A popular government policy – politicalbetting.com
A popular government policy – politicalbetting.com
67% of Britons think there should be a cap on how much individuals or companies can donate to parties, a policy the government is reportedly consideringYes, there should: 67%No, there should not: 11%https://t.co/D0swwdYl9P pic.twitter.com/tL7UgEbAdd
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I take it that cap would apply to unions too?
I see nuclear power plants due to close have been given another two or three years of life.
I am surprised.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/12/04/shutdown-of-ageing-nuclear-plants-delayed-as-net-zero-fears/
Unions may though ask Members to opt in or out of the Political Levy as has been done widely in the past and then argue its perfectly fair to divide the donation by the number "opting in".
That would also be perfectly fair if you assume most large donations are from individuals.
What does need stopping is donations from overseas or more specifically NON UK taxpayers. By all means if you pay Taxes here you can donate, if you don't you can't!
1) state funding of political parties would be needed to make up the difference
2) new parties would never get off the ground, so no Reform, no Ukip, no Brexit
Obviously, some drawbacks are more nuanced than others.
Give double votes to additional rate tax payers.
Of course, it would be anathema to many trade unionists, so I doubt it would happen. But it should. I reckon it would massively advantage Labour at first anyway.
The answers are not much use, except for polemic, unless the public is asked how political parties should be funded.
SFAICS the public is hostile to: public/taxpayer funding; large single donations; joining a party themselves in massive numbers and funding parties by individual small scale subscription.
So the answer really matters.
IIRC, they estimated some interesting levels of increased tax take.
But what you propose here is a good idea and perfectly reasonable.
Trades Union Members support a broad range of Parties as you say, they certainly don't reflect the narrow political outlook of the Union leadership whatever wing of the Labour movement they are on.
If they pay a polticial levy why shouldn't it go to the Party of their choice be it Reform, the Greens or whoever.
Bulwark email
However elections are not always decided by who spent most, otherwise Harris would have beaten Trump
He has played a blinder here.
Really wound up people over here about it and wound up the Labour govt too. Top trolling.
Personally I think it weird to believe in the idea of democracy based on one person one vote, and then let a handful of billionaires dominate politics. May as well just have a dictatorship then.
I wonder why?
Meanwhile it looks as if President Yoon is going to be impeached as early as today for his martial law efforts.
Interesting times and Trump hasn't even taken office yet.
The government will implement a limit. And exempt trade unions.
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It kicked off an internal debate about the issue of protecting the most vulnerable in a pandemic again.
One side of me, the vaguely human part with a tiny heart and soul was thinking that of course a society needs to protect the vulnerable, old, weak, poorest, northerners and then the other part was thinking - didn’t we try this last time and absolutely screw the country, the economy, childhoods, mental health and so on.
Should, come the next pandemic (sooner than we think I think) we decide to be harsh and protect the young, the future as the priority?
I don’ t have the answer because they are both valid moral positions - protect the vulnerable/protect the future - but I worry that the Covid Inquiry has been so busy settling scores, bashing political enemies, points scoring, when the priority should have been - what do we do next time and let’s work it out quickly.
I know there are older members of the PB community and it would be interesting to hear if you would say “we have had our innings, let’s not ruin it for the young again” or would you understandably think that you have the right, and everyone else the obligation, to protect the vulnerable first?
Having said that, our nuclear fleet is less suitable for life extension than that of (say) Germany, who should definitely be doing this.
In any event, we should probably wait for the first cases and see who is most vulnerable. The 1918 one disproportionately killed the youthful, I think ?
This has been on the cards for ages if they can sort the safety certificates. We are headed to blackouts otherwise.
Nice one Cleggy.
The best answer of course always has been the commitment and loyalty of a mass membership of ordinary people - the model which basically has kept religious institutions going for quite a long time and is now under great pressure.
However there are few social/sociological reasons for joining a political party and - not often noticed - few political reasons. All parties outside the eccentric are social democrat - regulated private enterprise and a massive state. The difference lies in competence, which is important but most of us leave that to others on dark evenings.
It is no surprise that the two parties attracting public interest in recent years have been social democrat + added USP attraction parties - the SNP and Reform.
And there's the little matter of Trump's daughter wanting to be shoehorned into a senate place apparently.
For example, it would be quite easy for Musk to give 100m to set up a new "Institute" to advocate for policy positions, even were the cap in place.
...Marina Kang, 37, says she had gone to bed early and missed the news completely.
"But this morning I woke up to so many messages from my friends and family, and all this news to catch up on. It was such a shock! I’m very relieved it wrapped up really quickly," she says in the main square of Seoul.
But one citizen expresses disappointment.
“Personally I wanted to see the martial law succeed,” says Lee Jae-whan, 45. He wants Yoon to "normalise the National Assembly and get rid of the opposition members who are cancerous to this society".
"Putting in place martial law was probably the last card that Yoon had, so I’m disappointed it didn’t happen."..
...Not everyone is angry about Yoon's actions - as this Seoul resident we spoke to earlier shows.
Some politicians are also supporting the president. Hwang Kyo-ahn, a former South Korean PM who is one of Yoon's high-profile supporters, says he shouldn't be impeached.
He also backs the reasoning Yoon gave for martial law, and calls for the arrest of the National Assembly speaker who urged lawmakers to gather and block Yoon's decision.
Busan city councilman Park Jong-cheol also says he "actively supports and sympathises" with the declaration of martial law, and the mayor of Daegu, Hong Joon-pyo, says on Facebook he disagrees with impeachment.
This in the context of an electorate where only about 20% support Yoon.
But my answer to your last question is a clear no. Firstly because, counter to what people claim, we did not 'ruin it for the young' last time. It is a false basis for the discussion. And secondly because you cannot treat the elderly either as a single uniform group or in isolation. Try telling most teenagers that Granny has to die because you want to 'protect the future' and they will most likely come round and firebomb your offices.
Moreover such a policy is based on the false assumptiuon that the next pandemic acts in the same way as the last with regard to age risk. So you follow a light touch policy on the basis that only (or mostly) the most vulnerable will suffer and it turns out it is a 1918 Spanish flu scenario where the most at risk were the young and apprently healthy. Whilst not perfect last time, the policies we enacted were not just to protect the old but to protect the young as well. We were just lucky - if that is the right term - that it was mostly the old and weak who were most susceptible.
I wouldn't call that playing a blinder.
Capricious mega-billionaires throwing their weight around in the political arena isn't new, but it's not irrelevant; it's a hard problem. And it deserves thinking about.
Imagine Stanley Johnson squirting out progeny and flying off to his holiday homes - forever.
So if you have a limited amount of a vaccine, you save many, many more QALYS, if you protect the vulnerable first.
Flu is different to covid in many ways. One big problem was that our pandemic plans were based on Flu, not covid. We might get that the other way round this time and prepare for the last war.
If Starmer wants to limit donations from corporates or the rich, he should do this as well.
Same goes for maximum donatinos. Set them at, say, £1000 per year per individual and £2000 per year per donor organisation. That of course includes Trade Unions as well as all private entities. Also a total blanket ban on all donations from non-UK nationals and from UK nationals who are living permanently outside the UK.
Donations to parties is not the only way to influence govt.
Just look at Esther Rantzen and the Assisted Dying bill.
So we can say if they stand in (say) 600 of the 650 constituencies, then they must be able to raise the election spending limit (currently £54,010 ?) times the number of constituencies, as at present. If there are by-elections, the spending cap increases by £54,010 if they stand a candidate.
But a political party is not just about MPs and elections; there are a whole host of other centralised jobs that need doing. But how much should be budgeted for that? Again, I'd argue that should be an amount that scales on how many constituencies a party stood in at the last GE. To help smaller parties, this should be a minimum of (say) 20. So they can still raise some funds.
So the parties can raise money up to that total value, but no more. Having a maximum limit would IMO limit the ability for corruption in the system.
(This is a broad outline only)
My concern is more that the uber rich get to dominate the discourse by sheer weight of money. The marketplace of ideas is no longer a real marketplace, if one voice has 20x the money of the rest.
That is a bigger risk than it has even been.
https://news.sky.com/story/syria-says-its-strikes-with-russia-have-killed-at-least-400-insurgents-over-past-24-hours-13265595
The fact Russia has withdrawn 1 ship from Tartus means little.
We of course cannot afford for the Assad regime to be replaced by the Al Qaeda linked rebels either
So, for example, a moderate centre right party grows over the next 4 years but finds that it is extremely limited in its funding possibilities compared to, for example, Reform or the Greens, because they stood in most constituencies at the previous election.
https://x.com/Maks_NAFO_FELLA/status/1864065378034266157
https://defence-blog.com/russian-warships-leave-syrias-key-naval-base/
You notice that your story is about Syrian claims. I might suggest to you that the claims might be somewhat bogus, or include innocent civilians as 'insurgents'.
South Western Railways will be renationalised in May 2025, C2C in July 2025, and Greater Anglia in autumn 2025, the transport department has confirmed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceqlnrgjr79o
We definitely don’t want to go down the American route, where two candidates can somehow rack up spending of $3-4bn in only a few months, as happened in 2016. This year the Presidential candidates were far more restrained, only spending around $2bn between them!
Yesterday I was in hospital for some tests, and two women pushing a trolley came round, sticking their heads in every doorway and offering the staff their Covid and Flu vaccinations. Most had already been done.
Hedged was a profit of £84.71 (assuming £10 stakes per bet), unhedged was a tenner less.
Not amazing, but good to be positive.
This year is set to be similar or better unhedged, and lower hedged. However, this year, until recently, has seen awful luck (that 29 on Piastri in the UK still irks me, and £20 was lost just between when I placed a bet on Verstappen and was ready to post the blog).
Edited extra bit: odd season, btw, because despite having way fewer bets I made more on qualifying than races.
'Sir Keir Starmer, as prime minister, was on the top table for the first time, along with the King, Queen and Prince of Wales - and the Qatari royal couple, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Sheikha Jawaher bint Hamad bin Suhaim Al Thani.
Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch was sitting next to David Beckham, who on his other side was seated next to Nasser Al-Khelaifi, president of Paris St-Germain football club.
David Beckham had been seen earlier holding hands with his wife Victoria as they arrived at the banquet.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c791wr2e7nyo
Also, we're now seeing lots of long COVID. So, people we thought not vulnerable are left with long-term symptoms.
With respect to the impact on mental health, it's not at all clear that lockdowns and other measures were the specific problem. That there is a pandemic is, in and of itself, damaging to people's mental health. Fewer public health restrictions, more disease and all your elderly relatives dying isn't necessarily going to be any better for mental health.
What you want to do in a pandemic is reduce cases, all cases. Most measures are trying to do that.
I will respond in kind: you are an apologist for the Assad regime, which has used chemical weapons on civilians in the past, and which is working closely with Russia and Iran.
Fair enough if you don't support the rebels. But that does not mean you should support Assad's regime either. In that case, don't support anyone, and give your prayers to the innocent civilians caught between these groups.
But supporting Assad? Shame on you.
https://news.sky.com/story/king-hosts-emir-of-qatar-at-state-banquet-with-beckhams-among-the-famous-faces-in-attendance-13266306
I decided to go to the last race once I realised it wasn’t going to be a foregone conclusion months ago in favour of Red Bull, only to discover that tens of thousands of people took the decision before me, and there were no tickets left except for some very expensive hospitality, so will be watching on TV alongside everyone else on Sunday afternoon!
Shame on you
Britain’s ‘get the f---ers’ attitude has hurt banking, warns former Barclays chief
Bob Diamond said British banks suffered ‘biblical justice’ at the hands of politicians after the financial crisis
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/12/03/britains-attitude-has-hurt-banking-former-barclays-chief/
Bad luck with Abu Dhabi. On the plus side, no risk of encountering James Corden (I forget which of Vettel's titles it was, but one of them won there had him interviewed with that bloated prick being a dick in the background).
If another crash occurs in the US though the European approach would be proved right
Assad is collaborating with both Russia and Iran. Russia in particular has air bases and a naval base in Syria that allow it to project its power: apparently the air bases are a key link to the mercenary interests they have in Africa and which are bringing them in massive amounts of dirty lucre.
As I said before: you don't have to pick a side. If you don't like any of them, don't pick any of them. Just pray for the civilians. That's pretty much my position - though as I say, I do have a lot of sympathy for the Kurds (PKK excepted).
Just to be clear this will MASSIVELY tilt the political battlefield in Labour’s favour. It’s far worse than ID requirements, redistricting or anything else that has been suggested over the years. I assume we will see a lot of posts from those who complained about ID condemning this proposal.
That does not mean its replacement would be any better.
Kalingrad maybe?
The Lord chastises those whom He loves.
H5N1 is a well known variant. There is occasional transmission intra species (the jump to dairy cows is notable as swine and humans are much more common).
Nothing to see here. We’re not going to lock down or anything like that
Its fall would be a disaster for us and the West as much as Russia, as Syria would be taken over by Al Qaeda linked militants and would provide a major base for jihadi terrorism to export to western cities