Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
Someone somewhere will have to explain to me one day why Labour thought it was good for their first thing to be 'lets screw over the pensioners'.
Somehow pensioners are going to have to be made to pay more tax because everyone else is basically tapped out. Given that almost all the growth in government expenditure is going on pensioners (pensions, NHS, social care) this doesn’t seem unreasonable, but implementing it is going to be a conundrum for any government.
It's pretty simple - merge NICs and income tax, reform council tax, entirely privatise social care with mandatory insurance, adjust QALYs to put more weight on children and working adults.
Given they have rubbish polling numbers anyway, Labour had a golden chance to fix all this at the budget. So did the Conservatives in the spring, in the face of inevitable defeat. Cowardice everywhere.
Some sensible points there but not merging NIC and income tax. NI should be ringfenced to be put towards state pensions and contributions based unemployment benefits as it was intended for and expanded to fund the social care insurance you want
On the BBC's 1983 election night show, which went on for more than 10 hours, the Falklands War was mentioned precisely once, by David Owen IIRC. If it had been an important factor in the result, you would have expected it to have been referenced a lot more.
Perhaps because its role was taken for granted ? I recall the 83 election fairly well - it was the first I voted in. It seems absurd to me to argue it wasn't significant.
Thatcher would likely have lost against a united Labour Party under a moderate, of course.
When I was at university, I was taught politics by former-SDP MP David Marquand. He was quite convincing in advancing his case that the Falklands had no impact whatsoever on the 1983 election, backing this up with opinion poll data showing a gradual upward trend in the Conservative share from 1981 onwards, with a sharp uptick at the Falklands War which quickly fell back to the trend line afterwards.
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
Oh boo frigging hoo.
The spoilt brats need to get over it.
Sky maintain it was the policy that caused the most anger, and you do have to ask why the SNP have reinstated it ,albeit at a lower rate, and Scottish Labour also called for its return, if they didn't consider it a political issue
Not for me. They are all too short. The thought that there is little to choose between the chance of Farage and Kemi being next PM says the market is expecting a high probability of a tsunami/black swan coming our way.
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
I think it's the third time in the last fifteen years this has happened. Somebody overconfident goes into power and decides to do "the hard things first" or "dip their hands in the blood". Clegg did it on tuition fees, Truss did it with everything, and now Reeves did it with WFP. It doesn't work: it just destroys trust at the time when you need it the most.
One of the most striking themes in Keir Starmer’s speech today — his frustration with Whitehall
For weeks I’ve been asking Labour people what they make of their time in government and one sentiment comes up again and again:
“Dominic Cummings was right”
LOL, some of us have been saying this for years.
Also, the US are about to put a bunch of outsiders into a serious project to cut the size and scope of the bureaucracy, which if it works will be transformative for that country and attract investment that would otherwise end up elsewhere. Such as the UK.
If Elon takes the same approach as at Twitter then it could easily be transformative, transforming the USA into a failed State.
Those are the figures in the latest Find Out Now poll and HYUFD has given the Electoral Calculus result.
My EMA (Exponential Moving Average) figures are the result of smoothing poll results with older polls getting lower and lower weights. The latest poll, in this case, the Find Out Now poll, gets a 10% weight. The next poll will get a 10% weight and the Find Out Now poll will drop to a 9% weight, then a 8.1% weight and so on.
On the BBC's 1983 election night show, which went on for more than 10 hours, the Falklands War was mentioned precisely once, by David Owen IIRC. If it had been an important factor in the result, you would have expected it to have been referenced a lot more.
Perhaps because its role was taken for granted ? I recall the 83 election fairly well - it was the first I voted in. It seems absurd to me to argue it wasn't significant.
Thatcher would likely have lost against a united Labour Party under a moderate, of course.
When I was at university, I was taught politics by former-SDP MP David Marquand. He was quite convincing in advancing his case that the Falklands had no impact whatsoever on the 1983 election, backing this up with opinion poll data showing a gradual upward trend in the Conservative share from 1981 onwards, with a sharp uptick at the Falklands War which quickly fell back to the trend line afterwards.
When I was at university, I was taught politics by a chap called Ralph Miliband. I believe his sons went on to make names for themselves.
(Explains a lot, you may think. For the record though, he was a pretty dull lecturer, with a tendency just to read us extracts from The State in Capitalist Society).
Those are the figures in the latest Find Out Now poll and HYUFD has given the Electoral Calculus result.
My EMA (Exponential Moving Average) figures are the result of smoothing poll results with older polls getting lower and lower weights. The latest poll, in this case, the Find Out Now poll, gets a 10% weight. The next poll will get a 10% weight and the Find Out Now poll will drop to a 9% weight, then a 8.1% weight and so on.
Ah, I get you now, sorry. Thought it was based on a single poll
Those are the figures in the latest Find Out Now poll and HYUFD has given the Electoral Calculus result.
My EMA (Exponential Moving Average) figures are the result of smoothing poll results with older polls getting lower and lower weights. The latest poll, in this case, the Find Out Now poll, gets a 10% weight. The next poll will get a 10% weight and the Find Out Now poll will drop to a 9% weight, then a 8.1% weight and so on.
Are you going to weight according to historical accuracy / reputation as well?
On the BBC's 1983 election night show, which went on for more than 10 hours, the Falklands War was mentioned precisely once, by David Owen IIRC. If it had been an important factor in the result, you would have expected it to have been referenced a lot more.
Perhaps because its role was taken for granted ? I recall the 83 election fairly well - it was the first I voted in. It seems absurd to me to argue it wasn't significant.
Thatcher would likely have lost against a united Labour Party under a moderate, of course.
As I recall it, the War itself was history then; it was the positive effect that it had on the Conservatives that was important. I wasn't as heavily involved in 1983 as I had been earlier; I'd been active in the Liberals, but our constituency was SDP led and the local SDP wanted to do things 'their way'.
Just returning to the discussion on elderly drivers fitness to drive and my wife's being on the Wales NHS waiting list for cataracts operation, we have just received a letter from the DVLA for her to attend a Group I, DVLA eye test for driving licence purposes at the local specsavers who will submit their report direct to the DVLA who will then decide on whether she can continue driving or not
This seems to confirm there is a system in place and the appointment is timescaled to 28 days from receipt of the letter
On the BBC's 1983 election night show, which went on for more than 10 hours, the Falklands War was mentioned precisely once, by David Owen IIRC. If it had been an important factor in the result, you would have expected it to have been referenced a lot more.
Perhaps because its role was taken for granted ? I recall the 83 election fairly well - it was the first I voted in. It seems absurd to me to argue it wasn't significant.
Thatcher would likely have lost against a united Labour Party under a moderate, of course.
When I was at university, I was taught politics by former-SDP MP David Marquand. He was quite convincing in advancing his case that the Falklands had no impact whatsoever on the 1983 election, backing this up with opinion poll data showing a gradual upward trend in the Conservative share from 1981 onwards, with a sharp uptick at the Falklands War which quickly fell back to the trend line afterwards.
I always thought Michael Foot's negative ratings had more influence on the 1983 election than the Falklands. Too many people could just not see Foot as PM. Like Corbyn.
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
Someone somewhere will have to explain to me one day why Labour thought it was good for their first thing to be 'lets screw over the pensioners'.
Somehow pensioners are going to have to be made to pay more tax because everyone else is basically tapped out. Given that almost all the growth in government expenditure is going on pensioners (pensions, NHS, social care) this doesn’t seem unreasonable, but implementing it is going to be a conundrum for any government.
Making it taxable would have been better. And I'm a taxpaying OAP.
And why, when I was working part-time, wasn't I paying NIC?
Apart from NI for the very few pensioners who continue/are able to work , who are all these pensioners who don't pay tax. What kind of morons are roaming our streets thinking pensioners don't get taxed. I see thousands every month disappearing can someone tell me where I go to get the NO TAX pensioner deal the idiots on here are constantly whining about.
On baby names, every spelling is counted separately:
Rank, name, count 1 Muhammad 4,661 28 Mohammed 1,601 68 Mohammad 835
The thing about this isn't so much the number of Muslims, it's more a case of, is this a proxy for an increasing conservatism among them?
Do you mean because the more conservative a Muslim is, the more likely he is to call his son Muhammad/Mohammed/Mohammad? If that's so, you'd have to show that the share of these names was increasing against the number of Muslims born as a whole. Which I'm not sure is the case - it's more that the number of Muslims as a share of the population is increasing. (It may also be that the most popular non-Mohammad names are less popular than was the case a generation ago.)
Or is one of these spellings more conservative than others? There must be a reason why one variant is more common than others. I'm sure a generation ago Mohammed was the most common variant.
I think it's a bit of both: the share of Muslims has risen in the population, and at the same time other names have fragmented. (It's also worth remembering that Mohammed became the second most popular name in 2007. So it's taken it 15 years to rise one place.)
Back in 1996, when we first published annual lists of baby names with full counts, the top boys’ name was Jack. There were 10,779 baby Jacks, a whopping 3.2% of all baby boys born that year. Now the number 1 name is given to only half that proportion of baby boys. About 1 in 4 (24%) baby boys were given a name in the top 10 in 1996, whereas now it’s only about 1 in 8 (12%). This increasing diversification in naming has taken place every single year since 1996, for both boys and girls. It was probably happening for many years before that too.
The Baby Name Data is available for download from the ONS website, and it's absolutely fascinating.
So, "Muhammad" is the number one boys Muslim name, with 3,722 babies born with it. And you might think that the peak incidence, given that it has become the most popular boys name.
But actually it's not. "Muhammad" was actually more popular back in 2016 when 3,908 babies got that name.
The alternative spelling - "Muhammed" - goes on a really weird rollercoaster of popularity: only 354 babies were named it, against over 500 in every year between 2008 and 2016.
There are also some interesting - and probably biracial names - that have picked up popularity, such as "Muhammad-Adam".
Adam is an important (the first) prophet in Islam, so it's a consistent way to integrate.
Adam was the first messenger, but not a prophet. Noah (2nd most popular UK boy's name) was the first prophet.
I do not understand what the difference between a messenger and a prophet is.
Those are the figures in the latest Find Out Now poll and HYUFD has given the Electoral Calculus result.
My EMA (Exponential Moving Average) figures are the result of smoothing poll results with older polls getting lower and lower weights. The latest poll, in this case, the Find Out Now poll, gets a 10% weight. The next poll will get a 10% weight and the Find Out Now poll will drop to a 9% weight, then a 8.1% weight and so on.
Are you going to weight according to historical accuracy / reputation as well?
No. Too much trouble. I know 538 does but my EMA is just a rough smoother. This far out, it doesn't really warrant anything more sophisticated. But I avoid using a single poll.
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
Someone somewhere will have to explain to me one day why Labour thought it was good for their first thing to be 'lets screw over the pensioners'.
Somehow pensioners are going to have to be made to pay more tax because everyone else is basically tapped out. Given that almost all the growth in government expenditure is going on pensioners (pensions, NHS, social care) this doesn’t seem unreasonable, but implementing it is going to be a conundrum for any government.
I agree (I am one) that pensioners should pay more tax, and this should be on the same basis as working people - either merge NI with IT or put NI onto pensioners as well (to help pay for our quiet afternoons in the doctor's waiting room.
But the other source is just as important. WRT IHT, we currently have a tax which doesn't work because it is mostly voluntary, and even if it did work it is haphazard and irregular. You only die once, and this fact is tax inefficient. A proper wealth/property/assets/land tax, more regular and at much much lower level than 40% is the answer
Means testing of many universal benefits is the way to go.
Phased abolishment of Child Benefit over the next 16 years would be a bold move. Phased reduction of existing child benefit... 100% first child, 75% second child, 50% third child, no child benefit beyond that.
Transfer savings on to pre school education and nursery care on a not for profit basis.
The gen z arrogance that producing large families as a state funded cash cow to pay for cosmetic surgery and flash cars has to be eradicated.
Long term a move towards the "lifetime income" solution... A set allowance for all from 16 to death, amalgamated all benefits and divide equally. Personal responsibility to manage your own lifestyle and future pensions etc. Would chut billions from administration costs.
On the BBC's 1983 election night show, which went on for more than 10 hours, the Falklands War was mentioned precisely once, by David Owen IIRC. If it had been an important factor in the result, you would have expected it to have been referenced a lot more.
Perhaps because its role was taken for granted ? I recall the 83 election fairly well - it was the first I voted in. It seems absurd to me to argue it wasn't significant.
Thatcher would likely have lost against a united Labour Party under a moderate, of course.
When I was at university, I was taught politics by former-SDP MP David Marquand. He was quite convincing in advancing his case that the Falklands had no impact whatsoever on the 1983 election, backing this up with opinion poll data showing a gradual upward trend in the Conservative share from 1981 onwards, with a sharp uptick at the Falklands War which quickly fell back to the trend line afterwards.
What he didn't show was a graph without the Falklands. I'm not convinced by that argument.
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
Someone somewhere will have to explain to me one day why Labour thought it was good for their first thing to be 'lets screw over the pensioners'.
Somehow pensioners are going to have to be made to pay more tax because everyone else is basically tapped out. Given that almost all the growth in government expenditure is going on pensioners (pensions, NHS, social care) this doesn’t seem unreasonable, but implementing it is going to be a conundrum for any government.
Making it taxable would have been better. And I'm a taxpaying OAP.
And why, when I was working part-time, wasn't I paying NIC?
Apart from NI for the very few pensioners who continue/are able to work , who are all these pensioners who don't pay tax. What kind of morons are roaming our streets thinking pensioners don't get taxed. I see thousands every month disappearing can someone tell me where I go to get the NO TAX pensioner deal the idiots on here are constantly whining about.
The Winter Fuel Payment. But that's gone except in Scotland - IF the DWP give the SG the information to pay it. I Must say I have no idea one way or another if London will make it taxable. Not, IIRC, the first time London have tried to claw back money in that way.
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
Someone somewhere will have to explain to me one day why Labour thought it was good for their first thing to be 'lets screw over the pensioners'.
Somehow pensioners are going to have to be made to pay more tax because everyone else is basically tapped out. Given that almost all the growth in government expenditure is going on pensioners (pensions, NHS, social care) this doesn’t seem unreasonable, but implementing it is going to be a conundrum for any government.
You absolutely moronic halfwitted clown , apart from NI after pension age if working , pensioners pay the same as everyon else.
Back on the boys name thingy. I once know a PhD student called Haggis Harris. I've just checked on the list and in 2023 there were 46 more Haggis's brought into the world.
On the BBC's 1983 election night show, which went on for more than 10 hours, the Falklands War was mentioned precisely once, by David Owen IIRC. If it had been an important factor in the result, you would have expected it to have been referenced a lot more.
Perhaps because its role was taken for granted ? I recall the 83 election fairly well - it was the first I voted in. It seems absurd to me to argue it wasn't significant.
Thatcher would likely have lost against a united Labour Party under a moderate, of course.
When I was at university, I was taught politics by former-SDP MP David Marquand. He was quite convincing in advancing his case that the Falklands had no impact whatsoever on the 1983 election, backing this up with opinion poll data showing a gradual upward trend in the Conservative share from 1981 onwards, with a sharp uptick at the Falklands War which quickly fell back to the trend line afterwards.
I always thought Michael Foot's negative ratings had more influence on the 1983 election than the Falklands. Too many people could just not see Foot as PM. Like Corbyn.
There was a reason that the Labour manifesto was called "The Longest Political Suicide Note In History"
On the BBC's 1983 election night show, which went on for more than 10 hours, the Falklands War was mentioned precisely once, by David Owen IIRC. If it had been an important factor in the result, you would have expected it to have been referenced a lot more.
That does seem odd. But how do you know this as a matter of interest? Is it something you've watched recently?
The BBC Parliament Channel sometimes shows election night coverage for various elections. Inevitably it's pirated and placed on YouTube. Andy is aware of many of them. As am I, oddly enough, having fast-forwarded through the whole of (I think) the 1964 election coverage to get a glimpse of Ron Pollard, a noted bookmaker of the time. Gioven @Andy_JS's somewhat encyclopaedic knowledge, it might well be something he watched recently
If you have time, go thru the coverage of years past: it's an education as to how times were different then.
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
Someone somewhere will have to explain to me one day why Labour thought it was good for their first thing to be 'lets screw over the pensioners'.
Somehow pensioners are going to have to be made to pay more tax because everyone else is basically tapped out. Given that almost all the growth in government expenditure is going on pensioners (pensions, NHS, social care) this doesn’t seem unreasonable, but implementing it is going to be a conundrum for any government.
You absolutely moronic halfwitted clown , apart from NI after pension age if working , pensioners pay the same as everyon else.
Strictly speaking, not quite - but one has to be 80+ which doesn't really seem much of an exchange for the very small difference in overall taxation.
Keep calm and understand that polls 4 and a half years out from the GE are not that important.
Yes, only 4.5 years of this shitshow left.
No extra housing being built
Why are you saying that on housing? They've put it up in lights as a priority, I believe?
Well where are all the extra houses ? So far housing starts are down on last year and last quarter. They havent passed any enabling legislation to accelerate house building, or new towns. And if they do it will take about a year to get done and then you have to go though the planning process. So no extra houses for at least two years. We had a similar issue in 2009 when the Tories wittered on about spade ready projects and then did nothing. It's all hot air
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
I think it's the third time in the last fifteen years this has happened. Somebody overconfident goes into power and decides to do "the hard things first" or "dip their hands in the blood". Clegg did it on tuition fees, Truss did it with everything, and now Reeves did it with WFP. It doesn't work: it just destroys trust at the time when you need it the most.
It can work - but WFA is basically an economic sideshow. If you're going to get the unpopular stuff done, it has to be something with a big potential return in exchange.
WFA was a hugely unpopular decision with a small payback.
On baby names, every spelling is counted separately:
Rank, name, count 1 Muhammad 4,661 28 Mohammed 1,601 68 Mohammad 835
The thing about this isn't so much the number of Muslims, it's more a case of, is this a proxy for an increasing conservatism among them?
Do you mean because the more conservative a Muslim is, the more likely he is to call his son Muhammad/Mohammed/Mohammad? If that's so, you'd have to show that the share of these names was increasing against the number of Muslims born as a whole. Which I'm not sure is the case - it's more that the number of Muslims as a share of the population is increasing. (It may also be that the most popular non-Mohammad names are less popular than was the case a generation ago.)
Or is one of these spellings more conservative than others? There must be a reason why one variant is more common than others. I'm sure a generation ago Mohammed was the most common variant.
I think it's a bit of both: the share of Muslims has risen in the population, and at the same time other names have fragmented. (It's also worth remembering that Mohammed became the second most popular name in 2007. So it's taken it 15 years to rise one place.)
Back in 1996, when we first published annual lists of baby names with full counts, the top boys’ name was Jack. There were 10,779 baby Jacks, a whopping 3.2% of all baby boys born that year. Now the number 1 name is given to only half that proportion of baby boys. About 1 in 4 (24%) baby boys were given a name in the top 10 in 1996, whereas now it’s only about 1 in 8 (12%). This increasing diversification in naming has taken place every single year since 1996, for both boys and girls. It was probably happening for many years before that too.
The Baby Name Data is available for download from the ONS website, and it's absolutely fascinating.
So, "Muhammad" is the number one boys Muslim name, with 3,722 babies born with it. And you might think that the peak incidence, given that it has become the most popular boys name.
But actually it's not. "Muhammad" was actually more popular back in 2016 when 3,908 babies got that name.
The alternative spelling - "Muhammed" - goes on a really weird rollercoaster of popularity: only 354 babies were named it, against over 500 in every year between 2008 and 2016.
There are also some interesting - and probably biracial names - that have picked up popularity, such as "Muhammad-Adam".
As someone who does quite a lot of Family History I've only ever found half-a dozen other people with my first name.
"Old" is perhaps not the most appropriate name for a new born baby 😄
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
Someone somewhere will have to explain to me one day why Labour thought it was good for their first thing to be 'lets screw over the pensioners'.
Somehow pensioners are going to have to be made to pay more tax because everyone else is basically tapped out. Given that almost all the growth in government expenditure is going on pensioners (pensions, NHS, social care) this doesn’t seem unreasonable, but implementing it is going to be a conundrum for any government.
Making it taxable would have been better. And I'm a taxpaying OAP.
And why, when I was working part-time, wasn't I paying NIC?
Apart from NI for the very few pensioners who continue/are able to work , who are all these pensioners who don't pay tax. What kind of morons are roaming our streets thinking pensioners don't get taxed. I see thousands every month disappearing can someone tell me where I go to get the NO TAX pensioner deal the idiots on here are constantly whining about.
The Winter Fuel Payment. But that's gone except in Scotland - IF the DWP give the SG the information to pay it. I Must say I have no idea one way or another if London will make it taxable. Not, IIRC, the first time London have tried to claw back money in that way.
winter fuel is gone as well , they are pretending for a year to give some extra people £100 but SG have said they will need to drop it as well. Talking about som elater scheme that will help a few extra ones etc but pie in the sky. They are also going to give child benefit to all children , have a huge black hole in their budget due to their incompetence , etc etc and trying to cling on and hope they have some voters left by 2026.
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
Someone somewhere will have to explain to me one day why Labour thought it was good for their first thing to be 'lets screw over the pensioners'.
Somehow pensioners are going to have to be made to pay more tax because everyone else is basically tapped out. Given that almost all the growth in government expenditure is going on pensioners (pensions, NHS, social care) this doesn’t seem unreasonable, but implementing it is going to be a conundrum for any government.
You absolutely moronic halfwitted clown , apart from NI after pension age if working , pensioners pay the same as everyon else.
Strictly speaking, not quite - but one has to be 80+ which doesn't really seem much of an exchange for the very small difference in overall taxation.
My wife and I are both over 80 and pay income tax, although my wife pays less than I do, and some years drops out altogether. Makes Gift Aid problematic.
Keep calm and understand that polls 4 and a half years out from the GE are not that important.
Yes, only 4.5 years of this shitshow left.
No extra housing being built
Why are you saying that on housing? They've put it up in lights as a priority, I believe?
Well where are all the extra houses ? So far housing starts are down on last year and last quarter. They havent passed any enabling legislation to accelerate house building, or new towns. And if they do it will take about a year to get done and then you have to go though the planning process. So no extra houses for at least two years. We had a similar issue in 2009 when the Tories wittered on about spade ready projects and then did nothing. It's all hot air
And is why you are hearing comments about Civil Service obstructionism.
The Civil Service, when confronted by the idea of speeding up the 5-10 year planning time, will react to defend the Proper Process.
On baby names, every spelling is counted separately:
Rank, name, count 1 Muhammad 4,661 28 Mohammed 1,601 68 Mohammad 835
The thing about this isn't so much the number of Muslims, it's more a case of, is this a proxy for an increasing conservatism among them?
Do you mean because the more conservative a Muslim is, the more likely he is to call his son Muhammad/Mohammed/Mohammad? If that's so, you'd have to show that the share of these names was increasing against the number of Muslims born as a whole. Which I'm not sure is the case - it's more that the number of Muslims as a share of the population is increasing. (It may also be that the most popular non-Mohammad names are less popular than was the case a generation ago.)
Or is one of these spellings more conservative than others? There must be a reason why one variant is more common than others. I'm sure a generation ago Mohammed was the most common variant.
I think it's a bit of both: the share of Muslims has risen in the population, and at the same time other names have fragmented. (It's also worth remembering that Mohammed became the second most popular name in 2007. So it's taken it 15 years to rise one place.)
Back in 1996, when we first published annual lists of baby names with full counts, the top boys’ name was Jack. There were 10,779 baby Jacks, a whopping 3.2% of all baby boys born that year. Now the number 1 name is given to only half that proportion of baby boys. About 1 in 4 (24%) baby boys were given a name in the top 10 in 1996, whereas now it’s only about 1 in 8 (12%). This increasing diversification in naming has taken place every single year since 1996, for both boys and girls. It was probably happening for many years before that too.
The Baby Name Data is available for download from the ONS website, and it's absolutely fascinating.
So, "Muhammad" is the number one boys Muslim name, with 3,722 babies born with it. And you might think that the peak incidence, given that it has become the most popular boys name.
But actually it's not. "Muhammad" was actually more popular back in 2016 when 3,908 babies got that name.
The alternative spelling - "Muhammed" - goes on a really weird rollercoaster of popularity: only 354 babies were named it, against over 500 in every year between 2008 and 2016.
There are also some interesting - and probably biracial names - that have picked up popularity, such as "Muhammad-Adam".
As someone who does quite a lot of Family History I've only ever found half-a dozen other people with my first name.
"Old" is perhaps not the most appropriate name for a new born baby 😄
One of the most striking themes in Keir Starmer’s speech today — his frustration with Whitehall
For weeks I’ve been asking Labour people what they make of their time in government and one sentiment comes up again and again:
“Dominic Cummings was right”
LOL, some of us have been saying this for years.
Also, the US are about to put a bunch of outsiders into a serious project to cut the size and scope of the bureaucracy, which if it works will be transformative for that country and attract investment that would otherwise end up elsewhere. Such as the UK.
If Elon takes the same approach as at Twitter then it could easily be transformative, transforming the USA into a failed State.
It may well put a lot of investment our way.
If the US fails, everyone fails.
When the Smoot-Hawley tariffs came into effect, other countries responded and world trade collapsed... everyone suffered.
Back on the boys name thingy. I once know a PhD student called Haggis Harris. I've just checked on the list and in 2023 there were 46 more Haggis's brought into the world.
On the BBC's 1983 election night show, which went on for more than 10 hours, the Falklands War was mentioned precisely once, by David Owen IIRC. If it had been an important factor in the result, you would have expected it to have been referenced a lot more.
That does seem odd. But how do you know this as a matter of interest? Is it something you've watched recently?
The BBC Parliament Channel sometimes shows election night coverage for various elections. Inevitably it's pirated and placed on YouTube. Andy is aware of many of them. As am I, oddly enough, having fast-forwarded through the whole of (I think) the 1964 election coverage to get a glimpse of Ron Pollard, a noted bookmaker of the time. Gioven @Andy_JS's somewhat encyclopaedic knowledge, it might well be something he watched recently
If you have time, go thru the coverage of years past: it's an education as to how times were different then.
Hopefully we’ll get 2005 next year as I don’t think it’s been repeated since.
Keep calm and understand that polls 4 and a half years out from the GE are not that important.
Yes, only 4.5 years of this shitshow left.
No extra housing being built
Why are you saying that on housing? They've put it up in lights as a priority, I believe?
Well where are all the extra houses ? So far housing starts are down on last year and last quarter. They havent passed any enabling legislation to accelerate house building, or new towns. And if they do it will take about a year to get done and then you have to go though the planning process. So no extra houses for at least two years. We had a similar issue in 2009 when the Tories wittered on about spade ready projects and then did nothing. It's all hot air
That at least kills the argument that the construction capacity isn't going to be there...
Just bang through Planning and Infrastructure Bill, do the compulsory purchases and fast track the planning. A really determined government that wasn't process obsessed could do all of that in six months.
On baby names, every spelling is counted separately:
Rank, name, count 1 Muhammad 4,661 28 Mohammed 1,601 68 Mohammad 835
The thing about this isn't so much the number of Muslims, it's more a case of, is this a proxy for an increasing conservatism among them?
Do you mean because the more conservative a Muslim is, the more likely he is to call his son Muhammad/Mohammed/Mohammad? If that's so, you'd have to show that the share of these names was increasing against the number of Muslims born as a whole. Which I'm not sure is the case - it's more that the number of Muslims as a share of the population is increasing. (It may also be that the most popular non-Mohammad names are less popular than was the case a generation ago.)
Or is one of these spellings more conservative than others? There must be a reason why one variant is more common than others. I'm sure a generation ago Mohammed was the most common variant.
I think it's a bit of both: the share of Muslims has risen in the population, and at the same time other names have fragmented. (It's also worth remembering that Mohammed became the second most popular name in 2007. So it's taken it 15 years to rise one place.)
Back in 1996, when we first published annual lists of baby names with full counts, the top boys’ name was Jack. There were 10,779 baby Jacks, a whopping 3.2% of all baby boys born that year. Now the number 1 name is given to only half that proportion of baby boys. About 1 in 4 (24%) baby boys were given a name in the top 10 in 1996, whereas now it’s only about 1 in 8 (12%). This increasing diversification in naming has taken place every single year since 1996, for both boys and girls. It was probably happening for many years before that too.
The Baby Name Data is available for download from the ONS website, and it's absolutely fascinating.
So, "Muhammad" is the number one boys Muslim name, with 3,722 babies born with it. And you might think that the peak incidence, given that it has become the most popular boys name.
But actually it's not. "Muhammad" was actually more popular back in 2016 when 3,908 babies got that name.
The alternative spelling - "Muhammed" - goes on a really weird rollercoaster of popularity: only 354 babies were named it, against over 500 in every year between 2008 and 2016.
There are also some interesting - and probably biracial names - that have picked up popularity, such as "Muhammad-Adam".
As someone who does quite a lot of Family History I've only ever found half-a dozen other people with my first name.
"Old" is perhaps not the most appropriate name for a new born baby 😄
From the Shakespeare's Old Gaunt perhaps? Also features as part of one of my favourite lines in the play:
"Come gentlemen, let's go visit him, Pray God we may make haste and come too late."
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
Someone somewhere will have to explain to me one day why Labour thought it was good for their first thing to be 'lets screw over the pensioners'.
Somehow pensioners are going to have to be made to pay more tax because everyone else is basically tapped out. Given that almost all the growth in government expenditure is going on pensioners (pensions, NHS, social care) this doesn’t seem unreasonable, but implementing it is going to be a conundrum for any government.
You absolutely moronic halfwitted clown , apart from NI after pension age if working , pensioners pay the same as everyon else.
Strictly speaking, not quite - but one has to be 80+ which doesn't really seem much of an exchange for the very small difference in overall taxation.
My wife and I are both over 80 and pay income tax, although my wife pays less than I do, and some years drops out altogether. Makes Gift Aid problematic.
Oh, I meant a slightly lower rate of taxation - not that you didn't have to pay anything. Apologies for lack of clarity.
Back on the boys name thingy. I once know a PhD student called Haggis Harris. I've just checked on the list and in 2023 there were 46 more Haggis's brought into the world.
Astonishing.
Knew Haggis was a surname, but not a first name!
Clearly there will be trends and names come and go but assuming an average life span of 70 years there's likely over 3000 of the buggers somewhere.
Keep calm and understand that polls 4 and a half years out from the GE are not that important.
Yes, only 4.5 years of this shitshow left.
No extra housing being built
Why are you saying that on housing? They've put it up in lights as a priority, I believe?
Well where are all the extra houses ? So far housing starts are down on last year and last quarter. They havent passed any enabling legislation to accelerate house building, or new towns. And if they do it will take about a year to get done and then you have to go though the planning process. So no extra houses for at least two years. We had a similar issue in 2009 when the Tories wittered on about spade ready projects and then did nothing. It's all hot air
And is why you are hearing comments about Civil Service obstructionism.
The Civil Service, when confronted by the idea of speeding up the 5-10 year planning time, will react to defend the Proper Process.
Just say no to them.
Now that would be a policy worth expending political capital on.
On baby names, every spelling is counted separately:
Rank, name, count 1 Muhammad 4,661 28 Mohammed 1,601 68 Mohammad 835
The thing about this isn't so much the number of Muslims, it's more a case of, is this a proxy for an increasing conservatism among them?
Do you mean because the more conservative a Muslim is, the more likely he is to call his son Muhammad/Mohammed/Mohammad? If that's so, you'd have to show that the share of these names was increasing against the number of Muslims born as a whole. Which I'm not sure is the case - it's more that the number of Muslims as a share of the population is increasing. (It may also be that the most popular non-Mohammad names are less popular than was the case a generation ago.)
Or is one of these spellings more conservative than others? There must be a reason why one variant is more common than others. I'm sure a generation ago Mohammed was the most common variant.
I think it's a bit of both: the share of Muslims has risen in the population, and at the same time other names have fragmented. (It's also worth remembering that Mohammed became the second most popular name in 2007. So it's taken it 15 years to rise one place.)
Back in 1996, when we first published annual lists of baby names with full counts, the top boys’ name was Jack. There were 10,779 baby Jacks, a whopping 3.2% of all baby boys born that year. Now the number 1 name is given to only half that proportion of baby boys. About 1 in 4 (24%) baby boys were given a name in the top 10 in 1996, whereas now it’s only about 1 in 8 (12%). This increasing diversification in naming has taken place every single year since 1996, for both boys and girls. It was probably happening for many years before that too.
The Baby Name Data is available for download from the ONS website, and it's absolutely fascinating.
So, "Muhammad" is the number one boys Muslim name, with 3,722 babies born with it. And you might think that the peak incidence, given that it has become the most popular boys name.
But actually it's not. "Muhammad" was actually more popular back in 2016 when 3,908 babies got that name.
The alternative spelling - "Muhammed" - goes on a really weird rollercoaster of popularity: only 354 babies were named it, against over 500 in every year between 2008 and 2016.
There are also some interesting - and probably biracial names - that have picked up popularity, such as "Muhammad-Adam".
Adam is an important (the first) prophet in Islam, so it's a consistent way to integrate.
Adam was the first messenger, but not a prophet. Noah (2nd most popular UK boy's name) was the first prophet.
I do not understand what the difference between a messenger and a prophet is.
Keep calm and understand that polls 4 and a half years out from the GE are not that important.
Yes, only 4.5 years of this shitshow left.
No extra housing being built
Why are you saying that on housing? They've put it up in lights as a priority, I believe?
They put up growth in lights as a priority too. And yet.
Well we'll see how growth turns out. It will largely depend on things outside the government's control. Although I suppose one saves that observation for if it disappoints. If it surprises on the upside then it will be down to the government.
House building, they have some direct levers and it'd be stupid to set high viz targets if they were not planning to pull any of them. I expect them to do much better than the Cons did on housing.
On baby names, every spelling is counted separately:
Rank, name, count 1 Muhammad 4,661 28 Mohammed 1,601 68 Mohammad 835
The thing about this isn't so much the number of Muslims, it's more a case of, is this a proxy for an increasing conservatism among them?
Do you mean because the more conservative a Muslim is, the more likely he is to call his son Muhammad/Mohammed/Mohammad? If that's so, you'd have to show that the share of these names was increasing against the number of Muslims born as a whole. Which I'm not sure is the case - it's more that the number of Muslims as a share of the population is increasing. (It may also be that the most popular non-Mohammad names are less popular than was the case a generation ago.)
Or is one of these spellings more conservative than others? There must be a reason why one variant is more common than others. I'm sure a generation ago Mohammed was the most common variant.
I think it's a bit of both: the share of Muslims has risen in the population, and at the same time other names have fragmented. (It's also worth remembering that Mohammed became the second most popular name in 2007. So it's taken it 15 years to rise one place.)
Back in 1996, when we first published annual lists of baby names with full counts, the top boys’ name was Jack. There were 10,779 baby Jacks, a whopping 3.2% of all baby boys born that year. Now the number 1 name is given to only half that proportion of baby boys. About 1 in 4 (24%) baby boys were given a name in the top 10 in 1996, whereas now it’s only about 1 in 8 (12%). This increasing diversification in naming has taken place every single year since 1996, for both boys and girls. It was probably happening for many years before that too.
The Baby Name Data is available for download from the ONS website, and it's absolutely fascinating.
So, "Muhammad" is the number one boys Muslim name, with 3,722 babies born with it. And you might think that the peak incidence, given that it has become the most popular boys name.
But actually it's not. "Muhammad" was actually more popular back in 2016 when 3,908 babies got that name.
The alternative spelling - "Muhammed" - goes on a really weird rollercoaster of popularity: only 354 babies were named it, against over 500 in every year between 2008 and 2016.
There are also some interesting - and probably biracial names - that have picked up popularity, such as "Muhammad-Adam".
Adam is an important (the first) prophet in Islam, so it's a consistent way to integrate.
Adam was the first messenger, but not a prophet. Noah (2nd most popular UK boy's name) was the first prophet.
I do not understand what the difference between a messenger and a prophet is.
One of the most striking themes in Keir Starmer’s speech today — his frustration with Whitehall
For weeks I’ve been asking Labour people what they make of their time in government and one sentiment comes up again and again:
“Dominic Cummings was right”
LOL, some of us have been saying this for years.
Also, the US are about to put a bunch of outsiders into a serious project to cut the size and scope of the bureaucracy, which if it works will be transformative for that country and attract investment that would otherwise end up elsewhere. Such as the UK.
If Elon takes the same approach as at Twitter then it could easily be transformative, transforming the USA into a failed State.
It may well put a lot of investment our way.
If the US fails, everyone fails.
When the Smoot-Hawley tariffs came into effect, other countries responded and world trade collapsed... everyone suffered.
Relative outperformance was still shit.
So maybe Farage is playing a shrewd game of 12 dimensional chess. Farage supports Trump who crashes the World economy. Incumbent leaders fall like nine pins and radicals like Farage benefit from the fallout.
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
Someone somewhere will have to explain to me one day why Labour thought it was good for their first thing to be 'lets screw over the pensioners'.
Somehow pensioners are going to have to be made to pay more tax because everyone else is basically tapped out. Given that almost all the growth in government expenditure is going on pensioners (pensions, NHS, social care) this doesn’t seem unreasonable, but implementing it is going to be a conundrum for any government.
You absolutely moronic halfwitted clown , apart from NI after pension age if working , pensioners pay the same as everyon else.
Strictly speaking, not quite - but one has to be 80+ which doesn't really seem much of an exchange for the very small difference in overall taxation.
My wife and I are both over 80 and pay income tax, although my wife pays less than I do, and some years drops out altogether. Makes Gift Aid problematic.
I cannot understand the halfwits on here that keep saying pensioners don't pay the same tax as everyone else, if only.
Keep calm and understand that polls 4 and a half years out from the GE are not that important.
Yes, only 4.5 years of this shitshow left.
No extra housing being built
Why are you saying that on housing? They've put it up in lights as a priority, I believe?
Well where are all the extra houses ? So far housing starts are down on last year and last quarter. They havent passed any enabling legislation to accelerate house building, or new towns. And if they do it will take about a year to get done and then you have to go though the planning process. So no extra houses for at least two years. We had a similar issue in 2009 when the Tories wittered on about spade ready projects and then did nothing. It's all hot air
That at least kills the argument that the construction capacity isn't going to be there...
Just bang through Planning and Infrastructure Bill, do the compulsory purchases and fast track the planning. A really determined government that wasn't process obsessed could do all of that in six months.
As it is, you're probably right.
The main problem is the 1.5 million target is simply trying to accommodate the status quo. We build normally just over 200k houses a year. So say 1.2 million over 5 years. The uplift is therefore only 300k over 5 years when we need about 2 million houses. Its the sheer lack of ambition is the killer and it's not just a Labour problem the Tories are just a clueless. We have a housing crisis and the political parties just want to paper over it.
However Labour is in the hot seat and are making the claims they will build. But on current trends they wont.
Did I ever tell you Rachel Reeves is totally shit ?
On the BBC's 1983 election night show, which went on for more than 10 hours, the Falklands War was mentioned precisely once, by David Owen IIRC. If it had been an important factor in the result, you would have expected it to have been referenced a lot more.
That does seem odd. But how do you know this as a matter of interest? Is it something you've watched recently?
The BBC Parliament Channel sometimes shows election night coverage for various elections. Inevitably it's pirated and placed on YouTube. Andy is aware of many of them. As am I, oddly enough, having fast-forwarded through the whole of (I think) the 1964 election coverage to get a glimpse of Ron Pollard, a noted bookmaker of the time. Gioven @Andy_JS's somewhat encyclopaedic knowledge, it might well be something he watched recently
If you have time, go thru the coverage of years past: it's an education as to how times were different then.
Hopefully we’ll get 2005 next year as I don’t think it’s been repeated since.
One of the most striking themes in Keir Starmer’s speech today — his frustration with Whitehall
For weeks I’ve been asking Labour people what they make of their time in government and one sentiment comes up again and again:
“Dominic Cummings was right”
LOL, some of us have been saying this for years.
Also, the US are about to put a bunch of outsiders into a serious project to cut the size and scope of the bureaucracy, which if it works will be transformative for that country and attract investment that would otherwise end up elsewhere. Such as the UK.
If Elon takes the same approach as at Twitter then it could easily be transformative, transforming the USA into a failed State.
It may well put a lot of investment our way.
If the US fails, everyone fails.
When the Smoot-Hawley tariffs came into effect, other countries responded and world trade collapsed... everyone suffered.
Relative outperformance was still shit.
America was a surplus nation then. You can’t compare it with the current situation.
One of the most striking themes in Keir Starmer’s speech today — his frustration with Whitehall
For weeks I’ve been asking Labour people what they make of their time in government and one sentiment comes up again and again:
“Dominic Cummings was right”
LOL, some of us have been saying this for years.
Also, the US are about to put a bunch of outsiders into a serious project to cut the size and scope of the bureaucracy, which if it works will be transformative for that country and attract investment that would otherwise end up elsewhere. Such as the UK.
If Elon takes the same approach as at Twitter then it could easily be transformative, transforming the USA into a failed State.
It may well put a lot of investment our way.
Although his Twitter move is being retro-fitted by his fans as a genius play to buy political power.
Keep calm and understand that polls 4 and a half years out from the GE are not that important.
Yes, only 4.5 years of this shitshow left.
No extra housing being built
Why are you saying that on housing? They've put it up in lights as a priority, I believe?
Well where are all the extra houses ? So far housing starts are down on last year and last quarter. They havent passed any enabling legislation to accelerate house building, or new towns. And if they do it will take about a year to get done and then you have to go though the planning process. So no extra houses for at least two years. We had a similar issue in 2009 when the Tories wittered on about spade ready projects and then did nothing. It's all hot air
And is why you are hearing comments about Civil Service obstructionism.
The Civil Service, when confronted by the idea of speeding up the 5-10 year planning time, will react to defend the Proper Process.
Just say no to them.
Now that would be a policy worth expending political capital on.
Read Rory Stewart's book.
Short version - he discovered that money was being given to an "aid charity" that had never been vetted and was, in fact, a head-choppers front. So he tried to stop the money. He was obstructed and lied to multiple times. even when ordered the money to stop, it didn't Because there was a target to spend the money on international aid.
One of the most striking themes in Keir Starmer’s speech today — his frustration with Whitehall
For weeks I’ve been asking Labour people what they make of their time in government and one sentiment comes up again and again:
“Dominic Cummings was right”
LOL, some of us have been saying this for years.
Also, the US are about to put a bunch of outsiders into a serious project to cut the size and scope of the bureaucracy, which if it works will be transformative for that country and attract investment that would otherwise end up elsewhere. Such as the UK.
If Elon takes the same approach as at Twitter then it could easily be transformative, transforming the USA into a failed State.
It may well put a lot of investment our way.
If the US fails, everyone fails.
When the Smoot-Hawley tariffs came into effect, other countries responded and world trade collapsed... everyone suffered.
Relative outperformance was still shit.
So maybe Farage is playing a shrewd game of 12 dimensional chess. Farage supports Trump who crashes the World economy. Incumbent leaders fall like nine pins and radicals like Farage benefit from the fallout.
I think one-dimensional draughts would be more Farage's style.
Starmer’s polling performance reinforces my sense that only major charisma cuts it in today’s social media led political environment.
Who do people remember quasi-fondly in recent history? Blair, Thatcher, Boris (a bit), Cameron (sometimes). The charismatics.
That matters.
But I think also they also need a clear populist objective, simply and clearly put. Blair had that. Boris had that. Brown did not; Cameron did not; May did not.
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
I think it's the third time in the last fifteen years this has happened. Somebody overconfident goes into power and decides to do "the hard things first" or "dip their hands in the blood". Clegg did it on tuition fees, Truss did it with everything, and now Reeves did it with WFP. It doesn't work: it just destroys trust at the time when you need it the most.
It can work - but WFA is basically an economic sideshow. If you're going to get the unpopular stuff done, it has to be something with a big potential return in exchange.
WFA was a hugely unpopular decision with a small payback.
What if the WFA cut worked, but normal voters weren't the audience for it?
Consider why Truss/Kwarteng - massively increasing borrowing to fund tax cuts - lost the confidence of the markets, but Starmer/Reeves - considerably increasing borrowing to fund public spending - did not.
Cutting WFA was a signal that Starmer/Reeves are prepared to do unpopular things if necessary, and can face down sustained public opposition to do so. The markets believe they'll get their money back as a result, and Starmer/Reeves can borrow the money to spend on the NHS.
With the huge spending on energy support just prior to the mini-budget, Truss/Kwarteng weren't exactly sending the same sort of message to the markets.
On the BBC's 1983 election night show, which went on for more than 10 hours, the Falklands War was mentioned precisely once, by David Owen IIRC. If it had been an important factor in the result, you would have expected it to have been referenced a lot more.
That does seem odd. But how do you know this as a matter of interest? Is it something you've watched recently?
The BBC Parliament Channel sometimes shows election night coverage for various elections. Inevitably it's pirated and placed on YouTube. Andy is aware of many of them. As am I, oddly enough, having fast-forwarded through the whole of (I think) the 1964 election coverage to get a glimpse of Ron Pollard, a noted bookmaker of the time. Gioven @Andy_JS's somewhat encyclopaedic knowledge, it might well be something he watched recently
If you have time, go thru the coverage of years past: it's an education as to how times were different then.
Hopefully we’ll get 2005 next year as I don’t think it’s been repeated since.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/dec/05/george-russell-max-verstappen-threat-f1 George Russell has claimed his Formula One rival Max Verstappen threatened him with violence during the escalating tensions between the drivers at the Qatar Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver said the newly crowned world champion told him “he was going to purposefully go out of his way to crash into me and ‘put me on my fucking head in the wall’”...
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
Someone somewhere will have to explain to me one day why Labour thought it was good for their first thing to be 'lets screw over the pensioners'.
Somehow pensioners are going to have to be made to pay more tax because everyone else is basically tapped out. Given that almost all the growth in government expenditure is going on pensioners (pensions, NHS, social care) this doesn’t seem unreasonable, but implementing it is going to be a conundrum for any government.
You absolutely moronic halfwitted clown , apart from NI after pension age if working , pensioners pay the same as everyon else.
Pensioners (should) pay the same tax everyone else does? I’m glad you agree with me: Pensioners should pay NI just like everyone does.
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
Someone somewhere will have to explain to me one day why Labour thought it was good for their first thing to be 'lets screw over the pensioners'.
Somehow pensioners are going to have to be made to pay more tax because everyone else is basically tapped out. Given that almost all the growth in government expenditure is going on pensioners (pensions, NHS, social care) this doesn’t seem unreasonable, but implementing it is going to be a conundrum for any government.
You absolutely moronic halfwitted clown , apart from NI after pension age if working , pensioners pay the same as everyon else.
Strictly speaking, not quite - but one has to be 80+ which doesn't really seem much of an exchange for the very small difference in overall taxation.
My wife and I are both over 80 and pay income tax, although my wife pays less than I do, and some years drops out altogether. Makes Gift Aid problematic.
I cannot understand the halfwits on here that keep saying pensioners don't pay the same tax as everyone else, if only.
They don’t pay “student loan repayments” which is in effect a tax that a lot of people under the age of 35 pays and it is significant but of course you don’t give a shit about that
Keep calm and understand that polls 4 and a half years out from the GE are not that important.
Yes, only 4.5 years of this shitshow left.
No extra housing being built
Why are you saying that on housing? They've put it up in lights as a priority, I believe?
Well where are all the extra houses ? So far housing starts are down on last year and last quarter. They havent passed any enabling legislation to accelerate house building, or new towns. And if they do it will take about a year to get done and then you have to go though the planning process. So no extra houses for at least two years. We had a similar issue in 2009 when the Tories wittered on about spade ready projects and then did nothing. It's all hot air
That at least kills the argument that the construction capacity isn't going to be there...
Just bang through Planning and Infrastructure Bill, do the compulsory purchases and fast track the planning. A really determined government that wasn't process obsessed could do all of that in six months.
As it is, you're probably right.
The main problem is the 1.5 million target is simply trying to accommodate the status quo. We build normally just over 200k houses a year. So say 1.2 million over 5 years. The uplift is therefore only 300k over 5 years when we need about 2 million houses. Its the sheer lack of ambition is the killer and it's not just a Labour problem the Tories are just a clueless. We have a housing crisis and the political parties just want to paper over it.
However Labour is in the hot seat and are making the claims they will build. But on current trends they wont.
Did I ever tell you Rachel Reeves is totally shit ?
No, is she ? First I'd heard of it.
In any event, not really relevant to this one. Housing is the one thing Starmer could just bully through Parliament, and get a political return on by the next election. The longer he leaves it, the less likely that is.
Starmer’s polling performance reinforces my sense that only major charisma cuts it in today’s social media led political environment.
Who do people remember quasi-fondly in recent history? Blair, Thatcher, Boris (a bit), Cameron (sometimes). The charismatics.
I think the electorate often persuades itself that it wants unflashy, serious politicians and then when it gets them it falls out of love with them quickly.
In the Brown honeymoon many thought he was the perfect tonic to Blair. May was lauded as a serious politician for serious times until the election campaign. You wonder if Starmer suffers from the same problem.
On the BBC's 1983 election night show, which went on for more than 10 hours, the Falklands War was mentioned precisely once, by David Owen IIRC. If it had been an important factor in the result, you would have expected it to have been referenced a lot more.
That does seem odd. But how do you know this as a matter of interest? Is it something you've watched recently?
The BBC Parliament Channel sometimes shows election night coverage for various elections. Inevitably it's pirated and placed on YouTube. Andy is aware of many of them. As am I, oddly enough, having fast-forwarded through the whole of (I think) the 1964 election coverage to get a glimpse of Ron Pollard, a noted bookmaker of the time. Gioven @Andy_JS's somewhat encyclopaedic knowledge, it might well be something he watched recently
If you have time, go thru the coverage of years past: it's an education as to how times were different then.
I've been known to actually. It's fascinating - but you do need a slow day.
One of the most striking themes in Keir Starmer’s speech today — his frustration with Whitehall
For weeks I’ve been asking Labour people what they make of their time in government and one sentiment comes up again and again:
“Dominic Cummings was right”
LOL, some of us have been saying this for years.
Also, the US are about to put a bunch of outsiders into a serious project to cut the size and scope of the bureaucracy, which if it works will be transformative for that country and attract investment that would otherwise end up elsewhere. Such as the UK.
If Elon takes the same approach as at Twitter then it could easily be transformative, transforming the USA into a failed State.
It may well put a lot of investment our way.
If the US fails, everyone fails.
When the Smoot-Hawley tariffs came into effect, other countries responded and world trade collapsed... everyone suffered.
Relative outperformance was still shit.
America was a surplus nation then. You can’t compare it with the current situation.
Of course you can compare it to the current situation.
If every country tries to protect exports via the use of retaliatory tariffs - as is entirely possible - then we will all get poorer.
It is deeply naive to assume (a) that free trade is the cause of America's trade deficits, and (b) that tariffs are a consequence free way to solve the issue.
For what it's worth, I blame Germany and China at least as much as the US for the predicament: they should be consuming a lot more of what they produce, and they should be implementing pro-consumption policies. (Sadly the "Swabian housewife attitude still infects German politics.)
Last night Sky showed labour's most popular policy was raising the NMW and least by some distance was removing the WFP
Upsetting pensioners their children and grandchildren was not the best first action she took and is likely to be her legacy much as the poll tax was
I think it's the third time in the last fifteen years this has happened. Somebody overconfident goes into power and decides to do "the hard things first" or "dip their hands in the blood". Clegg did it on tuition fees, Truss did it with everything, and now Reeves did it with WFP. It doesn't work: it just destroys trust at the time when you need it the most.
It can work - but WFA is basically an economic sideshow. If you're going to get the unpopular stuff done, it has to be something with a big potential return in exchange.
WFA was a hugely unpopular decision with a small payback.
What if the WFA cut worked, but normal voters weren't the audience for it?
Consider why Truss/Kwarteng - massively increasing borrowing to fund tax cuts - lost the confidence of the markets, but Starmer/Reeves - considerably increasing borrowing to fund public spending - did not.
Cutting WFA was a signal that Starmer/Reeves are prepared to do unpopular things if necessary, and can face down sustained public opposition to do so. The markets believe they'll get their money back as a result, and Starmer/Reeves can borrow the money to spend on the NHS.
With the huge spending on energy support just prior to the mini-budget, Truss/Kwarteng weren't exactly sending the same sort of message to the markets.
Personally I think the WFA was a bit of political game playing that backfired. I think it was less to reassure markets and more as an opening shot that they thought would get blamed on the Tories. “They left us a black hole and this is what we have to do, all you lot can’t have this nice thing anymore. Isn’t that terrible!”
They then realised very quickly that isn’t how government works. You get the blame for what you do. It showed up a bit of naivety.
That's longer odds than Badenoch making it past 2028 and if she does that she's probably PM.
If Starmer remains historically unpopular even Labour might road test a new leader a year out from the GE. Johnson at 20 seems very unlikely.
I've always assumed that Starmer would go before the next election, given his age and general temperament (he seems rather less likely to want to hang on to power than the average senior politician). The question is who comes next?
Reeves might once have been the front-runner, but clearly isn't now. Streeting has a tricky brief, and is deeply unpopular with the left. Rayner's a great campaigner but would likely be more successful attacking a Tory govt rather than defending the record of a Labour one.
I wouldn't count out any of Phillipson, Reynolds, Kyle, or Jones - but I do wonder if Ed Milliband might have sufficiently redeemed himself in the eyes of the party by then. He certainly seems to be on top of his brief, and there's a decent chance that in a few years' time he'll be seen as the most successful member of the current cabinet in terms of delivery.
Starmer’s polling performance reinforces my sense that only major charisma cuts it in today’s social media led political environment.
Who do people remember quasi-fondly in recent history? Blair, Thatcher, Boris (a bit), Cameron (sometimes). The charismatics.
Asdown, Kennedy?
Which is a reminder that the exception that proves the rule is Kinnock. Oozed charisma but lost to Major (who, it must be said, had his own sort of charisma).
That's longer odds than Badenoch making it past 2028 and if she does that she's probably PM.
If Starmer remains historically unpopular even Labour might road test a new leader a year out from the GE. Johnson at 20 seems very unlikely.
I've always assumed that Starmer would go before the next election, given his age and general temperament (he seems rather less likely to want to hang on to power than the average senior politician). The question is who comes next?
Reeves might once have been the front-runner, but clearly isn't now. Streeting has a tricky brief, and is deeply unpopular with the left. Rayner's a great campaigner but would likely be more successful attacking a Tory govt rather than defending the record of a Labour one.
I wouldn't count out any of Phillipson, Reynolds, Kyle, or Jones - but I do wonder if Ed Milliband might have sufficiently redeemed himself in the eyes of the party by then. He certainly seems to be on top of his brief, and there's a decent chance that in a few years' time he'll be seen as the most successful member of the current cabinet in terms of delivery.
If Starmer does not stand down before the next election it will be because of that question: "who comes next?"
Keep calm and understand that polls 4 and a half years out from the GE are not that important.
Yes, only 4.5 years of this shitshow left.
No extra housing being built
Why are you saying that on housing? They've put it up in lights as a priority, I believe?
They put up growth in lights as a priority too. And yet.
Well we'll see how growth turns out. It will largely depend on things outside the government's control. Although I suppose one saves that observation for if it disappoints. If it surprises on the upside then it will be down to the government.
House building, they have some direct levers and it'd be stupid to set high viz targets if they were not planning to pull any of them. I expect them to do much better than the Cons did on housing.
I do believe they see housing as a genuine priority. I can't pretend to be close to the heart of government, or even peripheral to it, but what I have heard of governmenty conversations indicates a sense of urgency to do something in the way that there doesn't really seem to be with economic growth. The problem is that they face the same obstacles of process that everybody else has. Hats off to them if they achieve it, though. It's quite a simple thing to measure so we will see.
Keep calm and understand that polls 4 and a half years out from the GE are not that important.
Yes, only 4.5 years of this shitshow left.
No extra housing being built
Why are you saying that on housing? They've put it up in lights as a priority, I believe?
Well where are all the extra houses ? So far housing starts are down on last year and last quarter. They havent passed any enabling legislation to accelerate house building, or new towns. And if they do it will take about a year to get done and then you have to go though the planning process. So no extra houses for at least two years. We had a similar issue in 2009 when the Tories wittered on about spade ready projects and then did nothing. It's all hot air
And is why you are hearing comments about Civil Service obstructionism.
The Civil Service, when confronted by the idea of speeding up the 5-10 year planning time, will react to defend the Proper Process.
Just say no to them.
Now that would be a policy worth expending political capital on.
Read Rory Stewart's book.
Short version - he discovered that money was being given to an "aid charity" that had never been vetted and was, in fact, a head-choppers front. So he tried to stop the money. He was obstructed and lied to multiple times. even when ordered the money to stop, it didn't Because there was a target to spend the money on international aid.
Rory was some no mark minister, though.
If the PM decides something WILL get done, they can make it happen. Agreed, there's always massive inertia to be overcome, but new governments get the chance to do a couple of big things. If they're sufficiently determined.
That's longer odds than Badenoch making it past 2028 and if she does that she's probably PM.
If Starmer remains historically unpopular even Labour might road test a new leader a year out from the GE. Johnson at 20 seems very unlikely.
I've always assumed that Starmer would go before the next election, given his age and general temperament (he seems rather less likely to want to hang on to power than the average senior politician). The question is who comes next?
Reeves might once have been the front-runner, but clearly isn't now. Streeting has a tricky brief, and is deeply unpopular with the left. Rayner's a great campaigner but would likely be more successful attacking a Tory govt rather than defending the record of a Labour one.
I wouldn't count out any of Phillipson, Reynolds, Kyle, or Jones - but I do wonder if Ed Milliband might have sufficiently redeemed himself in the eyes of the party by then. He certainly seems to be on top of his brief, and there's a decent chance that in a few years' time he'll be seen as the most successful member of the current cabinet in terms of delivery.
Jones or Streeting by a country mile have the required charisma, but everyone says the next leader has to be a female. That being so, maybe Phillipson.
Starmer’s polling performance reinforces my sense that only major charisma cuts it in today’s social media led political environment.
Who do people remember quasi-fondly in recent history? Blair, Thatcher, Boris (a bit), Cameron (sometimes). The charismatics.
I think the electorate often persuades itself that it wants unflashy, serious politicians and then when it gets them it falls out of love with them quickly.
In the Brown honeymoon many thought he was the perfect tonic to Blair. May was lauded as a serious politician for serious times until the election campaign. You wonder if Starmer suffers from the same problem.
Same as Hollande, Draghi, Scholz.
Even the charismatics lose support eventually, but they tend to last longer regardless which wing they’re on (see Macron, Trudeau, Merkel) or come back later (Berlusconi, Netanyahu, Trump).
Keep calm and understand that polls 4 and a half years out from the GE are not that important.
Yes, only 4.5 years of this shitshow left.
No extra housing being built
Why are you saying that on housing? They've put it up in lights as a priority, I believe?
Well where are all the extra houses ? So far housing starts are down on last year and last quarter. They havent passed any enabling legislation to accelerate house building, or new towns. And if they do it will take about a year to get done and then you have to go though the planning process. So no extra houses for at least two years. We had a similar issue in 2009 when the Tories wittered on about spade ready projects and then did nothing. It's all hot air
They'll pay for it if you're right because it's a key area. I think you're being overly pessimistic. Why set song-and-dance targets on housebuilding if you're not at least going to try to get close to them? This is Labour, remember, not the Conservatives.
Keep calm and understand that polls 4 and a half years out from the GE are not that important.
Yes, only 4.5 years of this shitshow left.
No extra housing being built
Why are you saying that on housing? They've put it up in lights as a priority, I believe?
Well where are all the extra houses ? So far housing starts are down on last year and last quarter. They havent passed any enabling legislation to accelerate house building, or new towns. And if they do it will take about a year to get done and then you have to go though the planning process. So no extra houses for at least two years. We had a similar issue in 2009 when the Tories wittered on about spade ready projects and then did nothing. It's all hot air
And is why you are hearing comments about Civil Service obstructionism.
The Civil Service, when confronted by the idea of speeding up the 5-10 year planning time, will react to defend the Proper Process.
Just say no to them.
Now that would be a policy worth expending political capital on.
Read Rory Stewart's book.
Short version - he discovered that money was being given to an "aid charity" that had never been vetted and was, in fact, a head-choppers front. So he tried to stop the money. He was obstructed and lied to multiple times. even when ordered the money to stop, it didn't Because there was a target to spend the money on international aid.
Reading between the lines on that one... I think someone in national security/another more senior minister wanted that money spent. Whether it was well spent I can't say.
Comments
It looks like it’s almost certainly a reference to this book: https://delaydenydefend.com/ : This was personal.
It may well put a lot of investment our way.
My EMA (Exponential Moving Average) figures are the result of smoothing poll results with older polls getting lower and lower weights. The latest poll, in this case, the Find Out Now poll, gets a 10% weight. The next poll will get a 10% weight and the Find Out Now poll will drop to a 9% weight, then a 8.1% weight and so on.
(Explains a lot, you may think. For the record though, he was a pretty dull lecturer, with a tendency just to read us extracts from The State in Capitalist Society).
I wasn't as heavily involved in 1983 as I had been earlier; I'd been active in the Liberals, but our constituency was SDP led and the local SDP wanted to do things 'their way'.
This seems to confirm there is a system in place and the appointment is timescaled to 28 days from receipt of the letter
Phased abolishment of Child Benefit over the next 16 years would be a bold move. Phased reduction of existing child benefit... 100% first child, 75% second child, 50% third child, no child benefit beyond that.
Transfer savings on to pre school education and nursery care on a not for profit basis.
The gen z arrogance that producing large families as a state funded cash cow to pay for cosmetic surgery and flash cars has to be eradicated.
Long term a move towards the "lifetime income" solution... A set allowance for all from 16 to death, amalgamated all benefits and divide equally. Personal responsibility to manage your own lifestyle and future pensions etc. Would chut billions from administration costs.
I'm not convinced by that argument.
It was designed to provide security guarantees to the signatories, including Ukraine.
It failed.
Astonishing.
The new network will in time be called Vodafone UK and the Three brand will disappear.
If you have time, go thru the coverage of years past: it's an education as to how times were different then.
If you're going to get the unpopular stuff done, it has to be something with a big potential return in exchange.
WFA was a hugely unpopular decision with a small payback.
Makes Gift Aid problematic.
The Civil Service, when confronted by the idea of speeding up the 5-10 year planning time, will react to defend the Proper Process.
welcome on board
When the Smoot-Hawley tariffs came into effect, other countries responded and world trade collapsed... everyone suffered.
Relative outperformance was still shit.
Just bang through Planning and Infrastructure Bill, do the compulsory purchases and fast track the planning.
A really determined government that wasn't process obsessed could do all of that in six months.
As it is, you're probably right.
"Come gentlemen, let's go visit him, Pray God we may make haste and come too late."
A year later, they invaded.
Can you spot the pattern ?
Now that would be a policy worth expending political capital on.
House building, they have some direct levers and it'd be stupid to set high viz targets if they were not planning to pull any of them. I expect them to do much better than the Cons did on housing.
They would be ideally placed to work with Presidents Trump and Le Pen, and Prime Minister Melonini of Italy.
Who do people remember quasi-fondly in recent history? Blair, Thatcher, Boris (a bit), Cameron (sometimes). The charismatics.
We build normally just over 200k houses a year. So say 1.2 million over 5 years. The uplift is therefore only 300k over 5 years when we need about 2 million houses. Its the sheer lack of ambition is the killer and it's not just a Labour problem the Tories are just a clueless. We have a housing crisis and the political parties just want to paper over it.
However Labour is in the hot seat and are making the claims they will build. But on current trends they wont.
Did I ever tell you Rachel Reeves is totally shit ?
Short version - he discovered that money was being given to an "aid charity" that had never been vetted and was, in fact, a head-choppers front. So he tried to stop the money. He was obstructed and lied to multiple times. even when ordered the money to stop, it didn't Because there was a target to spend the money on international aid.
But I think also they also need a clear populist objective, simply and clearly put. Blair had that. Boris had that. Brown did not; Cameron did not; May did not.
Starmer has a lawyerly word salad.
Consider why Truss/Kwarteng - massively increasing borrowing to fund tax cuts - lost the confidence of the markets, but Starmer/Reeves - considerably increasing borrowing to fund public spending - did not.
Cutting WFA was a signal that Starmer/Reeves are prepared to do unpopular things if necessary, and can face down sustained public opposition to do so. The markets believe they'll get their money back as a result, and Starmer/Reeves can borrow the money to spend on the NHS.
With the huge spending on energy support just prior to the mini-budget, Truss/Kwarteng weren't exactly sending the same sort of message to the markets.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/dec/05/george-russell-max-verstappen-threat-f1
George Russell has claimed his Formula One rival Max Verstappen threatened him with violence during the escalating tensions between the drivers at the Qatar Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver said the newly crowned world champion told him “he was going to purposefully go out of his way to crash into me and ‘put me on my fucking head in the wall’”...
Ok hear me out
@KariLake was born and raised in Iowa
What if she returns home to primary Joni Ernst in 2026 and take her Senate seat?
https://x.com/DC_Draino/status/1864685276469010938
National Insurance is also a significant tax
First I'd heard of it.
In any event, not really relevant to this one.
Housing is the one thing Starmer could just bully through Parliament, and get a political return on by the next election. The longer he leaves it, the less likely that is.
In the Brown honeymoon many thought he was the perfect tonic to Blair. May was lauded as a serious politician for serious times until the election campaign. You wonder if Starmer suffers from the same problem.
Starmer could single handedly beat the Russian Bear, depose Putin and win back Ukraine and still sell it as a disastrous defeat.
I don't see Johnson as charismatic just a dreadful, loud, obnoxious boor. Cameron probably carries it off.
If every country tries to protect exports via the use of retaliatory tariffs - as is entirely possible - then we will all get poorer.
It is deeply naive to assume (a) that free trade is the cause of America's trade deficits, and (b) that tariffs are a consequence free way to solve the issue.
For what it's worth, I blame Germany and China at least as much as the US for the predicament: they should be consuming a lot more of what they produce, and they should be implementing pro-consumption policies. (Sadly the "Swabian housewife attitude still infects German politics.)
*I haven't read all of it yet, but will.
Thanks to whoever posted it – I can't find the OP, the link was sat in my reading list.
They then realised very quickly that isn’t how government works. You get the blame for what you do. It showed up a bit of naivety.
Reeves might once have been the front-runner, but clearly isn't now. Streeting has a tricky brief, and is deeply unpopular with the left. Rayner's a great campaigner but would likely be more successful attacking a Tory govt rather than defending the record of a Labour one.
I wouldn't count out any of Phillipson, Reynolds, Kyle, or Jones - but I do wonder if Ed Milliband might have sufficiently redeemed himself in the eyes of the party by then. He certainly seems to be on top of his brief, and there's a decent chance that in a few years' time he'll be seen as the most successful member of the current cabinet in terms of delivery.
The problem is that they face the same obstacles of process that everybody else has.
Hats off to them if they achieve it, though. It's quite a simple thing to measure so we will see.
If the PM decides something WILL get done, they can make it happen.
Agreed, there's always massive inertia to be overcome, but new governments get the chance to do a couple of big things. If they're sufficiently determined.
Even the charismatics lose support eventually, but they tend to last longer regardless which wing they’re on (see Macron, Trudeau, Merkel) or come back later (Berlusconi, Netanyahu, Trump).
2027 invasion of the Chagos Islands anyone?