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Irish General Election Predictions [Part 1/2] C & D Constituencies – politicalbetting.com

24

Comments

  • Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,894

    Omnium said:

    OT

    Am I right in assuming that the record demand for the latest British bond issue is good news for both the Government and the country?

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/uk-receives-record-demand-at-4-25-billion-pound-bond-sale/ar-AA1uMjpl

    No. If you want to borrow a pound there won't be so much demand to lend to you as there would be if you were daft enough to borrow many billions more. The preparedness of others to lend vast sums to Reeves and co is though reassuring. It'll not continue forever.
    Ah well, there's always the IMF.
    Actually it's not clear that the IMF would bail out the UK as they did during Labour's past idiocy. I think they may have even said that they won't.

    There's not a huge risk currently though. Starmer and Reeves whilst being mildly horrid really aren't going to crash the car.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,632
    Leon said:

    Oooh. Just been commissioned to go to Uruguay. Anyone been?

    I haven't, I hear it is rather plez

    Martin Amis lived there for a while. Not sure why but I guess he had his reasons.
  • No_Offence_AlanNo_Offence_Alan Posts: 4,585
    edited November 26

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    This farmer not really improving their PR.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo

    edit- beaten to it
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,805
    Omnium said:

    Omnium said:

    OT

    Am I right in assuming that the record demand for the latest British bond issue is good news for both the Government and the country?

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/uk-receives-record-demand-at-4-25-billion-pound-bond-sale/ar-AA1uMjpl

    No. If you want to borrow a pound there won't be so much demand to lend to you as there would be if you were daft enough to borrow many billions more. The preparedness of others to lend vast sums to Reeves and co is though reassuring. It'll not continue forever.
    Ah well, there's always the IMF.
    Actually it's not clear that the IMF would bail out the UK as they did during Labour's past idiocy. I think they may have even said that they won't.

    There's not a huge risk currently though. Starmer and Reeves whilst being mildly horrid really aren't going to crash the car.
    Astounding. I'm sure I saw confident predictions from some on here that Starmer and Reeves would be cap-in-hand to the IMF by the end of the year.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,268
    https://x.com/jeremyscahill/status/1861168282784444804

    Trump’s newly appointed counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka calls Putin a “thug” and says Trump plans to end the Ukraine war by threatening to flood Ukraine with military aid, making current U.S. support look like “peanuts”
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,578
    Thanks for this, Ireland is frequently overlooked, oddly so even.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,864

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    No, it will lead to more family farms being sold to large agri corporations
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,805
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    No, it will lead to more family farms being sold to large agri corporations
    You think. I disagree.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,942

    HYUFD said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Correctly so given this despicable government's attack on our hardworking farmers who provide our food.

    Haha very good. Are you trying out characters for a return of the Fast Show?
    Struggling to see which part you disagree with - do farmers not work hard, not produce our food, or is it the description of Sir Twat's loathed parade of political pond life as despicable that you're taking issue with?
    Most of the people who work on farms are never inheriting a penny. Those who might inherit just need to pay the same taxes as anyone else in their position.

    The IHT APR has caused more hardship to framers over the years than removing it will.
    I'm changing my tune on this slightly. A relative of mine has mentioned buying a paddock as an IHT wheeze despite definitely not being above IHT threshold. Something about being addressed as a laird too.

    A good reminder that people really do have no idea about IHT and how few people it affects, and that the policy might spectacular backfire because so many more people are now aware of the still-generous tax allowances for agricultural land.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,496

    https://x.com/jeremyscahill/status/1861168282784444804

    Trump’s newly appointed counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka calls Putin a “thug” and says Trump plans to end the Ukraine war by threatening to flood Ukraine with military aid, making current U.S. support look like “peanuts”

    We discussed exactly this in great depth. yesterday
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,578
    Regardless of whether Snowden is correct here about the policy in question (which is about calorie labelling effectiveness), these highlighted quotes are pretty hilarious out of context - they look like the equivalent of a bowl of sugar being healthy as 'part of a balanced breakfast', since your own policy could contribute the bare minimum and technically help contribute 'alongside other policies'.

  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,471

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I don't dispute the polling, which is from last week. But I do get the impression that the media are quite quickly losing interest in the farmers' plight - very little coverage in the tabloids this week, so far. The public will probably also, therefore, lose interest soon, unless the farmers can do something to give the campaign more traction (sic).
    Fickle bunch, the press and the people.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,496
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Oooh. Just been commissioned to go to Uruguay. Anyone been?

    I haven't, I hear it is rather plez

    Martin Amis lived there for a while. Not sure why but I guess he had his reasons.
    Yes, he did, didn't he?

    I remember him claiming it was the best place on earth, or something almost as hyperbolic, due to the perfect combo of weather, wine, landscapes, etc

    I very much doubt that. For a start most Latin American food is dire. But I always like to see a new country, and this is new to me
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,945
    Leon said:

    Oooh. Just been commissioned to go to Uruguay. Anyone been?

    I haven't, I hear it is rather plez

    I know it has a lot of wealthy German retirees.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,682
    edited November 26

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I don't dispute the polling, which is from last week. But I do get the impression that the media are quite quickly losing interest in the farmers' plight - very little coverage in the tabloids this week, so far. The public will probably also, therefore, lose interest soon, unless the farmers can do something to give the campaign more traction (sic).
    Fickle bunch, the press and the people.
    Oh I agree. I was just disputing your (Edit: apologies Ben's) comments about lack of sympathy. Of course living in a rural area and spending most of my time in market towns I see and hear a great deal of sympathy and anger.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,471
    edited November 26

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I don't dispute the polling, which is from last week. But I do get the impression that the media are quite quickly losing interest in the farmers' plight - very little coverage in the tabloids this week, so far. The public will probably also, therefore, lose interest soon, unless the farmers can do something to give the campaign more traction (sic).
    Fickle bunch, the press and the people.
    Oh I agree. I was just disputing your comments about lack of sympathy. Of course living in a rural area and spending most of my time in market towns I see and hear a great deal of sympathy and anger.
    Deleted
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,112

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    I am always a bit suspicious on polling on taxes and spending cuts. Without alternatives to the same sum it is just like polling on whether people want free money.

    For example I would to see a question like: Would you oppose the budget removing relief for farmers and adding 2% to Employers NI if it meant 3p on income tax or freezing state pensions for the next X years?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,632
    edited November 26

    https://x.com/jeremyscahill/status/1861168282784444804

    Trump’s newly appointed counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka calls Putin a “thug” and says Trump plans to end the Ukraine war by threatening to flood Ukraine with military aid, making current U.S. support look like “peanuts”

    Ah, so Putin will be intimidated by that and cave in to a deal that restores and protects Ukrainian sovereignty over Ukraine!

    What a result that'll be if it transpires.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,495
    Leon said:

    https://x.com/jeremyscahill/status/1861168282784444804

    Trump’s newly appointed counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka calls Putin a “thug” and says Trump plans to end the Ukraine war by threatening to flood Ukraine with military aid, making current U.S. support look like “peanuts”

    We discussed exactly this in great depth. yesterday
    Sooner the better
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,973
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    No, it will lead to more family farms being sold to large agri corporations
    Dan Neidle has reviewed his views on this too.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,973
    Ceasefire with Hezbollah is on. 8AM tomorrow
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,835
    Rachel Reeves's husband is high up at DEFRA:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Joicey

    Wonder what he thinks of the changes.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,495
    Eabhal said:

    HYUFD said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Correctly so given this despicable government's attack on our hardworking farmers who provide our food.

    Haha very good. Are you trying out characters for a return of the Fast Show?
    Struggling to see which part you disagree with - do farmers not work hard, not produce our food, or is it the description of Sir Twat's loathed parade of political pond life as despicable that you're taking issue with?
    Most of the people who work on farms are never inheriting a penny. Those who might inherit just need to pay the same taxes as anyone else in their position.

    The IHT APR has caused more hardship to framers over the years than removing it will.
    I'm changing my tune on this slightly. A relative of mine has mentioned buying a paddock as an IHT wheeze despite definitely not being above IHT threshold. Something about being addressed as a laird too.

    A good reminder that people really do have no idea about IHT and how few people it affects, and that the policy might spectacular backfire because so many more people are now aware of the still-generous tax allowances for agricultural land.
    My daughter has just bought a plot and 2-3 acres of paddock, from an impoverished farmer no less.
  • Shecorns88Shecorns88 Posts: 279
    With Putin banning most of The Cabinet from Russia, I wonder how long it is before Farage appears in The Kremlin with Musk on Zoom for Putin to confirm he's the new Russian Envoy to the UK. They've certainly bankrolled him for long enough
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,894

    Omnium said:

    Omnium said:

    OT

    Am I right in assuming that the record demand for the latest British bond issue is good news for both the Government and the country?

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/uk-receives-record-demand-at-4-25-billion-pound-bond-sale/ar-AA1uMjpl

    No. If you want to borrow a pound there won't be so much demand to lend to you as there would be if you were daft enough to borrow many billions more. The preparedness of others to lend vast sums to Reeves and co is though reassuring. It'll not continue forever.
    Ah well, there's always the IMF.
    Actually it's not clear that the IMF would bail out the UK as they did during Labour's past idiocy. I think they may have even said that they won't.

    There's not a huge risk currently though. Starmer and Reeves whilst being mildly horrid really aren't going to crash the car.
    Astounding. I'm sure I saw confident predictions from some on here that Starmer and Reeves would be cap-in-hand to the IMF by the end of the year.
    It's not good news. The Thatcher government ensured that the UK would be a bit too big for the IMF to take on, our nation once again having some weight, rather than the 1970s governments of all stripes reducing us to economic pipsqueaks.

    If we go bust now we'll do so properly. Values of cash savings will then = 0.
  • Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    Rather forgetting the whole reason the APR was brought in - which was because all the family farms were being eaten up by big commercial interests due to the need to break them up or sell them to pay IHT. The number of farms fell from around 400,000 in 1950 to around 200,000 in 1980. Apart from anything else this has been a disaster for the environment as it was one of the factors leading to the grubbing up of hedges to make much larger fields.
  • kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    Because you live in a left liberal echo chamber, 58% of voters back the farmers, most people don't give a shit about a tractor being driven through a puddle

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1859993600647639423
    That comment about driving thru a puddle is not funny. He probably caused tens of thousands of pounds of damage if not worse and was a danger to life. When I was a youngster we were flooded and the army turned up in amphibious vehicles. We stopped them coming down because of the wash. Our flood was not as bad but a land rover going through sent a wave not much less than a metre through the house. That tractor was doing far worse. It would have smashed doors, windows and done huge damage inside the shops.
    Yep. The wake caused by the tractor would have been a serious issue. It is actually very simple to drive a tractor safely through flood waters and not cause much more than a very slight disturbance. Clearly this idiot didn't know/care - or worse did know and thought it would be a laugh.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,632
    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Oooh. Just been commissioned to go to Uruguay. Anyone been?

    I haven't, I hear it is rather plez

    Martin Amis lived there for a while. Not sure why but I guess he had his reasons.
    Yes, he did, didn't he?

    I remember him claiming it was the best place on earth, or something almost as hyperbolic, due to the perfect combo of weather, wine, landscapes, etc

    I very much doubt that. For a start most Latin American food is dire. But I always like to see a new country, and this is new to me
    I think it was a relationship that took him there. It's a country I associate with horses, rugged scenery, and footballers with good balance and a low centre of gravity. But let's see what you make of it.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,521
    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Canadian opinion poll puts the Conservatives on 47% (and the populist People's Party on 4%).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2025_Canadian_federal_election

    That's quite an outlier poll. The weekly Nanos poll has the Conservatives in the low 40s and the fortnightly Abacus a point or two higher while the fortnightly EKOS has the Conservatives below 40%.

    It certainly looks like a big win for Poilievre at this time but there's still 11 months to go before the scheduled election on October 20th next year.
    One thing is clear is that the right is on the march across the western world. Currently the liberal left does not lead the latest poll in a single G7 or G20 western nation apart from the UK but then even in the UK the Tories led in the previous poll from MoreinCommon and Reform is up on the GE too
    Again, I think we need to be clear. In Norway, it's the Progress Party, not the Conservatives who lead. IN Denmark, the Social Democrats have a narrow lead over the Socialist People's Party. In Austria, the Freedom Party outpolled the centre right Austrian People's Party but the latter will probably form a coalition with the SPD and NEOS.

    Finally, the Social Democrats are well ahead in Sweden as well so I would argue it's still tough for incumbent Governments and it's tough for opposition conservative parties facing a populist party on their flank.
    Times are tough for “mainstream” centre right parties. Their leaders yearn for the approval of their elite centre left counterparts.

    But they risk losing support to the populist right, who have only contempt for elite centre-leftists.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,894

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    Rather forgetting the whole reason the APR was brought in - which was because all the family farms were being eaten up by big commercial interests due to the need to break them up or sell them to pay IHT. The number of farms fell from around 400,000 in 1950 to around 200,000 in 1980. Apart from anything else this has been a disaster for the environment as it was one of the factors leading to the grubbing up of hedges to make much larger fields.
    I fail to see why more small farms is a good thing? All these 400k farmers presumably were in charge as we drifted into a poor environmental path.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,578
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    Because you live in a left liberal echo chamber, 58% of voters back the farmers, most people don't give a shit about a tractor being driven through a puddle

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1859993600647639423
    But would they give a shit if they were aware it could have serious negative effects?
  • Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    I am always a bit suspicious on polling on taxes and spending cuts. Without alternatives to the same sum it is just like polling on whether people want free money.

    For example I would to see a question like: Would you oppose the budget removing relief for farmers and adding 2% to Employers NI if it meant 3p on income tax or freezing state pensions for the next X years?
    Clever bit of adding a completely unrelated policy to try and justify your numbers.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,521

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    Rather forgetting the whole reason the APR was brought in - which was because all the family farms were being eaten up by big commercial interests due to the need to break them up or sell them to pay IHT. The number of farms fell from around 400,000 in 1950 to around 200,000 in 1980. Apart from anything else this has been a disaster for the environment as it was one of the factors leading to the grubbing up of hedges to make much larger fields.
    Presumably, the supporters of the changes think it is for the best that farmers (and other business owners), should sell up to the bigger outfits, and retire.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,112

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    Because you live in a left liberal echo chamber, 58% of voters back the farmers, most people don't give a shit about a tractor being driven through a puddle

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1859993600647639423
    Well, I admit to being surprised by that. Great PR from the landed gentry!
    Will no one stand up for ordinary castle owners?


  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,682
    edited November 26
    Omnium said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    Rather forgetting the whole reason the APR was brought in - which was because all the family farms were being eaten up by big commercial interests due to the need to break them up or sell them to pay IHT. The number of farms fell from around 400,000 in 1950 to around 200,000 in 1980. Apart from anything else this has been a disaster for the environment as it was one of the factors leading to the grubbing up of hedges to make much larger fields.
    I fail to see why more small farms is a good thing? All these 400k farmers presumably were in charge as we drifted into a poor environmental path.
    It was the loss of the smaller farms that was in part responsible for the environmental degradation.

    Along with Topping's favourite organisation of course; the EEC/EU which encouraged the environmentally destructive policies through the horrors of the CAP.
  • Sean_F said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    Rather forgetting the whole reason the APR was brought in - which was because all the family farms were being eaten up by big commercial interests due to the need to break them up or sell them to pay IHT. The number of farms fell from around 400,000 in 1950 to around 200,000 in 1980. Apart from anything else this has been a disaster for the environment as it was one of the factors leading to the grubbing up of hedges to make much larger fields.
    Presumably, the supporters of the changes think it is for the best that farmers (and other business owners), should sell up to the bigger outfits, and retire.
    Honestly, I think they have so little understanding or interest in small businesses and farmers that it doesn't mean anything to them.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,112

    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    I am always a bit suspicious on polling on taxes and spending cuts. Without alternatives to the same sum it is just like polling on whether people want free money.

    For example I would to see a question like: Would you oppose the budget removing relief for farmers and adding 2% to Employers NI if it meant 3p on income tax or freezing state pensions for the next X years?
    Clever bit of adding a completely unrelated policy to try and justify your numbers.
    It's true though.

    Badenoch has supported Labour's spending plans while opposing the tax rises needed.

    She should say what she would do differently, but won't.

    I think there is a way forward on AR along the lines of exempting from IHT agricultural land where the estate holder lived and also declared the majority of earnings from agriculture over the preceeding 7 years.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,082

    Omnium said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    Rather forgetting the whole reason the APR was brought in - which was because all the family farms were being eaten up by big commercial interests due to the need to break them up or sell them to pay IHT. The number of farms fell from around 400,000 in 1950 to around 200,000 in 1980. Apart from anything else this has been a disaster for the environment as it was one of the factors leading to the grubbing up of hedges to make much larger fields.
    I fail to see why more small farms is a good thing? All these 400k farmers presumably were in charge as we drifted into a poor environmental path.
    It was the loss of the smaller farms that was in part responsible for the environmental degradation.

    Along with Topping's favourite organisation of course; the EEC/EU which encouraged the environmentally destructive policies through the horrors of the CAP.
    Yup - old style “improvements” such as being paid to demolish hedgerows and merged into super fields.

    Interestingly, Thatcher’s governments started the process of reforming the CAP from just backing industrial mega farming to the current mix of environmental and productivity.

    Created lots of anger in Europe IIRC. Farmers in France etc…
  • DopermeanDopermean Posts: 620

    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    I am always a bit suspicious on polling on taxes and spending cuts. Without alternatives to the same sum it is just like polling on whether people want free money.

    For example I would to see a question like: Would you oppose the budget removing relief for farmers and adding 2% to Employers NI if it meant 3p on income tax or freezing state pensions for the next X years?
    Clever bit of adding a completely unrelated policy to try and justify your numbers.
    The money has to come from someone, up to the public whether they want to vote for tax avoidance schemes for the very wealthy allied to reduced services and higher taxes for themselves (like in the USA) or eliminating tax avoidance for the wealthy and higher employers NI allied to maintaining services.
    To govern is to choose and we elected a government on the basis that they would choose to sort out public services.
    I can't see Clarkson waving away the ambulance to A&E when he has some stupid TV stunt-related farming accident.

    In fact Clarkson's career path, BBC presenter, driving cars on UK roads was underwritten by the UK taxpayer.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,505
    edited November 26
    Taz said:

    Ceasefire with Hezbollah is on. 8AM tomorrow

    Given the Israelis have killed all the Hezbollah leadership, who did they negotiate with? The Hezbollah equivalent of Rachel from Customer Services?
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,682
    edited November 26
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    I am always a bit suspicious on polling on taxes and spending cuts. Without alternatives to the same sum it is just like polling on whether people want free money.

    For example I would to see a question like: Would you oppose the budget removing relief for farmers and adding 2% to Employers NI if it meant 3p on income tax or freezing state pensions for the next X years?
    Clever bit of adding a completely unrelated policy to try and justify your numbers.
    It's true though.

    Badenoch has supported Labour's spending plans while opposing the tax rises needed.

    She should say what she would do differently, but won't.

    I think there is a way forward on AR along the lines of exempting from IHT agricultural land where the estate holder lived and also declared the majority of earnings from agriculture over the preceeding 7 years.
    I prefer the rather more brutal method of introducing CGT at 40% on the sale of farms. It would certainly stop non farming investors if they thought their money would be tied up permanently in an asset that could only be realised with a 40% hit.
  • carnforth said:

    Rachel Reeves's husband is high up at DEFRA:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Joicey

    Wonder what he thinks of the changes.

    Well if the reports are correct, the Treasury didn't bother to ask them.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,069
    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Oooh. Just been commissioned to go to Uruguay. Anyone been?

    I haven't, I hear it is rather plez

    Martin Amis lived there for a while. Not sure why but I guess he had his reasons.
    Yes, he did, didn't he?

    I remember him claiming it was the best place on earth, or something almost as hyperbolic, due to the perfect combo of weather, wine, landscapes, etc

    I very much doubt that. For a start most Latin American food is dire. But I always like to see a new country, and this is new to me
    I think it was a relationship that took him there. It's a country I associate with horses, rugged scenery, and footballers with good balance and a low centre of gravity. But let's see what you make of it.
    George Courtauld in "Travels of a Fat Bulldog" described Montevideo as feeling a bit like a downmarket Torquay.
  • Dopermean said:

    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    I am always a bit suspicious on polling on taxes and spending cuts. Without alternatives to the same sum it is just like polling on whether people want free money.

    For example I would to see a question like: Would you oppose the budget removing relief for farmers and adding 2% to Employers NI if it meant 3p on income tax or freezing state pensions for the next X years?
    Clever bit of adding a completely unrelated policy to try and justify your numbers.
    The money has to come from someone, up to the public whether they want to vote for tax avoidance schemes for the very wealthy allied to reduced services and higher taxes for themselves (like in the USA) or eliminating tax avoidance for the wealthy and higher employers NI allied to maintaining services.
    To govern is to choose and we elected a government on the basis that they would choose to sort out public services.
    I can't see Clarkson waving away the ambulance to A&E when he has some stupid TV stunt-related farming accident.

    In fact Clarkson's career path, BBC presenter, driving cars on UK roads was underwritten by the UK taxpayer.
    This argument holds no water at all as long as the Government refuse to properly tax multinationals. There is no 'fairness' in the tax system when Amazon and Google can sit down over lunch with HMRC to 'discuss' how much tax they should pay.
  • Leon said:

    Oooh. Just been commissioned to go to Uruguay. Anyone been?

    I haven't, I hear it is rather plez

    I have to say I have a great deal of respect for their former president who, if the reports are true, sounds like a truly genuine man.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Mujica

    I would be very interested to hear if he is viewed in the same way in Uruguay as he is by the rest of the world.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,268

    Dopermean said:

    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    I am always a bit suspicious on polling on taxes and spending cuts. Without alternatives to the same sum it is just like polling on whether people want free money.

    For example I would to see a question like: Would you oppose the budget removing relief for farmers and adding 2% to Employers NI if it meant 3p on income tax or freezing state pensions for the next X years?
    Clever bit of adding a completely unrelated policy to try and justify your numbers.
    The money has to come from someone, up to the public whether they want to vote for tax avoidance schemes for the very wealthy allied to reduced services and higher taxes for themselves (like in the USA) or eliminating tax avoidance for the wealthy and higher employers NI allied to maintaining services.
    To govern is to choose and we elected a government on the basis that they would choose to sort out public services.
    I can't see Clarkson waving away the ambulance to A&E when he has some stupid TV stunt-related farming accident.

    In fact Clarkson's career path, BBC presenter, driving cars on UK roads was underwritten by the UK taxpayer.
    This argument holds no water at all as long as the Government refuse to properly tax multinationals. There is no 'fairness' in the tax system when Amazon and Google can sit down over lunch with HMRC to 'discuss' how much tax they should pay.
    Their relationship to the British government is not the same as their relationship to the American government. Like it or not, how much tax they pay here will always be a negotiation in one form or another.
  • New UK non-dom concession ‘accelerates’ wealthy people’s exit plans

    https://www.ft.com/content/694c513c-79f0-43c3-b37f-6c586adb2899

    Sounds like there is going to be another big black hole in the budget forecast.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,632
    Sean_F said:

    stodge said:

    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Canadian opinion poll puts the Conservatives on 47% (and the populist People's Party on 4%).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2025_Canadian_federal_election

    That's quite an outlier poll. The weekly Nanos poll has the Conservatives in the low 40s and the fortnightly Abacus a point or two higher while the fortnightly EKOS has the Conservatives below 40%.

    It certainly looks like a big win for Poilievre at this time but there's still 11 months to go before the scheduled election on October 20th next year.
    One thing is clear is that the right is on the march across the western world. Currently the liberal left does not lead the latest poll in a single G7 or G20 western nation apart from the UK but then even in the UK the Tories led in the previous poll from MoreinCommon and Reform is up on the GE too
    Again, I think we need to be clear. In Norway, it's the Progress Party, not the Conservatives who lead. IN Denmark, the Social Democrats have a narrow lead over the Socialist People's Party. In Austria, the Freedom Party outpolled the centre right Austrian People's Party but the latter will probably form a coalition with the SPD and NEOS.

    Finally, the Social Democrats are well ahead in Sweden as well so I would argue it's still tough for incumbent Governments and it's tough for opposition conservative parties facing a populist party on their flank.
    Times are tough for “mainstream” centre right parties. Their leaders yearn for the approval of their elite centre left counterparts.

    But they risk losing support to the populist right, who have only contempt for elite centre-leftists.
    And for their own voters.

    Drug dealers and the punters is a good analogy imo.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 60,030

    Dopermean said:

    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    I am always a bit suspicious on polling on taxes and spending cuts. Without alternatives to the same sum it is just like polling on whether people want free money.

    For example I would to see a question like: Would you oppose the budget removing relief for farmers and adding 2% to Employers NI if it meant 3p on income tax or freezing state pensions for the next X years?
    Clever bit of adding a completely unrelated policy to try and justify your numbers.
    The money has to come from someone, up to the public whether they want to vote for tax avoidance schemes for the very wealthy allied to reduced services and higher taxes for themselves (like in the USA) or eliminating tax avoidance for the wealthy and higher employers NI allied to maintaining services.
    To govern is to choose and we elected a government on the basis that they would choose to sort out public services.
    I can't see Clarkson waving away the ambulance to A&E when he has some stupid TV stunt-related farming accident.

    In fact Clarkson's career path, BBC presenter, driving cars on UK roads was underwritten by the UK taxpayer.
    This argument holds no water at all as long as the Government refuse to properly tax multinationals. There is no 'fairness' in the tax system when Amazon and Google can sit down over lunch with HMRC to 'discuss' how much tax they should pay.
    Their relationship to the British government is not the same as their relationship to the American government. Like it or not, how much tax they pay here will always be a negotiation in one form or another.
    They aren’t going to raise any money from these non-dom changes, are they?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,082

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    I am always a bit suspicious on polling on taxes and spending cuts. Without alternatives to the same sum it is just like polling on whether people want free money.

    For example I would to see a question like: Would you oppose the budget removing relief for farmers and adding 2% to Employers NI if it meant 3p on income tax or freezing state pensions for the next X years?
    Clever bit of adding a completely unrelated policy to try and justify your numbers.
    It's true though.

    Badenoch has supported Labour's spending plans while opposing the tax rises needed.

    She should say what she would do differently, but won't.

    I think there is a way forward on AR along the lines of exempting from IHT agricultural land where the estate holder lived and also declared the majority of earnings from agriculture over the preceeding 7 years.
    I prefer the rather more brutal method of introducing CGT at 40% on the sale of farms. It would certainly stop non farming investors if they thought their money would be tied up permanently in an asset that could only be realised with a 40% hit.
    The chap I know who is converting to solar farming wonder how much of the recent investment in farmland is driven by the potential profits from solar.

    Buy some land, solar and rent it for grazing sheep among the panels. The sheep grazing pays for most of the paper on the land. The solar is profit. Planning permission would be the lottery win, of course.

    Much better yields than full farming. And much more reliable. Plus much less work. You replace the panels in a slow rotation over years and the same with the electronics.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,857
    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Canadian opinion poll puts the Conservatives on 47% (and the populist People's Party on 4%).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2025_Canadian_federal_election

    That's quite an outlier poll. The weekly Nanos poll has the Conservatives in the low 40s and the fortnightly Abacus a point or two higher while the fortnightly EKOS has the Conservatives below 40%.

    It certainly looks like a big win for Poilievre at this time but there's still 11 months to go before the scheduled election on October 20th next year.
    One thing is clear is that the right is on the march across the western world. Currently the liberal left does not lead the latest poll in a single G7 nation apart from the UK but then even in the UK the Tories led in the previous poll from MoreinCommon and Reform is up on the GE too
    I agree that something is on the march, but it is being wrongly characterised. 'Right', 'extreme right', and 'ultra right' are in general incorrect. Perhaps a new language is needed.

    Putting the USA aside, as the USA has a non European culture, the popular and populist movements are, in essentials, mostly social democrats first of all. They believe on the whole in regulated private enterprise and a massive cradle to grave state - pensions, education, welfare safety net, civil order, participation in the international order, and regular more or less free and fair elections. Reform is a text book example. The fact they are idiots makes no difference to the heart of their social democrat, high tax and high spend policies.

    They also tend towards simple solutions to complex problems, and the pretence that involves. In other words they lie and distort to get votes - they are politicians, this is not unique. They also have elements of popular nationalism and don't like mass or uncontrolled migration. Like North Korea, Iran and China. These groups are lots of things, some bad, but 'extreme right' they are not.
  • maxhmaxh Posts: 1,286
    edited November 26

    Dopermean said:

    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    I am always a bit suspicious on polling on taxes and spending cuts. Without alternatives to the same sum it is just like polling on whether people want free money.

    For example I would to see a question like: Would you oppose the budget removing relief for farmers and adding 2% to Employers NI if it meant 3p on income tax or freezing state pensions for the next X years?
    Clever bit of adding a completely unrelated policy to try and justify your numbers.
    The money has to come from someone, up to the public whether they want to vote for tax avoidance schemes for the very wealthy allied to reduced services and higher taxes for themselves (like in the USA) or eliminating tax avoidance for the wealthy and higher employers NI allied to maintaining services.
    To govern is to choose and we elected a government on the basis that they would choose to sort out public services.
    I can't see Clarkson waving away the ambulance to A&E when he has some stupid TV stunt-related farming accident.

    In fact Clarkson's career path, BBC presenter, driving cars on UK roads was underwritten by the UK taxpayer.
    This argument holds no water at all as long as the Government refuse to properly tax multinationals. There is no 'fairness' in the tax system when Amazon and Google can sit down over lunch with HMRC to 'discuss' how much tax they should pay.
    That feels a bit too much like whataboutery to me. I agree we have a problem with taxing multinationals (within a wider problem of democratic governance of multinationals, or rather lack of). But that doesn't invalidate Dopermean's point - where we do have control over taxation we should use that agency to make political decisions, and our elected government is deciding to tax those with unusually high asset values at the point when those assets change hands. The fact that they can't get Amazon to pay tax seems a bit irrelevant to this.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,945
    "One of FBI's most wanted 'terrorists' caught in Wales after more than 20 years on the run

    Daniel Andreas San Diego faces extradition to the US, more than 20 years after he was accused of two bombings in the San Francisco area. It's understood he was arrested near woodland in North Wales."

    https://news.sky.com/story/one-of-fbis-most-wanted-terrorists-caught-in-wales-after-more-than-20-years-on-the-run-13261196
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,112

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    I am always a bit suspicious on polling on taxes and spending cuts. Without alternatives to the same sum it is just like polling on whether people want free money.

    For example I would to see a question like: Would you oppose the budget removing relief for farmers and adding 2% to Employers NI if it meant 3p on income tax or freezing state pensions for the next X years?
    Clever bit of adding a completely unrelated policy to try and justify your numbers.
    It's true though.

    Badenoch has supported Labour's spending plans while opposing the tax rises needed.

    She should say what she would do differently, but won't.

    I think there is a way forward on AR along the lines of exempting from IHT agricultural land where the estate holder lived and also declared the majority of earnings from agriculture over the preceeding 7 years.
    I prefer the rather more brutal method of introducing CGT at 40% on the sale of farms. It would certainly stop non farming investors if they thought their money would be tied up permanently in an asset that could only be realised with a 40% hit.
    That wouldn't work if there was no increase in value. For example a tax dodging Millionaires estate could be sold at purchase price to another millionaire after death, with no IHT or CGT paid.

    It would also impact real farmers who wanted to sell up.

    Exempting those who both live on the farm and also can prove that it was the majority of their income for the last 7 years is better. Clarkson and Dyson would have to cough up, the Archers of Ambridge would not.



  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,676
    Leon said:

    Oooh. Just been commissioned to go to Uruguay. Anyone been?

    I haven't, I hear it is rather plez

    Fray Bentos for corned beef?
  • Taz said:

    Ceasefire with Hezbollah is on. 8AM tomorrow

    Given the Israelis have killed all the Hezbollah leadership, who did they negotiate with? The Hezbollah equivalent of Rachel from Customer Services?
    Khalid from Accounts.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,984
    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Canadian opinion poll puts the Conservatives on 47% (and the populist People's Party on 4%).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2025_Canadian_federal_election

    That's quite an outlier poll. The weekly Nanos poll has the Conservatives in the low 40s and the fortnightly Abacus a point or two higher while the fortnightly EKOS has the Conservatives below 40%.

    It certainly looks like a big win for Poilievre at this time but there's still 11 months to go before the scheduled election on October 20th next year.
    One thing is clear is that the right is on the march across the western world. Currently the liberal left does not lead the latest poll in a single G7 nation apart from the UK but then even in the UK the Tories led in the previous poll from MoreinCommon and Reform is up on the GE too
    I agree that something is on the march, but it is being wrongly characterised. 'Right', 'extreme right', and 'ultra right' are in general incorrect. Perhaps a new language is needed.

    Putting the USA aside, as the USA has a non European culture, the popular and populist movements are, in essentials, mostly social democrats first of all. They believe on the whole in regulated private enterprise and a massive cradle to grave state - pensions, education, welfare safety net, civil order, participation in the international order, and regular more or less free and fair elections. Reform is a text book example. The fact they are idiots makes no difference to the heart of their social democrat, high tax and high spend policies.

    They also tend towards simple solutions to complex problems, and the pretence that involves. In other words they lie and distort to get votes - they are politicians, this is not unique. They also have elements of popular nationalism and don't like mass or uncontrolled migration. Like North Korea, Iran and China. These groups are lots of things, some bad, but 'extreme right' they are not.
    The trouble is "Left" and "Right" are used more as terms of abuse than as any serious attempt at commentary these days. They have lost all meaning and, pace Animal Farm, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell them apart.

    Reform for example is characterised by many on here and in the media as a "right wing" party which, by any objective measure, it isn't.

    The new perjorative term these days seems to be "centrist" (I don't know what that means either).
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 5,053
    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    Because you live in a left liberal echo chamber, 58% of voters back the farmers, most people don't give a shit about a tractor being driven through a puddle

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1859993600647639423
    That comment about driving thru a puddle is not funny. He probably caused tens of thousands of pounds of damage if not worse and was a danger to life. When I was a youngster we were flooded and the army turned up in amphibious vehicles. We stopped them coming down because of the wash. Our flood was not as bad but a land rover going through sent a wave not much less than a metre through the house. That tractor was doing far worse. It would have smashed doors, windows and done huge damage inside the shops.
    I hope they have to pay every penny of compensation due. It will help reduce their IHT liability.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,984
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    I am always a bit suspicious on polling on taxes and spending cuts. Without alternatives to the same sum it is just like polling on whether people want free money.

    For example I would to see a question like: Would you oppose the budget removing relief for farmers and adding 2% to Employers NI if it meant 3p on income tax or freezing state pensions for the next X years?
    Clever bit of adding a completely unrelated policy to try and justify your numbers.
    It's true though.

    Badenoch has supported Labour's spending plans while opposing the tax rises needed.

    She should say what she would do differently, but won't.

    I think there is a way forward on AR along the lines of exempting from IHT agricultural land where the estate holder lived and also declared the majority of earnings from agriculture over the preceeding 7 years.
    Badenoch is just like Corbyn - another believer in the Magic Money Tree.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 5,053
    malcolmg said:

    Eabhal said:

    HYUFD said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Correctly so given this despicable government's attack on our hardworking farmers who provide our food.

    Haha very good. Are you trying out characters for a return of the Fast Show?
    Struggling to see which part you disagree with - do farmers not work hard, not produce our food, or is it the description of Sir Twat's loathed parade of political pond life as despicable that you're taking issue with?
    Most of the people who work on farms are never inheriting a penny. Those who might inherit just need to pay the same taxes as anyone else in their position.

    The IHT APR has caused more hardship to framers over the years than removing it will.
    I'm changing my tune on this slightly. A relative of mine has mentioned buying a paddock as an IHT wheeze despite definitely not being above IHT threshold. Something about being addressed as a laird too.

    A good reminder that people really do have no idea about IHT and how few people it affects, and that the policy might spectacular backfire because so many more people are now aware of the still-generous tax allowances for agricultural land.
    My daughter has just bought a plot and 2-3 acres of paddock, from an impoverished farmer no less.
    He’ll be less impoverished now! I assume your daughter has a horse. I hope she gets as much enjoyment as my daughter does from her’s.
  • Isn't Urugyay the one with the president who drives a Citroën 2cv avd smokes a lot of marujuana ? Some sort of very successful alternative-populisf.

    Or am I getting mixed up, with something else ? Anyway, Uruguay.is also famous for football.
  • ?And, that should be.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 5,053
    Cookie said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    kinabalu said:

    Leon said:

    Oooh. Just been commissioned to go to Uruguay. Anyone been?

    I haven't, I hear it is rather plez

    Martin Amis lived there for a while. Not sure why but I guess he had his reasons.
    Yes, he did, didn't he?

    I remember him claiming it was the best place on earth, or something almost as hyperbolic, due to the perfect combo of weather, wine, landscapes, etc

    I very much doubt that. For a start most Latin American food is dire. But I always like to see a new country, and this is new to me
    I think it was a relationship that took him there. It's a country I associate with horses, rugged scenery, and footballers with good balance and a low centre of gravity. But let's see what you make of it.
    George Courtauld in "Travels of a Fat Bulldog" described Montevideo as feeling a bit like a downmarket Torquay.
    Except that Uruguay welcomed Germans more than Fawlty Towers did.
  • Perhaps this Labour government isn't so bad.

    Kremlin bans ministers including Reeves and Rayner from entering Russia

    Moscow accuses 16 Cabinet members of ‘reckless policies’ and ‘anti-Russian activities’


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/26/kremlin-bans-rachel-reeves-angela-rayner-entering-russia/
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,857
    stodge said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Canadian opinion poll puts the Conservatives on 47% (and the populist People's Party on 4%).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2025_Canadian_federal_election

    That's quite an outlier poll. The weekly Nanos poll has the Conservatives in the low 40s and the fortnightly Abacus a point or two higher while the fortnightly EKOS has the Conservatives below 40%.

    It certainly looks like a big win for Poilievre at this time but there's still 11 months to go before the scheduled election on October 20th next year.
    One thing is clear is that the right is on the march across the western world. Currently the liberal left does not lead the latest poll in a single G7 nation apart from the UK but then even in the UK the Tories led in the previous poll from MoreinCommon and Reform is up on the GE too
    I agree that something is on the march, but it is being wrongly characterised. 'Right', 'extreme right', and 'ultra right' are in general incorrect. Perhaps a new language is needed.

    Putting the USA aside, as the USA has a non European culture, the popular and populist movements are, in essentials, mostly social democrats first of all. They believe on the whole in regulated private enterprise and a massive cradle to grave state - pensions, education, welfare safety net, civil order, participation in the international order, and regular more or less free and fair elections. Reform is a text book example. The fact they are idiots makes no difference to the heart of their social democrat, high tax and high spend policies.

    They also tend towards simple solutions to complex problems, and the pretence that involves. In other words they lie and distort to get votes - they are politicians, this is not unique. They also have elements of popular nationalism and don't like mass or uncontrolled migration. Like North Korea, Iran and China. These groups are lots of things, some bad, but 'extreme right' they are not.
    The trouble is "Left" and "Right" are used more as terms of abuse than as any serious attempt at commentary these days. They have lost all meaning and, pace Animal Farm, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell them apart.

    Reform for example is characterised by many on here and in the media as a "right wing" party which, by any objective measure, it isn't.

    The new perjorative term these days seems to be "centrist" (I don't know what that means either).
    Heartily agree generally. But I think 'centrist' has its uses. More or less it means a social democrat (see above) who tries hard not to fall into populist nationalism, values competence in politics most of all, doesn't think that all problems can be solved, and can comprehend anyone voting for a party committed to that non populist social democrat heart - which in Britain is Lab, Con, LD, PC, SNP. Some Greens probably qualify too, but not all.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 5,053

    Isn't Urugyay the one with the president who drives a Citroën 2cv avd smokes a lot of marujuana ? Some sort of very successful alternative-populisf.

    Or am I getting mixed up, with something else ? Anyway, Uruguay.is also famous for football.

    Sounds like someone @Leon could relate to.
  • algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Canadian opinion poll puts the Conservatives on 47% (and the populist People's Party on 4%).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2025_Canadian_federal_election

    That's quite an outlier poll. The weekly Nanos poll has the Conservatives in the low 40s and the fortnightly Abacus a point or two higher while the fortnightly EKOS has the Conservatives below 40%.

    It certainly looks like a big win for Poilievre at this time but there's still 11 months to go before the scheduled election on October 20th next year.
    One thing is clear is that the right is on the march across the western world. Currently the liberal left does not lead the latest poll in a single G7 nation apart from the UK but then even in the UK the Tories led in the previous poll from MoreinCommon and Reform is up on the GE too
    I agree that something is on the march, but it is being wrongly characterised. 'Right', 'extreme right', and 'ultra right' are in general incorrect. Perhaps a new language is needed.

    Putting the USA aside, as the USA has a non European culture, the popular and populist movements are, in essentials, mostly social democrats first of all. They believe on the whole in regulated private enterprise and a massive cradle to grave state - pensions, education, welfare safety net, civil order, participation in the international order, and regular more or less free and fair elections. Reform is a text book example. The fact they are idiots makes no difference to the heart of their social democrat, high tax and high spend policies.

    They also tend towards simple solutions to complex problems, and the pretence that involves. In other words they lie and distort to get votes - they are politicians, this is not unique. They also have elements of popular nationalism and don't like mass or uncontrolled migration. Like North Korea, Iran and China. These groups are lots of things, some bad, but 'extreme right' they are not.
    Socialism and nationalism in one populist package you say?

    Wonder if there are any precedents worth looking into.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,826
    edited November 26
    Under Labour... Smithfield and Billingsgate to close. Vauxhall shuts Luton.... What next. It won't be the last.....
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,268

    Perhaps this Labour government isn't so bad.

    Kremlin bans ministers including Reeves and Rayner from entering Russia

    Moscow accuses 16 Cabinet members of ‘reckless policies’ and ‘anti-Russian activities’


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/26/kremlin-bans-rachel-reeves-angela-rayner-entering-russia/

    Lord Alli doesn't have a penthouse in Moscow anyway.
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 3,744

    Under Labour... Smithfield and Billingsgate to close. Vauxhall shuts Luton.... What next. It won't be the last.....

    Is this to be set to the tune of Letter From America?
  • BlancheLivermoreBlancheLivermore Posts: 5,980
    edited November 26
    Fpt



    The weird thing is the more complicated they became the more likely they became to be man made, but as pieces of art they are stunning. I recall that the early ones had people like Terrence Meaden believing in air vortices etc as a mode of creation. The pranksters then showed just why this wouldn't work... I also love the fact that some people persist in trying to separate the 'faked' ones from the 'real' ones, even now. If you haven't been there is a brilliant exhibit near Honey Street (Pewsey way) on this. Its very much a believers exhibit, but fun to visit.

    I go to Honeystreet nearly every Sunday to deliver parcels, normally between Alton Barnes (villages that sound like US golfers) and Woodborough

    Honeystreet is kind of crazy. It's a lovely hamlet on a canal, and it's a sort of hippy/traveller commune (hence unsurprising that it hosts the crop circle centre)

    If anyone is tempted to go to Honeystreet, I'd recommend a very short extension on the trip to Alton Barnes to see the tiny Saxon church there, and the White Horse on the way to Stanton St Bernard (could be another US golfer?)



  • algarkirk said:

    stodge said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Canadian opinion poll puts the Conservatives on 47% (and the populist People's Party on 4%).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2025_Canadian_federal_election

    That's quite an outlier poll. The weekly Nanos poll has the Conservatives in the low 40s and the fortnightly Abacus a point or two higher while the fortnightly EKOS has the Conservatives below 40%.

    It certainly looks like a big win for Poilievre at this time but there's still 11 months to go before the scheduled election on October 20th next year.
    One thing is clear is that the right is on the march across the western world. Currently the liberal left does not lead the latest poll in a single G7 nation apart from the UK but then even in the UK the Tories led in the previous poll from MoreinCommon and Reform is up on the GE too
    I agree that something is on the march, but it is being wrongly characterised. 'Right', 'extreme right', and 'ultra right' are in general incorrect. Perhaps a new language is needed.

    Putting the USA aside, as the USA has a non European culture, the popular and populist movements are, in essentials, mostly social democrats first of all. They believe on the whole in regulated private enterprise and a massive cradle to grave state - pensions, education, welfare safety net, civil order, participation in the international order, and regular more or less free and fair elections. Reform is a text book example. The fact they are idiots makes no difference to the heart of their social democrat, high tax and high spend policies.

    They also tend towards simple solutions to complex problems, and the pretence that involves. In other words they lie and distort to get votes - they are politicians, this is not unique. They also have elements of popular nationalism and don't like mass or uncontrolled migration. Like North Korea, Iran and China. These groups are lots of things, some bad, but 'extreme right' they are not.
    The trouble is "Left" and "Right" are used more as terms of abuse than as any serious attempt at commentary these days. They have lost all meaning and, pace Animal Farm, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell them apart.

    Reform for example is characterised by many on here and in the media as a "right wing" party which, by any objective measure, it isn't.

    The new perjorative term these days seems to be "centrist" (I don't know what that means either).
    Heartily agree generally. But I think 'centrist' has its uses. More or less it means a social democrat (see above) who tries hard not to fall into populist nationalism, values competence in politics most of all, doesn't think that all problems can be solved, and can comprehend anyone voting for a party committed to that non populist social democrat heart - which in Britain is Lab, Con, LD, PC, SNP. Some Greens probably qualify too, but not all.
    Does Butskellism get the sense better than Social Democracy? That there are debates to be had about the exact size of the state, and how far to go with social change, but fairly mild limited ones. Because big jumps to the left or right probably make things quite a bit worse

    Whether that's true or not is another matter.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,578
    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    Because you live in a left liberal echo chamber, 58% of voters back the farmers, most people don't give a shit about a tractor being driven through a puddle

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1859993600647639423
    Well, I admit to being surprised by that. Great PR from the landed gentry!
    Will no one stand up for ordinary castle owners?


    I haven't felt such sympathy since Douglas Hogg said he had no option but to claim expenses for cleaning his moat because he was advised to do so, which definitely means there was no problem with it.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,826
    edited November 26

    Under Labour... Smithfield and Billingsgate to close. Vauxhall shuts Luton.... What next. It won't be the last.....

    Is this to be set to the tune of Letter From America?
    No it is going to be a recurring theme of Labour's stupidity. It's going to be 5 yr god almighty fuck up.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,578
    stodge said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    I am always a bit suspicious on polling on taxes and spending cuts. Without alternatives to the same sum it is just like polling on whether people want free money.

    For example I would to see a question like: Would you oppose the budget removing relief for farmers and adding 2% to Employers NI if it meant 3p on income tax or freezing state pensions for the next X years?
    Clever bit of adding a completely unrelated policy to try and justify your numbers.
    It's true though.

    Badenoch has supported Labour's spending plans while opposing the tax rises needed.

    She should say what she would do differently, but won't.

    I think there is a way forward on AR along the lines of exempting from IHT agricultural land where the estate holder lived and also declared the majority of earnings from agriculture over the preceeding 7 years.
    Badenoch is just like Corbyn - another believer in the Magic Money Tree.
    Are there many politicians who don't? They might say otherwise, until they want or have power however.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,895
    stodge said:

    Afternoon all :)

    As far as Ireland is concerned, the three main parties (SF, FF and FG) polled 67.5% in 2021 and are now on 60% with the Independents up to 17%. The Greens are down but the Social Democrats should finish fifth.

    Not sure what all this means - I suspect the FF, FG and Green coalition will lose its majority in the Dail but if the Social Democrats improve, wouldn't they join a new FF/FG coalition so, contrary to what has happened in many other countries, the incumbent Government will be re-elected with SF likely to take some big losses?

    Last election was in 2020. I think the SocDems are wary of being the small party in coalition. There is a long list of small parties who have played that role in Ireland and suffered for it. Some have disappeared altogether.

    The way the SocDems have set up their pre-election coalition negotiating position seems determined to to make such coalition talks fail, or at least to drive such a hard bargain that FF/FG are likely to look elsewhere. Most likely to Independent Ireland, who created a party precisely for the purpose of replacing the Greens as a coalition partner for FF/FG.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,141
    edited November 26

    Under Labour... Smithfield and Billingsgate to close. Vauxhall shuts Luton.... What next. It won't be the last.....

    Is this to be set to the tune of Letter From America?
    Clarkson tax dodge no more, Dyson tax dodge no more
    Etc
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,880
    Andy_JS said:

    "One of FBI's most wanted 'terrorists' caught in Wales after more than 20 years on the run

    Daniel Andreas San Diego faces extradition to the US, more than 20 years after he was accused of two bombings in the San Francisco area. It's understood he was arrested near woodland in North Wales."

    https://news.sky.com/story/one-of-fbis-most-wanted-terrorists-caught-in-wales-after-more-than-20-years-on-the-run-13261196

    Links to SHAC. Looks like potentially more than 20 years, perhaps.

    San Diego is described as having ties to Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) as a well-known San Francisco Bay Area animal rights activist. SHAC is an international campaign set up to close down Europe's largest animal testing laboratory, Huntingdon Life Sciences, a company that performs drug and chemical research experiments on animals. Before the related bombings SHAC targeted HLS customer Chiron and its employees with a series of actions, accusing them of being "puppy killers."
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Andreas_San_Diego
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585

    Under Labour... Smithfield and Billingsgate to close. Vauxhall shuts Luton.... What next. It won't be the last.....

    Is this to be set to the tune of Letter From America?
    Clarkson tax dodge no more, Dyson tax dodge no more
    Etc
    Smithfield and Billingsgate has nothing to do with the Government - the City of London has simply demonstrated that if you only have a few people you can't run multiple projects at the same time...
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,099

    Under Labour... Smithfield and Billingsgate to close. Vauxhall shuts Luton.... What next. It won't be the last.....

    Is this to be set to the tune of Letter From America?
    Clarkson tax dodge no more, Dyson tax dodge no more
    Etc
    no mo-arrrr
  • eekeek Posts: 28,585
    edited November 26
    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    Because you live in a left liberal echo chamber, 58% of voters back the farmers, most people don't give a shit about a tractor being driven through a puddle

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1859993600647639423
    Well, I admit to being surprised by that. Great PR from the landed gentry!
    Will no one stand up for ordinary castle owners?


    I haven't felt such sympathy since Douglas Hogg said he had no option but to claim expenses for cleaning his moat because he was advised to do so, which definitely means there was no problem with it.
    Think about those ducks needing a new home...
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,268
    edited November 26

    Under Labour... Smithfield and Billingsgate to close. Vauxhall shuts Luton.... What next. It won't be the last.....

    Is this to be set to the tune of Letter From America?
    When you go, will you send back
    Remittances from America?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,330
    edited November 26

    Fpt



    The weird thing is the more complicated they became the more likely they became to be man made, but as pieces of art they are stunning. I recall that the early ones had people like Terrence Meaden believing in air vortices etc as a mode of creation. The pranksters then showed just why this wouldn't work... I also love the fact that some people persist in trying to separate the 'faked' ones from the 'real' ones, even now. If you haven't been there is a brilliant exhibit near Honey Street (Pewsey way) on this. Its very much a believers exhibit, but fun to visit.

    I go to Honeystreet nearly every Sunday to deliver parcels, normally between Alton Barnes (villages that sound like US golfers) and Woodborough

    Honeystreet is kind of crazy. It's a lovely hamlet on a canal, and it's a sort of hippy/traveller commune (hence unsurprising that it hosts the crop circle centre)

    If anyone is tempted to go to Honeystreet, I'd recommend a very short extension on the trip to Alton Barnes to see the tiny Saxon church there, and the White Horse on the way to Stanton St Bernard (could be another US golfer?)



    Forget the hippies - give me the view from Knap Hill any day. (A bit to the north, it overlooks the Vale of Pewsey).

    But yes, the church and Horse.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,857
    edited November 26

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    stodge said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Canadian opinion poll puts the Conservatives on 47% (and the populist People's Party on 4%).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2025_Canadian_federal_election

    That's quite an outlier poll. The weekly Nanos poll has the Conservatives in the low 40s and the fortnightly Abacus a point or two higher while the fortnightly EKOS has the Conservatives below 40%.

    It certainly looks like a big win for Poilievre at this time but there's still 11 months to go before the scheduled election on October 20th next year.
    One thing is clear is that the right is on the march across the western world. Currently the liberal left does not lead the latest poll in a single G7 nation apart from the UK but then even in the UK the Tories led in the previous poll from MoreinCommon and Reform is up on the GE too
    I agree that something is on the march, but it is being wrongly characterised. 'Right', 'extreme right', and 'ultra right' are in general incorrect. Perhaps a new language is needed.

    Putting the USA aside, as the USA has a non European culture, the popular and populist movements are, in essentials, mostly social democrats first of all. They believe on the whole in regulated private enterprise and a massive cradle to grave state - pensions, education, welfare safety net, civil order, participation in the international order, and regular more or less free and fair elections. Reform is a text book example. The fact they are idiots makes no difference to the heart of their social democrat, high tax and high spend policies.

    They also tend towards simple solutions to complex problems, and the pretence that involves. In other words they lie and distort to get votes - they are politicians, this is not unique. They also have elements of popular nationalism and don't like mass or uncontrolled migration. Like North Korea, Iran and China. These groups are lots of things, some bad, but 'extreme right' they are not.
    Socialism and nationalism in one populist package you say?

    Wonder if there are any precedents worth looking into.
    Good point, and there are one or two bits of the past that come to mind, like most of the history of the 20th century. Until and unless it is clearly going to be different (and Meloni is worth keeping an eye on) I think the mixture is social democracy and populist nationalism, and especially so in Britain with Reform. Which is more Dad's Army than Dachau thus far.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,880
    edited November 26
    Hmmm. I ran across some material about the use of big data worked on by Republican setups - Koch, Council for National Policies etc - Evangelical networks to mass target individual church members in swing States in the USA.

    Quite interesting. It's about the 2020 Election, and is suggested as what may have been strategies for this time.

    Of interest to, perhaps, @StillWaters ? I think he wrote headers adjacent to this type of area. It's sophisticated sociology and subliminal marketing applied to individuals - seeking their points of vulnerability.

    (Long) Twitter thread:
    https://x.com/TobiFrenzen

    Youtube documentary that I found interesting:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YWe89X4vRM

    Couple of snippets (for +1 minute each):

    Short one about how churches can design their people's behaviour. Very Usonian. Very manipulative.
    https://youtu.be/8YWe89X4vRM?t=2915

    How it can work.
    https://youtu.be/8YWe89X4vRM?t=3182

  • Carnyx said:

    Fpt



    The weird thing is the more complicated they became the more likely they became to be man made, but as pieces of art they are stunning. I recall that the early ones had people like Terrence Meaden believing in air vortices etc as a mode of creation. The pranksters then showed just why this wouldn't work... I also love the fact that some people persist in trying to separate the 'faked' ones from the 'real' ones, even now. If you haven't been there is a brilliant exhibit near Honey Street (Pewsey way) on this. Its very much a believers exhibit, but fun to visit.

    I go to Honeystreet nearly every Sunday to deliver parcels, normally between Alton Barnes (villages that sound like US golfers) and Woodborough

    Honeystreet is kind of crazy. It's a lovely hamlet on a canal, and it's a sort of hippy/traveller commune (hence unsurprising that it hosts the crop circle centre)

    If anyone is tempted to go to Honeystreet, I'd recommend a very short extension on the trip to Alton Barnes to see the tiny Saxon church there, and the White Horse on the way to Stanton St Bernard (could be another US golfer?)



    Forget the hippies - give me the view from Knap Hill any day. (A bit to the north, it overlooks the Vale of Pewsey).

    But yes, the church and Horse.
    I love the walk over Knap Hill, and the drive just to the south under it from Wilcot to Alton Priors

    This isn't the worst part of the world to be a postie
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,857
    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    Because you live in a left liberal echo chamber, 58% of voters back the farmers, most people don't give a shit about a tractor being driven through a puddle

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1859993600647639423
    Well, I admit to being surprised by that. Great PR from the landed gentry!
    Will no one stand up for ordinary castle owners?


    I haven't felt such sympathy since Douglas Hogg said he had no option but to claim expenses for cleaning his moat because he was advised to do so, which definitely means there was no problem with it.
    Hogg's moat is on the land, Kettlethorpe, where Katherine Swynford lived at the time of her first marriage to Hugh Swynford. Katherine deserves to be even better known than she is, as she is the cause (as 1066 And All That would put it) of huge chunks of English history, right down to this day, a thing which would never have seemed possible during her life. Just one of the infinity of Lincolnshire's links with history.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,895
    edited November 26
    Donald Trump has been nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize by an MP from Zelenskyy's party.

    I do have to commend the Ukrainians for their determination to butter up the next US President however they can. There's no messing around. They know what they need to do.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,608
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    I see the people who gave us mad cow disease are still moaning.

    Tomorrow tractors will escalate fight back with a rally around Dover.

    Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer betrayed farmers with their disastrous budget which delivered a poisonous cocktail and a hammer blow to 🇬🇧 Farming.


    https://x.com/SaveBritishFood/status/1861460248235577746

    Talking about blokes with tractors ...

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj0jl8973meo
    Terrible human being.
    Just when farmers were starting to get public sympathy over IHT, that guy loses it for them.
    Really? I don't hear much sympathy for them, apart from confirmed Tories.
    58% to 13% in favour of the Farmers on the IHT issue in the latest polling. And that includes 49% of Labour voters.

    Whatever you might personally think about the policy it is clear it is not popular with the public in general. Not that a Government with 4 years to go to an election will be concerned about polling right now. But I find it amusing that you are so concerned as to try and create a false narrative over the popularity (or otherwise) of the measure.
    I'm not trying to create a false narrative, I simply hadn't heard anyone mention it in my 'lefty-liberal' bubble (as HYUFD put it), here in rural Dorset. None of the people I saw at Citizens Advice last week mentioned it, funnily enough.

    But I stand corrected by the poll you and HY have shared. Surprised, as I said, but corrected.

    I do however hope the government hold their nerve on this one. In the medium term it will make farms more affordable to those who really want to farm, rather than use a farm as a tax avoidance scheme.
    No, it will lead to more family farms being sold to large agri corporations
    The solution is the @Malmesbury compromise: IHT is not payable so long as it remains owned by the family. Should someone buy a farm for the purpose of avoiding tax, and it is therefore sold soon after being inherited then tax becomes payable.

  • Too busy at work to comment on the previous thread from Cyclefree, but feel it deserves the big thumbs up from me.

    Human being cannot change sex. It is not possible. No-one is born in the wrong body, there is not an alternative one waiting for us. Chopping up some bits does not alter anything, any more than a haircut does. A certificate does even less.

    People who constantly demand the truth be told on numerous subjects seem incapable of observing the truth on simple biology and pretend otherwise.

    Why do women needs these rights? 58.9% of transwomen in prison have committed sexual offences (over half for rape and attempted rape). 16.8% of men in prison have committed a sexual offence. 3.3% of women in prison have committed a sexual offence.

    Oh and the BBC have today awarded a male as the women's footballer of the year. Vile organisation.
  • Another Tory talking about removing bishops from the Lords.

    It is happening.

    https://www.channel4.com/news/debate-over-bishops-in-lords-is-no-surprise-says-baroness-morgan
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 52,268

    Another Tory talking about removing bishops from the Lords.

    It is happening.

    https://www.channel4.com/news/debate-over-bishops-in-lords-is-no-surprise-says-baroness-morgan

    There is no institution the Tories won't destroy for the sake of ingratiating themselves with the left.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,198

    Donald Trump has been nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize by an MP from Zelenskyy's party.

    I do have to commend the Ukrainians for their determination to butter up the next US President however they can. There's no messing around. They know what they need to do.

    They are brilliant political operators. To be fair, if he can end the war with anything vaguely tolerable for Ukraine, the Russian army decimated, and a strong European defence on its doorstep; he will deserve that prize.

    Time will tell.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,880

    Another Tory talking about removing bishops from the Lords.

    It is happening.

    https://www.channel4.com/news/debate-over-bishops-in-lords-is-no-surprise-says-baroness-morgan

    Nicky Morgan. Hmmm.
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