesn’t necessarily show support for *this* piece of legislation on the subject.
It’s something where there will be a lot of edge cases and public policy implications, therefore any legislation needs to be carefully thought through and debated in advance, which doesn’t appear to be the case here.
Call me inherently suspicious of any proposals to which the proponents in Parliament are arguing for a lack of debate and appealing to emotion.
"Ed Davey: Assisted dying risks making elderly feel like a ‘burden’ Legalisation could pressure vulnerable pensioners into ending their lives, says Lib Dem leader ahead of likely Commons vote"
Now tough choices are being revealed and these decisions are indeed proving unpopular. So the government is beset by foes whose discontent is amplified by a largely hostile media.
Some contend that Labour would be in a better place had it not boxed itself in by ruling out increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. The argument goes that it would not then have had to target particular groups with vocal lobbies to express their anger about being “singled out”. But I’m rather sceptical that the government would be more popular had the chancellor used her first budget to up the amount of tax deducted from tens of millions of payslips, or made it more expensive to go to the shops.
Another critique heard within Labour circles is that there are a lot of first-time ministers too preoccupied with learning how to be administrators to remember that they are also supposed to be politicians. Attacks are too often answered with managerial and bloodless arguments when the government as a collective should be on the front foot proselytising its choices. Veterans of past Labour governments worry that this one only plays defence when it should be remorseless in taking the fight into its critics’ territory.
Even with improvements to how the government communicates its case, Labour will have to live with unpopularity for the foreseeable future. The party’s MPs will have to get used to relentless bombardment from those who resist change while receiving little visible gratitude from groups who are benefiting. The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives. Sir Keir should expect to be the target of more and nastier nicknames. At least he now knows the wisdom of an old adage. If you are in politics and want a friend, get a dog.
" The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives."
I am struggling to see where anyone is going to experience palpable improvements to their lives following that Labour budget. If anything, the longer term wider impact could well be to make everyones lives worse across a whole range of areas rather than just the clear high profile losers so far.
snip...
They are betting the farm(s) that improvements in public services, particularly the NHS, will provide the feel good factor.
Kicking the problem of lack of growth / budget deficit / high taxes into the long grass.
I must admit that it took me back when I saw this Labour government dusting off that old Blair/Brown Labour slogan of 'borrow to invest in public services' recently, have they learnt nothing from what happened last time?
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
Even worse, for Starmer and Reeves, is that the new US administration appear to be determined to give supply-side reform and deregulation a good go, pushing against the vested interests and lobbyists to push deregulation and public spending reductions.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
Tariffs might be a larger problem. If ACME Inc wants to sell into the USA, it needs to build a factory there. Unless there are retaliatory sanctions, there is no reason to keep open their factory here. And even if there are, if ACME can afford only a single factory, the American market is probably larger than ours.
So either we lose because there is a trade war, or we lose because there is not.
The best thing to do, as much as the UK government might not like the idea, is to get as cozy as possible with the new US administration.
Most imports from the UK to the US are services, and the goods that are exported are mostly high-end and rely on British brands (Scotch Whisky, Rolls-Royce cars etc), so it makes little sense for the US to impose tariffs on the UK - as opposed to the EU for example, where there is a much wider range of products traded.
There's an old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
If the US wants to make a good faith proposal, terrific.
But is there any evidence that us being at the mercy of Trump's whim is going to be good for us? Is it "free trade so long as we keep him happy"?
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
Even worse, for Starmer and Reeves, is that the new US administration appear to be determined to give supply-side reform and deregulation a good go, pushing against the vested interests and lobbyists to push deregulation and public spending reductions.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
Tariffs might be a larger problem. If ACME Inc wants to sell into the USA, it needs to build a factory there. Unless there are retaliatory sanctions, there is no reason to keep open their factory here. And even if there are, if ACME can afford only a single factory, the American market is probably larger than ours.
So either we lose because there is a trade war, or we lose because there is not.
The best thing to do, as much as the UK government might not like the idea, is to get as cozy as possible with the new US administration.
Most imports from the UK to the US are services, and the goods that are exported are mostly high-end and rely on British brands (Scotch Whisky, Rolls-Royce cars etc), so it makes little sense for the US to impose tariffs on the UK - as opposed to the EU for example, where there is a much wider range of products traded.
There's an old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
If the US wants to make a good faith proposal, terrific.
But is there any evidence that us being at the mercy of Trump's whim is going to be good for us? Is it "free trade so long as we keep him happy"?
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
Even worse, for Starmer and Reeves, is that the new US administration appear to be determined to give supply-side reform and deregulation a good go, pushing against the vested interests and lobbyists to push deregulation and public spending reductions.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
Tariffs might be a larger problem. If ACME Inc wants to sell into the USA, it needs to build a factory there. Unless there are retaliatory sanctions, there is no reason to keep open their factory here. And even if there are, if ACME can afford only a single factory, the American market is probably larger than ours.
So either we lose because there is a trade war, or we lose because there is not.
The best thing to do, as much as the UK government might not like the idea, is to get as cozy as possible with the new US administration.
Most imports from the UK to the US are services, and the goods that are exported are mostly high-end and rely on British brands (Scotch Whisky, Rolls-Royce cars etc), so it makes little sense for the US to impose tariffs on the UK - as opposed to the EU for example, where there is a much wider range of products traded.
There's an old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
If the US wants to make a good faith proposal, terrific.
But is there any evidence that us being at the mercy of Trump's whim is going to be good for us? Is it "free trade so long as we keep him happy"?
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
Even worse, for Starmer and Reeves, is that the new US administration appear to be determined to give supply-side reform and deregulation a good go, pushing against the vested interests and lobbyists to push deregulation and public spending reductions.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
Tariffs might be a larger problem. If ACME Inc wants to sell into the USA, it needs to build a factory there. Unless there are retaliatory sanctions, there is no reason to keep open their factory here. And even if there are, if ACME can afford only a single factory, the American market is probably larger than ours.
So either we lose because there is a trade war, or we lose because there is not.
The best thing to do, as much as the UK government might not like the idea, is to get as cozy as possible with the new US administration.
Most imports from the UK to the US are services, and the goods that are exported are mostly high-end and rely on British brands (Scotch Whisky, Rolls-Royce cars etc), so it makes little sense for the US to impose tariffs on the UK - as opposed to the EU for example, where there is a much wider range of products traded.
There's an old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
If the US wants to make a good faith proposal, terrific.
But is there any evidence that us being at the mercy of Trump's whim is going to be good for us? Is it "free trade so long as we keep him happy"?
If so, that sounds like a pretty shitty deal.
Isnt that the one we had with the EU ?
No, it wasn't.
You're right ,it was worse, we had to pay billions for the privilege on top
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
Even worse, for Starmer and Reeves, is that the new US administration appear to be determined to give supply-side reform and deregulation a good go, pushing against the vested interests and lobbyists to push deregulation and public spending reductions.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
Tariffs might be a larger problem. If ACME Inc wants to sell into the USA, it needs to build a factory there. Unless there are retaliatory sanctions, there is no reason to keep open their factory here. And even if there are, if ACME can afford only a single factory, the American market is probably larger than ours.
So either we lose because there is a trade war, or we lose because there is not.
The best thing to do, as much as the UK government might not like the idea, is to get as cozy as possible with the new US administration.
Most imports from the UK to the US are services, and the goods that are exported are mostly high-end and rely on British brands (Scotch Whisky, Rolls-Royce cars etc), so it makes little sense for the US to impose tariffs on the UK - as opposed to the EU for example, where there is a much wider range of products traded.
There's an old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
If the US wants to make a good faith proposal, terrific.
But is there any evidence that us being at the mercy of Trump's whim is going to be good for us? Is it "free trade so long as we keep him happy"?
If so, that sounds like a pretty shitty deal.
Isnt that the one we had with the EU ?
No, it wasn't.
You're right ,it was worse, we had to pay billions for the privilege on top
It's amusing how many people accuse Scott of being Brexit-mad, when many of the Europhobes are similarly insane.
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
Even worse, for Starmer and Reeves, is that the new US administration appear to be determined to give supply-side reform and deregulation a good go, pushing against the vested interests and lobbyists to push deregulation and public spending reductions.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
Tariffs might be a larger problem. If ACME Inc wants to sell into the USA, it needs to build a factory there. Unless there are retaliatory sanctions, there is no reason to keep open their factory here. And even if there are, if ACME can afford only a single factory, the American market is probably larger than ours.
So either we lose because there is a trade war, or we lose because there is not.
The best thing to do, as much as the UK government might not like the idea, is to get as cozy as possible with the new US administration.
Most imports from the UK to the US are services, and the goods that are exported are mostly high-end and rely on British brands (Scotch Whisky, Rolls-Royce cars etc), so it makes little sense for the US to impose tariffs on the UK - as opposed to the EU for example, where there is a much wider range of products traded.
There's an old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
If the US wants to make a good faith proposal, terrific.
But is there any evidence that us being at the mercy of Trump's whim is going to be good for us? Is it "free trade so long as we keep him happy"?
If so, that sounds like a pretty shitty deal.
Isnt that the one we had with the EU ?
I supported - and still do - support Brexit, but that comment is lazy and absurd.
Because local democracy is all about money and not democracy.
It can also be very useful if you want urban to have more control over rural areas.....say for planning permission for houses and wind farms in the green belt....as the number of councillors given to more densely populated urban areas trump the rural when you bundle it all togther.
I'd say that looks like a huge potential mess.
Constant reorganisation is not, I think, what we need.
It's not that long since a lot of it was thrown up in the air last time round.
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
Even worse, for Starmer and Reeves, is that the new US administration appear to be determined to give supply-side reform and deregulation a good go, pushing against the vested interests and lobbyists to push deregulation and public spending reductions.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
Tariffs might be a larger problem. If ACME Inc wants to sell into the USA, it needs to build a factory there. Unless there are retaliatory sanctions, there is no reason to keep open their factory here. And even if there are, if ACME can afford only a single factory, the American market is probably larger than ours.
So either we lose because there is a trade war, or we lose because there is not.
The best thing to do, as much as the UK government might not like the idea, is to get as cozy as possible with the new US administration.
Most imports from the UK to the US are services, and the goods that are exported are mostly high-end and rely on British brands (Scotch Whisky, Rolls-Royce cars etc), so it makes little sense for the US to impose tariffs on the UK - as opposed to the EU for example, where there is a much wider range of products traded.
There's an old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
If the US wants to make a good faith proposal, terrific.
But is there any evidence that us being at the mercy of Trump's whim is going to be good for us? Is it "free trade so long as we keep him happy"?
If so, that sounds like a pretty shitty deal.
Isnt that the one we had with the EU ?
I supported - and still do - support Brexit, but that comment is lazy and absurd.
As lazy as your throwaways on the new US administration?
So "Call a General Election" is trending on Twitter, based on a petition.
The 1.8 million fuckwit respondents - at least the ones that are in the UK and are not bots - really don't like democracy, do they?
I think this government made some serious early missteps. In the last month or so, they have somewhat steadied the boat - though it is half-full of water. The idea that a government that won such a stonking majority (albeit on a relatively small percentage of the vote) should be forced out after a few months on the basis of relatively few mistakes is hilariously shit.
I didn't vote for them, and think Starmer's a poor PM. Perhaps even worse than his predecessor. But let's give his government time to actually try to implement stuff.
So "Call a General Election" is trending on Twitter, based on a petition.
The 1.8 million fuckwit respondents - at least the ones that are in the UK and are not bots - really don't like democracy, do they?
I think this government made some serious early missteps. In the last month or so, they have somewhat steadied the boat - though it is half-full of water. The idea that a government that won such a stonking majority (albeit on a relatively small percentage of the vote) should be forced out after a few months on the basis of relatively few mistakes is hilariously shit.
I didn't vote for them, and think Starmer's a poor PM. Perhaps even worse than his predecessor. But let's give his government time to actually try to implement stuff.
There is no chance there will be a GE or even a debate.
This is simply a way for fed up people to give HMG two fingers and embarass Reeves and Starmer.
The 2 million barrier will go today only two petitions are bigger both Brexit related the all time record is 6.2 million which was requesting the article 50 legilslaion was scrapped.
On the other hand after 5 months I see little sign that this government will achieve anything major on the economy. Meaningful growth is dead and inflation will be back.
So "Call a General Election" is trending on Twitter, based on a petition.
The 1.8 million fuckwit respondents - at least the ones that are in the UK and are not bots - really don't like democracy, do they?
I think this government made some serious early missteps. In the last month or so, they have somewhat steadied the boat - though it is half-full of water. The idea that a government that won such a stonking majority (albeit on a relatively small percentage of the vote) should be forced out after a few months on the basis of relatively few mistakes is hilariously shit.
I didn't vote for them, and think Starmer's a poor PM. Perhaps even worse than his predecessor. But let's give his government time to actually try to implement stuff.
There is no chance there will be a GE or even a debate.
This is simply a way for fed up people to give HMG two fingers and embarass Reeves and Starmer.
The 2 million barrier will go today only two petitions are bigger both Brexit relayed the all time record is 6.2 million which was requesting the article 50 legilslaion was scrapped.
On the other hand after 5 months I see little sign that this government will achieve anything major on the economy. Meaningful growth is dead and inflation will be back.
I disagree with your initial paragraphs: anyone signing this petition either cares little for democracy, or has no effing idea how it works. The calls are particularly funny if they come from people who were anti-EU, given a very valid criticism of the EU was the Lisbon Treaty re-vote.
I agree with your last paragraph; I don't think Labour have particularly good economic policies - which is one reason I didn't vote for them. But Labour have won the chance to give their policies a try.
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
Even worse, for Starmer and Reeves, is that the new US administration appear to be determined to give supply-side reform and deregulation a good go, pushing against the vested interests and lobbyists to push deregulation and public spending reductions.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
Tariffs might be a larger problem. If ACME Inc wants to sell into the USA, it needs to build a factory there. Unless there are retaliatory sanctions, there is no reason to keep open their factory here. And even if there are, if ACME can afford only a single factory, the American market is probably larger than ours.
So either we lose because there is a trade war, or we lose because there is not.
The best thing to do, as much as the UK government might not like the idea, is to get as cozy as possible with the new US administration.
Most imports from the UK to the US are services, and the goods that are exported are mostly high-end and rely on British brands (Scotch Whisky, Rolls-Royce cars etc), so it makes little sense for the US to impose tariffs on the UK - as opposed to the EU for example, where there is a much wider range of products traded.
There's an old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
If the US wants to make a good faith proposal, terrific.
But is there any evidence that us being at the mercy of Trump's whim is going to be good for us? Is it "free trade so long as we keep him happy"?
If so, that sounds like a pretty shitty deal.
Isnt that the one we had with the EU ?
I supported - and still do - support Brexit, but that comment is lazy and absurd.
As lazy as your throwaways on the new US administration?
I very rarely go around slinging insults on PB, and maybe my comment was glib.
But yours wasn't very helpful either. The EU was a rules based organization. Now, I didn't like the rules, but it had them. There were processes, and generally here there were attempts to find consensus along disparate countries with disparate needs.
I don't think there is any evidence that Trump believes in any way in a rules based international order.
So "Call a General Election" is trending on Twitter, based on a petition.
The 1.8 million fuckwit respondents - at least the ones that are in the UK and are not bots - really don't like democracy, do they?
I think this government made some serious early missteps. In the last month or so, they have somewhat steadied the boat - though it is half-full of water. The idea that a government that won such a stonking majority (albeit on a relatively small percentage of the vote) should be forced out after a few months on the basis of relatively few mistakes is hilariously shit.
I didn't vote for them, and think Starmer's a poor PM. Perhaps even worse than his predecessor. But let's give his government time to actually try to implement stuff.
There is no chance there will be a GE or even a debate.
This is simply a way for fed up people to give HMG two fingers and embarass Reeves and Starmer.
The 2 million barrier will go today only two petitions are bigger both Brexit relayed the all time record is 6.2 million which was requesting the article 50 legilslaion was scrapped.
On the other hand after 5 months I see little sign that this government will achieve anything major on the economy. Meaningful growth is dead and inflation will be back.
I disagree with your initial paragraphs: anyone signing this petition either cares little for democracy, or has no effing idea how it works. The calls are particularly funny if they come from people who were anti-EU, given a very valid criticism of the EU was the Lisbon Treaty re-vote.
I agree with your last paragraph; I don't think Labour have particularly good economic policies - which is one reason I didn't vote for them. But Labour have won the chance to give their policies a try.
If you run down the list of petitions youll see telling the government of the day to clear off appears several times. The last one was for the previous lot to just go. For obvious reasons these have tended to be lefties saying Tories out. This one is more noticeable as it's a Labour government pissing people off and being criticised.
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
The trouble is, the moment they start thinking it through, they realise that their Party's whole reason for existing - plundering the enterprising and successful to give to the idle and unproductive as I'd call it, or 'wealth redistribution' as they might name it - can't be reconciled with economic reality. There seems to be a limit - different in every country, but in this country apparently about 37-38% of GDP - above which taxes really start affecting economic growth, which in turn reduces tax yields which reduces the cash available for public spending.
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
Even worse, for Starmer and Reeves, is that the new US administration appear to be determined to give supply-side reform and deregulation a good go, pushing against the vested interests and lobbyists to push deregulation and public spending reductions.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
Tariffs might be a larger problem. If ACME Inc wants to sell into the USA, it needs to build a factory there. Unless there are retaliatory sanctions, there is no reason to keep open their factory here. And even if there are, if ACME can afford only a single factory, the American market is probably larger than ours.
So either we lose because there is a trade war, or we lose because there is not.
The best thing to do, as much as the UK government might not like the idea, is to get as cozy as possible with the new US administration.
Most imports from the UK to the US are services, and the goods that are exported are mostly high-end and rely on British brands (Scotch Whisky, Rolls-Royce cars etc), so it makes little sense for the US to impose tariffs on the UK - as opposed to the EU for example, where there is a much wider range of products traded.
There's an old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
If the US wants to make a good faith proposal, terrific.
But is there any evidence that us being at the mercy of Trump's whim is going to be good for us? Is it "free trade so long as we keep him happy"?
If so, that sounds like a pretty shitty deal.
Isnt that the one we had with the EU ?
I supported - and still do - support Brexit, but that comment is lazy and absurd.
As lazy as your throwaways on the new US administration?
I very rarely go around slinging insults on PB, and maybe my comment was glib.
But yours wasn't very helpful either. The EU was a rules based organization. Now, I didn't like the rules, but it had them. There were processes, and generally here there were attempts to find consensus along disparate countries with disparate needs.
I don't think there is any evidence that Trump believes in any way in a rules based international order.
Mind was actually a tongue in cheek comment. I forget it's bedrime with you while Im just getting up.
So "Call a General Election" is trending on Twitter, based on a petition.
The 1.8 million fuckwit respondents - at least the ones that are in the UK and are not bots - really don't like democracy, do they?
I think this government made some serious early missteps. In the last month or so, they have somewhat steadied the boat - though it is half-full of water. The idea that a government that won such a stonking majority (albeit on a relatively small percentage of the vote) should be forced out after a few months on the basis of relatively few mistakes is hilariously shit.
I didn't vote for them, and think Starmer's a poor PM. Perhaps even worse than his predecessor. But let's give his government time to actually try to implement stuff.
There is no chance there will be a GE or even a debate.
This is simply a way for fed up people to give HMG two fingers and embarass Reeves and Starmer.
The 2 million barrier will go today only two petitions are bigger both Brexit relayed the all time record is 6.2 million which was requesting the article 50 legilslaion was scrapped.
On the other hand after 5 months I see little sign that this government will achieve anything major on the economy. Meaningful growth is dead and inflation will be back.
I disagree with your initial paragraphs: anyone signing this petition either cares little for democracy, or has no effing idea how it works. The calls are particularly funny if they come from people who were anti-EU, given a very valid criticism of the EU was the Lisbon Treaty re-vote.
I agree with your last paragraph; I don't think Labour have particularly good economic policies - which is one reason I didn't vote for them. But Labour have won the chance to give their policies a try.
If you run down the list of petitions youll see telling the government of the day to clear off appears several times. The last one was for the previous lot to just go. For obvious reasons these have tended to be lefties saying Tories out. This one is more noticeable as it's a Labour government pissing people off and being criticised.
I agree that this has happened before. But I disagree that it is more noticeable as it is a Labour government.
It is noticeable because of the scale of the response; the fact that foreign actors are promoting it; and the fact the government has been in power for f-all time.
Comments
Pathetic sore losers with too much time on their hands who would rather bitch and moan than get on with their lives.
Now tough choices are being revealed and these decisions are indeed proving unpopular. So the government is beset by foes whose discontent is amplified by a largely hostile media.
Some contend that Labour would be in a better place had it not boxed itself in by ruling out increases to income tax, VAT or employee national insurance. The argument goes that it would not then have had to target particular groups with vocal lobbies to express their anger about being “singled out”. But I’m rather sceptical that the government would be more popular had the chancellor used her first budget to up the amount of tax deducted from tens of millions of payslips, or made it more expensive to go to the shops.
Another critique heard within Labour circles is that there are a lot of first-time ministers too preoccupied with learning how to be administrators to remember that they are also supposed to be politicians. Attacks are too often answered with managerial and bloodless arguments when the government as a collective should be on the front foot proselytising its choices. Veterans of past Labour governments worry that this one only plays defence when it should be remorseless in taking the fight into its critics’ territory.
Even with improvements to how the government communicates its case, Labour will have to live with unpopularity for the foreseeable future. The party’s MPs will have to get used to relentless bombardment from those who resist change while receiving little visible gratitude from groups who are benefiting. The party’s ratings are unlikely to start moving in a more positive direction until large numbers of voters begin to experience palpable improvements to their lives. Sir Keir should expect to be the target of more and nastier nicknames. At least he now knows the wisdom of an old adage. If you are in politics and want a friend, get a dog.
Too long to excerpt.
https://x.com/gak_pdx/status/1860448570446610562
So he gave me good emotional advice, and left tools for me to put up pics and stuff. And he said, "prepare youself, it will be quite a moment, if this is the first time you've ever owned"
And it really was. And he made it easier and better. I think people outside London who don't understand how hard it is to buy, from scratch, in London, cannot grasp what it means if and when it happens
I burned through parental cash as a young man but there was none by the time I reached my 40s (nor did I deserve any at that stage). So I had to make a massive deposit by working hard and succeeding. And I did
Before he left PB.com Alistair Meeks regularly made a great argument that the winners of the Brexit referendum had failed to gain the losers' consent for Brexit. There had been no attempt to reach out to Remainers in order to create a Brexit that the whole country could live with.
In a similar way a new government will normally make an attempt to reach out beyond its voters in order to govern for the whole country. It cannot be said that Labour have succeeded with such an attempt. Thus we could say that they are struggling to obtain the losers' consent to govern.
This is a bit of a problem when the losers are >65% of the electorate.
Maybe the best way to understand the political parties is in terms of lobbies and industries. For the Tories they're the political wing of financial services, whilst Labour are the political wing of the legal industry.
Financial services go with whoever is in power
Initial exit polls had Călin Georgescu on 16% but he’s taken the lead with 80% of the votes counted.
https://x.com/europeelects/status/1860816524623130684
So, back in the day, women went on strike in Dagenham and elsewhere to obtain better conditions. Now a union brings a court case for equal pay.
I agree with you that it should be intended to be a lifelong commitment - but a lifelong commitment is not for everyone, and is highly dependent on your good fortune in finding someone you can commit for a lifetime to.
Countries falling one by one.
I felt that Aontú's leader did pretty well in the half of the leadership debate that I saw. They will be in strong competition with Independent candidates for the anti-immigration vote, so it will depend on whether any of their candidates have gained any traction in a particular locality, or if their national vote share is enough to put them ahead of Independent candidates and gain transfers.
By way of example, at the recent Cork County Council elections Aontú had zero councillors elected with 3,071 votes. Independent Ireland elected 4 councillors with 9,828 votes and there were 8 Independents elected with 23,782 votes.
I'd expect Independent Ireland to do a lot better at hoovering up the anti-immigration vote than Aontú, but the later did gain 5 councillors to reach a total of 8 nationwide, so that would be a guide to where they could make an advance in the general election.
Expelled the same day: Ireland hardens illegal immigration response
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24x47qp8no
Apart from dumping some of the ridiculous "safeguards" that are in it, that are designed to widen its appeal.
1: Dump the 6 month rule.
2: Dump the role of the Judge.
Not sure how many people who won't endorse the current version would endorse that though.
"Ed Davey: Assisted dying risks making elderly feel like a ‘burden’
Legalisation could pressure vulnerable pensioners into ending their lives, says Lib Dem leader ahead of likely Commons vote"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/16/ed-davey-assisted-dying-risks-elderly-burden
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XT9z1OUpeLmmPU-unj7VxmYI4qU6NFQlNcXDJUiQYWw/edit?gid=0#gid=0
I am struggling to see where anyone is going to experience palpable improvements to their lives following that Labour budget. If anything, the longer term wider impact could well be to make everyones lives worse across a whole range of areas rather than just the clear high profile losers so far.
Put it this way, I don't see the song Things Can Only Get Better taking off again in Labour circles far less among the wider electorate anytime soon, and it is because this new Labour Government is already coming across as very ill prepared, totally out of touch, and utterly rudderless across all departments with an absolutely invisible Comms operation. While Starmer's team may have leant from the mistakes of the 1992 GE Labour campaign, they have then failed to take on board or copied the far more successful policy/political strategy grid deployed in the first few months and years of the Blair/Brown government.
I was listening to the radio last Tuesday and a journalist who had been at the Farmers protest in London had been chatting to a former Conservative MP who had lost his seat back in July only to be told that they had just bumped into the Labour MP who had replaced them and the Labour MP had said 'do you want your job back?'. There are a lot of Labour MPs who stood in constituencies across the UK on the back of Labour pledges that their new new Government have now ditched and I bet that is already beginning to make it more uncomfortable on the doorsteps.
Kicking the problem of lack of growth / budget deficit / high taxes into the long grass.
Most independents are forecast to be abstaining (presumably as SF are class as independents on that list as they are not listed as a party with the other parties and all of SF will of course abstain) but then in the forecasted totals they're all assigned to against and not abstain.
EDIT: No I'm wrong, they're genuinely against and it isn't SF. Its all the Hamas and far left extremists of course.
And also both employers and unions reading the Economist. Back in the 90s, they did an analysis of the result of strikes going back to the 60s. In nearly every case, both sides lost.
So the sane move was to move to legally binding arbitration mechanisms between unions and management.
Aside from there being no magic money tree, there is the issue of mind set and ideology.
Starmer can’t attack the Process State - his instincts, training and social vocabulary are all that complex legal and regulatory processes are a good, of themselves.
Reform of public services has been battered about, until most on the left of centre (and many to the right) no longer believe they are possible.
So they are left with spending more. But trying to raise more without doing so.
See also https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/06/05/parties/
Any computer experts out there?
I recently lost my phone (walking around Shepperton of all places, when I was visiting JG Ballard's backyard since I'm a fan of his), and since then I haven't been able to log into my Gmail account because the only way you can get into it is with a message sent to your phone. Since then I've had to set up a temporary email address. Is there any way round this? Google seem to be so intent on stopping hackers that they're making it very difficult for genuine users when unfortunate things happen like losing your phone. (The problem didn't manifest itself immediately because I was using my normal laptop where a sign-in was okay without a phone message, but when I tried using another one belonging to a family member it suddenly wanted to send me the code since it wasn't the usual device).
I've never had to use it but it's what the company site steers one towards.
Good luck.
Totally agree, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have mistakenly decided to ignore the more successful early Blair/Brown strategy of sticking to Ken Clarke's sensible spending plans in the first couple of years in Office before they gradually laid out their on longer term economic/public spending policies therefore earning the public's trust.
But Starmer and Reeves have now done the exact opposite, they have used this budget to renege on many clear pre GE pledges to the electorate and left them blindsided totally undermining any trust in this Government before it even gets its feet under the table. I am struggling to understand why they thought this budget gamble would be anymore successful than the Liz Truss/Kwasi Kwarteng one for the very same reasons, it may not have got the immediate negative market reaction of the latter, but it will do in the longer term.
But the fact remains that Starmer/Reeves like Truss/Kwarteng have got the politics of this horrible wrong because they didn't do the proper planning and preparation far less stress testing what they should have done, and then they didn't even bother to come up with a coherent political plan to sell it. I cannot see any economic upside to this Labour budget over the next five years, and that includes more importantly providing sustainable funding for the public sector in the longer term. If they are hoping that better public services in five years are going to be visible deliverable enough that it will give them an electoral boost on that back of that economically negative budget they are taking a hell of a gamble.
Move aims to end two-tier system of local government and replace it with larger unitary authorities, aiming to save the taxpayer about £3 billion over five years
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/dozens-of-councils-to-be-abolished-under-biggest-reforms-in-50-years-bcqxns7cl (£££)
Because local democracy is all about money and not democracy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/11/24/general-gennady-anashkin-sacked-putin-ukraine-faked-reports/
How long until he slips and falls from a balcony? It is winter, so could well be icy under foot...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgzp0kvegxo
Yet another article about leasehold service fees...anybody would think they were running a campaign to get reform of this area. I remember GB News got a fine for something similar.
Again the authorities just let all this stuff slide....although the broken window theory cleanup of NYC is not the magic bullet and the stats show crime decreasing in other American cities at that time, as somebody who regular visited, it was undeniable that it was just a much better place to be.
Ice cream wars and illegal gambling: How Westminster Bridge became lawless
https://www.londoncentric.media/p/westminster-bridge-ice-cream-vans-illegal-gambling
Its not just London, Paris, Barcelona, etc are also bad now too.
- Yes, probably.
- It was a heart attack rather than a stabbing as first reported.
- Broken window theory started here, not in America, but everyone ignored it because it was in schools! See Michael Rutter's 15,000 hours.
But to get back to your point, you do have to wonder why grifters and criminals are allowed to flourish in a prime tourist spot so close to Parliament.These guys got attacked when they try to film similar gangs in Paris (I believe they are normally always Romanian across Europe)
https://www.youtube.com/@HONESTGUIDE
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/11/24/india-man-wakes-up-on-funeral-pyre-before-lit/ (£££)
New Labour can be accused of lots of things, but not planning their first term isn't one of them.
Or the Coalition, Osborne had a very clear plan of where he was going to get some money from e.g. VAT increase and which areas were for the public spending freezes. They got all that done ASAP and set the course for the 5 years. And the cock-ups were then nonsense over the weirdness of VAT* for things like pasties.
* VAT is another thing that really should be reformed. The whole it / isn't luxury on food is just nonsense these days. Walk around CostCo and try to find any logic in it, there isn't any.
The IFS have already said that given Reeves has boxed herself in with no austerity ever, the sums don't add up still and further tax rises will be required. But again, it doesn't seem like they really had thought it all through, so another round of unpopular decisions in a year or two.
Alas I've never been to Costco but was recently surprised and secretly pleased to learn that Costco sells gold bars!
And as the last government basically took us up to that level, any further increases in tax and spending will be counter-productive even to the public sector, let alone to the already battered private sector and the country as a whole.
What could really increase the tax take in the medium to long term is radical supply-side reform and deregulation, but that would be extremely painful for many well-organised lobby groups in the short term, and would need politicians of exceptional vision, knowledge and skill to execute. And we've got Keir Starmer, who clearly has no idea about economics, and Rachel Reeves who would be out of her depth in a puddle. So the chances of that happening are about the same as of the Prime Minister turning down a freebie.
So I imagine they'll do what Labour did in the 70s - stumble on, unloved for a few years going from crisis to crisis. And the country will endure at least another four years of slow decline, creeping stagnation and gradually increasing shabbiness and despair.
https://www.espncricinfo.com/auction/ipl-2025-auction-1460972/top-buys
Indian batsman sets IPL auction record of more than $3m.
If this works, and there are well-argued views on both sides of the discussion, it could turbocharge private-sector growth in that country while simultaneously attracting investment that may have gone to places like the UK.
So either we lose because there is a trade war, or we lose because there is not.
It also carries with it two significant risks: firstly that other countries respond in kind, and we see a repeat of the collapse of world trade that followed Smoot-Hawley; second, that it drives other liberal democracies into China's arms.
I'm also glad it's a free vote.
https://nypost.com/2024/11/24/us-news/matt-gaetz-takes-page-from-george-santos-fires-up-cameo-and-heres-what-hes-charging/
Most imports from the UK to the US are services, and the goods that are exported are mostly high-end and rely on British brands (Scotch Whisky, Rolls-Royce cars etc), so it makes little sense for the US to impose tariffs on the UK - as opposed to the EU for example, where there is a much wider range of products traded.
It’s something where there will be a lot of edge cases and public policy implications, therefore any legislation needs to be carefully thought through and debated in advance, which doesn’t appear to be the case here.
Call me inherently suspicious of any proposals to which the proponents in Parliament are arguing for a lack of debate and appealing to emotion.
(Them, not you.)
If the US wants to make a good faith proposal, terrific.
But is there any evidence that us being at the mercy of Trump's whim is going to be good for us? Is it "free trade so long as we keep him happy"?
If so, that sounds like a pretty shitty deal.
Constant reorganisation is not, I think, what we need.
It's not that long since a lot of it was thrown up in the air last time round.
This is the logic of a management consultancy.
The 1.8 million fuckwit respondents - at least the ones that are in the UK and are not bots - really don't like democracy, do they?
I think this government made some serious early missteps. In the last month or so, they have somewhat steadied the boat - though it is half-full of water. The idea that a government that won such a stonking majority (albeit on a relatively small percentage of the vote) should be forced out after a few months on the basis of relatively few mistakes is hilariously shit.
I didn't vote for them, and think Starmer's a poor PM. Perhaps even worse than his predecessor. But let's give his government time to actually try to implement stuff.
This is simply a way for fed up people to give HMG two fingers and embarass Reeves and Starmer.
The 2 million barrier will go today only two petitions are bigger both Brexit related the all time record is 6.2 million which was requesting the article 50 legilslaion was scrapped.
On the other hand after 5 months I see little sign that this government will achieve anything major on the economy. Meaningful growth is dead and inflation will be back.
I agree with your last paragraph; I don't think Labour have particularly good economic policies - which is one reason I didn't vote for them. But Labour have won the chance to give their policies a try.
But yours wasn't very helpful either. The EU was a rules based organization. Now, I didn't like the rules, but it had them. There were processes, and generally here there were attempts to find consensus along disparate countries with disparate needs.
I don't think there is any evidence that Trump believes in any way in a rules based international order.
It is noticeable because of the scale of the response; the fact that foreign actors are promoting it; and the fact the government has been in power for f-all time.