Perfect example of the process state in action (hat tip @Malmesbury) today...
...at the last minute I've been asked to step in at school to mentor a new teacher going through qualification. It's extra work but enjoyable.
Part of the reason it is so much extra work is because I am expected by the DfE to do 20 hours of training in preparation for welcoming the trainee. This is challenging to fit in, in large part because I was asked to do it on Thursday and the trainee arrived on Monday.
Here's the process state in action: I skimmed through the training today; 3 hours of which was assessed by a 10 question multiple choice test. A monkey high on acid could have correctly completed the test.
Yet because I have filled in the correct boxes, my school now gets £120 of funding for the 3 hours I supposedly spent in training.
It's completely bonkers. Give me the gap fill first, allow me to self assess my training needs off the back of it, and fund any training needed. Save the DfE £120, save me being taught to suck eggs.
But that doesn't follow the right process I suppose.
Oh and as an aside @omnium are you about? After our discussion last week about percentage efficiency at work I did a minute by minute accounting of my day on Monday. I'm upping my claim for Monday's efficiency from 95% to 105%. From 0805 to 1610 I had the sum total of 6 minutes where I was not doing an activity necessary for my job (3 mins in the lunch queue, 3 mins drinking coffee and chatting about non work stuff). In the afternoon I was in compulsory training at the same time as emailing parents hence the 105%.
Congratulations on passing your multiple choice exam. You have won a secret prize - A monkey high on acid.
I’ve just done 2 course like that - data security in compliance. Clicked through, then got 100% on the exams and another PDF for no one to ever read.
Mentoring a new starter is one of the few things that puts a smile in my day.
I had my first new start for a while take up post this week. First port of call - 14.5hrs of HR-mandated 'training' videos. "How not to be a massive racist", "How not to be a sex pest", "Why you shouldn't burn the building down", "Why pouring petrol on a burning building is a bad idea", ...
None of it remotely challenging, which at least would be a saving grace. Just hours of borderline am-dram actors saying "I don't like the furrins" and then being quizzed on "Do you think this was a) a good thing to say, or b) a bad thing to say?"
Question 26:
Your customer, Hans, suggests getting an international gang of terrorists together, taking over a Japanese company building and stealing a huge pile of bearer bonds from their safe.
Do you
a) Go along with the scheme b) Suggest doing it at Christmas c) Call Compliance.
Question 27:
Your customer, Emperor Palpatine, wants to lay down a needlessly overcomplicated trap around the forest moon of Endor.
Do you
a) Point out that that planetbound shield generator is too vulnerable and should be shielded and garrisoned at battallion strength minimum b) Point out the inadvisability of your enforcer having to fight his son in your presence, thus posing an avoidable conflict of interest c) Don't have a shaft open to the reactor core that can fit a YT-1300 Corellian light freighter in for goodness' sake. d) Ewoks. Dangerous. Avoid.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
Wrong on current polls if we had PR we likely would get a Tory and Reform coalition government, under FPTP though a Labour minority government with LD support more likely
There is 0% chance of Conservative Party going into government with Reform. It would be the most stupidest thing the Conservative Party has ever done, and probably the last thing because it would be a real threat to the Conservative Parties existence.
You are also embarrassingly wrong when you always take the Reform polling, and tell us it equates to xxx seats. It doesn’t. 😌
You can get an awful lot of seats under FPTP if voters from other parties chose you when their preference can’t win. For example you go up just 0.6% from last election yet go from 11 to 72 seats, up just 1.6% and add 211, or get 14.3% of votes for just 5 seats. In this regard, Reform are friendless. Nobody, including Conservatives, lend their vote to help Reform.
So the Reform seat figures you post from the polling numbers are complete gibberish.
It’s stark it’s not an era of two party politics, it’s like minded on election outcome voting blocks, voting interchangeable in FPTP. Where Reform are friendless in the FPTP exploitation, this has to change.
Far from it, if there is a hung parliament and the only options with a majority are Conservative + Reform or Conservative + Labour then of course the Conservatives would go into government with Reform.
As to not do so and reelect a Labour minority government Tory voters despise really would be the end of the Conservative party and would see most of its remaining voters defect en masse to Reform (mind you if Labour formed a government with the Tories half of the remaining Labour vote would likely go Green too)
Absolute nonsense. Labour form government with Con and lose half voters to Green, yet Con form government with Reform without shattering into little pieces in all directions?
What you will find is, where a week is a long time in politics, the next two and a half years maybe interminable where more defections from Con to Reform, the more bitter this rivalry becomes.
Coalition together? This can only become a deathmatch.
One has to cannibalise the other out of existence. They can’t co exist and get near government - the last General Election result is all the evidence you need of that.
So when it comes to that cannibalism of our bitter deathmatch rival, how do you actually understand the key differences between Reform and Conservatives right now, when you knock on doors and explain the vote has to be Conservatives not reform?
Tesla's letter to the Govt wanting more tax on petrol and diesel. No wonder he's pissed after the budget - a politician who won't do what he wants, even after he said please. At least he had the sense not to puff the Cybertruck, though he does promote his Semi.
I wouldn't get a Tesla if they gave them away free. That's how much he's sh*t on his brand.
I must admit that I find the recent strength in Tesla stock a bit odd: they've shat on their brand in Europe, in China they are likely to be the first company impacted by any retaliation to Trump's tariffs, and in the US people in Red states aren't buying Teslas.
The main thing I don’t understand about Tesla is that they have access to billions, they can poach the best car designers in the world to design their sports cars, saloons, 4wds, whatever, And yet every single car they design (apart from that old knock-off lotus Elise) looks like some absolutely dull car with not the tiniest bit of style or a skip on wheels.
(Leaving aside the Cybertruck for a second...)
That's because they are optmizing around drag coefficient. When your battery capacity was small, every tiny aero gain made a big difference.
Good point, well made. They are still ugly cars and a little bit of drag for a better looking car might be more popular than a little more range. This is just one reason why I’m. It a car designer or pioneer of technology perhaps.
Many electric cars follow the same pattern - trying to get the Cd to near 0.2 or even below.
Ok, thinking (lazily) about your point, and RCS’, all cars ICE or electric could/should be designed to their maximum efficiency but a lot aren’t because humans like many things where the perfect is overridden by the heart or soul. People will buy a Ferrari because it’s beautiful and powerful but not remotely efficient, or a G-Wagen. So surely at some point Tesla has to give a little on aero to attract the soul?
Tesla (and others) have noted that when they launch a range of cars with different range, the best sellers are those with the longest range. In fact several times, Tesla discontinued the shortest range option because not enough people were buying it, to make it non-profitable to sell.
So until people are comfortable with range, range will be everything in EVs.
Maybe Ive fallen for some advertising. Was watching something on ITVX and they had adverts for a car called a Cupra. Good looking EV. Maybe they don’t have the range so lose the range fans but I guess there is a market for pretty? And if Tesla can get both…
Cupra was launched as the sporty looking EV brand of SEAT (owned by VW). They are now killing the SEAT brand completely and going all in on Cupra as the brand, which is quite a brave move as SEAT in Spain still holds a lot of brand power (despite it being basically just being hand me down VWs for ages now).
Tesla's letter to the Govt wanting more tax on petrol and diesel. No wonder he's pissed after the budget - a politician who won't do what he wants, even after he said please. At least he had the sense not to puff the Cybertruck, though he does promote his Semi.
I wouldn't get a Tesla if they gave them away free. That's how much he's sh*t on his brand.
I must admit that I find the recent strength in Tesla stock a bit odd: they've shat on their brand in Europe, in China they are likely to be the first company impacted by any retaliation to Trump's tariffs, and in the US people in Red states aren't buying Teslas.
The main thing I don’t understand about Tesla is that they have access to billions, they can poach the best car designers in the world to design their sports cars, saloons, 4wds, whatever, And yet every single car they design (apart from that old knock-off lotus Elise) looks like some absolutely dull car with not the tiniest bit of style or a skip on wheels.
(Leaving aside the Cybertruck for a second...)
That's because they are optmizing around drag coefficient. When your battery capacity was small, every tiny aero gain made a big difference.
Good point, well made. They are still ugly cars and a little bit of drag for a better looking car might be more popular than a little more range. This is just one reason why I’m. It a car designer or pioneer of technology perhaps.
Many electric cars follow the same pattern - trying to get the Cd to near 0.2 or even below.
Ok, thinking (lazily) about your point, and RCS’, all cars ICE or electric could/should be designed to their maximum efficiency but a lot aren’t because humans like many things where the perfect is overridden by the heart or soul. People will buy a Ferrari because it’s beautiful and powerful but not remotely efficient, or a G-Wagen. So surely at some point Tesla has to give a little on aero to attract the soul?
Tesla (and others) have noted that when they launch a range of cars with different range, the best sellers are those with the longest range. In fact several times, Tesla discontinued the shortest range option because not enough people were buying it, to make it non-profitable to sell.
So until people are comfortable with range, range will be everything in EVs.
That's the thing - 95% of the time I don't need to drive 250 miles in a hurry. But when I do the last thing I want to have to do is stop for 30 minutes waiting for the car to charge because I'll have something else to worry about.
Unless you discharge below 20%, a modern EV will get you to 80% in about 15 minutes at a proper high capacity charger. See motorway services....
Even if you discharge below 20%, modern EVs fill up remarkably quickly now. It's one of these areas where there has been extraordinary progress, yet most people still "think" like it's 2018.
What we need in the UK is to get a deal to open up the Tesla network, as happened in the US.
Perfect example of the process state in action (hat tip @Malmesbury) today...
...at the last minute I've been asked to step in at school to mentor a new teacher going through qualification. It's extra work but enjoyable.
Part of the reason it is so much extra work is because I am expected by the DfE to do 20 hours of training in preparation for welcoming the trainee. This is challenging to fit in, in large part because I was asked to do it on Thursday and the trainee arrived on Monday.
Here's the process state in action: I skimmed through the training today; 3 hours of which was assessed by a 10 question multiple choice test. A monkey high on acid could have correctly completed the test.
Yet because I have filled in the correct boxes, my school now gets £120 of funding for the 3 hours I supposedly spent in training.
It's completely bonkers. Give me the gap fill first, allow me to self assess my training needs off the back of it, and fund any training needed. Save the DfE £120, save me being taught to suck eggs.
But that doesn't follow the right process I suppose.
Oh and as an aside @omnium are you about? After our discussion last week about percentage efficiency at work I did a minute by minute accounting of my day on Monday. I'm upping my claim for Monday's efficiency from 95% to 105%. From 0805 to 1610 I had the sum total of 6 minutes where I was not doing an activity necessary for my job (3 mins in the lunch queue, 3 mins drinking coffee and chatting about non work stuff). In the afternoon I was in compulsory training at the same time as emailing parents hence the 105%.
Congratulations on passing your multiple choice exam. You have won a secret prize - A monkey high on acid.
I’ve just done 2 course like that - data security in compliance. Clicked through, then got 100% on the exams and another PDF for no one to ever read.
Mentoring a new starter is one of the few things that puts a smile in my day.
I had my first new start for a while take up post this week. First port of call - 14.5hrs of HR-mandated 'training' videos. "How not to be a massive racist", "How not to be a sex pest", "Why you shouldn't burn the building down", "Why pouring petrol on a burning building is a bad idea", ...
None of it remotely challenging, which at least would be a saving grace. Just hours of borderline am-dram actors saying "I don't like the furrins" and then being quizzed on "Do you think this was a) a good thing to say, or b) a bad thing to say?"
Question 26:
Your customer, Hans, suggests getting an international gang of terrorists together, taking over a Japanese company building and stealing a huge pile of bearer bonds from their safe.
Do you
a) Go along with the scheme b) Suggest doing it at Christmas c) Call Compliance.
Question 27:
Your customer, Emperor Palpatine, wants to lay down a needlessly overcomplicated trap around the forest moon of Endor.
Do you
a) Point out that that planetbound shield generator is too vulnerable and should be shielded and garrisoned at battallion strength minimum b) Point out the inadvisability of your enforcer having to fight his son in your presence, thus posing an avoidable conflict of interest c) Don't have a shaft open to the reactor core that can fit a YT-1300 Corellian light freighter in for goodness' sake. d) Ewoks. Dangerous. Avoid.
You call H&S about the shaft to the reactor in your fucking office…
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
Wrong on current polls if we had PR we likely would get a Tory and Reform coalition government, under FPTP though a Labour minority government with LD support more likely
There is 0% chance of Conservative Party going into government with Reform. It would be the most stupidest thing the Conservative Party has ever done, and probably the last thing because it would be a real threat to the Conservative Parties existence.
You are also embarrassingly wrong when you always take the Reform polling, and tell us it equates to xxx seats. It doesn’t. 😌
You can get an awful lot of seats under FPTP if voters from other parties chose you when their preference can’t win. For example you go up just 0.6% from last election yet go from 11 to 72 seats, up just 1.6% and add 211, or get 14.3% of votes for just 5 seats. In this regard, Reform are friendless. Nobody, including Conservatives, lend their vote to help Reform.
So the Reform seat figures you post from the polling numbers are complete gibberish.
It’s stark it’s not an era of two party politics, it’s like minded on election outcome voting blocks, voting interchangeable in FPTP. Where Reform are friendless in the FPTP exploitation, this has to change.
Far from it, if there is a hung parliament and the only options with a majority are Conservative + Reform or Conservative + Labour then of course the Conservatives would go into government with Reform.
As to not do so and reelect a Labour minority government Tory voters despise really would be the end of the Conservative party and would see most of its remaining voters defect en masse to Reform (mind you if Labour formed a government with the Tories half of the remaining Labour vote would likely go Green too)
Absolute nonsense. Labour form government with Con and lose half voters to Green, yet Con form government with Reform without shattering into little pieces in all directions?
What you will find is, where a week is a long time in politics, the next two and a half years maybe interminable where more defections from Con to Reform, the more bitter this rivalry becomes.
Coalition together? This can only become a deathmatch.
One has to cannibalise the other out of existence. They can’t co exist and get near government - the last General Election result is all the evidence you need of that.
So when it comes to that cannibalism of our bitter deathmatch rival, how do you actually understand the key differences between Reform and Conservatives right now, when you knock on doors and explain the vote has to be Conservatives not reform?
Conservatives are more pro-capitalism, smaller state and lower taxes.
Perfect example of the process state in action (hat tip @Malmesbury) today...
...at the last minute I've been asked to step in at school to mentor a new teacher going through qualification. It's extra work but enjoyable.
Part of the reason it is so much extra work is because I am expected by the DfE to do 20 hours of training in preparation for welcoming the trainee. This is challenging to fit in, in large part because I was asked to do it on Thursday and the trainee arrived on Monday.
Here's the process state in action: I skimmed through the training today; 3 hours of which was assessed by a 10 question multiple choice test. A monkey high on acid could have correctly completed the test.
Yet because I have filled in the correct boxes, my school now gets £120 of funding for the 3 hours I supposedly spent in training.
It's completely bonkers. Give me the gap fill first, allow me to self assess my training needs off the back of it, and fund any training needed. Save the DfE £120, save me being taught to suck eggs.
But that doesn't follow the right process I suppose.
Oh and as an aside @omnium are you about? After our discussion last week about percentage efficiency at work I did a minute by minute accounting of my day on Monday. I'm upping my claim for Monday's efficiency from 95% to 105%. From 0805 to 1610 I had the sum total of 6 minutes where I was not doing an activity necessary for my job (3 mins in the lunch queue, 3 mins drinking coffee and chatting about non work stuff). In the afternoon I was in compulsory training at the same time as emailing parents hence the 105%.
Congratulations on passing your multiple choice exam. You have won a secret prize - A monkey high on acid.
I’ve just done 2 course like that - data security in compliance. Clicked through, then got 100% on the exams and another PDF for no one to ever read.
Mentoring a new starter is one of the few things that puts a smile in my day.
I had my first new start for a while take up post this week. First port of call - 14.5hrs of HR-mandated 'training' videos. "How not to be a massive racist", "How not to be a sex pest", "Why you shouldn't burn the building down", "Why pouring petrol on a burning building is a bad idea", ...
None of it remotely challenging, which at least would be a saving grace. Just hours of borderline am-dram actors saying "I don't like the furrins" and then being quizzed on "Do you think this was a) a good thing to say, or b) a bad thing to say?"
Question 26:
Your customer, Hans, suggests getting an international gang of terrorists together, taking over a Japanese company building and stealing a huge pile of bearer bonds from their safe.
Do you
a) Go along with the scheme b) Suggest doing it at Christmas c) Call Compliance.
Question 27:
Your customer, Emperor Palpatine, wants to lay down a needlessly overcomplicated trap around the forest moon of Endor.
Do you
a) Point out that that planetbound shield generator is too vulnerable and should be shielded and garrisoned at battallion strength minimum b) Point out the inadvisability of your enforcer having to fight his son in your presence, thus posing an avoidable conflict of interest c) Don't have a shaft open to the reactor core that can fit a YT-1300 Corellian light freighter in for goodness' sake. d) Ewoks. Dangerous. Avoid.
You call H&S about the shaft to the reactor in your fucking office…
One thing of note about Star Wars (the proper three films) is that, with the exception of the destruction of the Planet Alderaan*, we never see any evidence of the Empire doing anything very evil. It appears to keep the peace and leave folk alone to make a living.
If anything it is too lax and needs to come down harder on the rampant organised crime we see.
The “rebels”, or terrorists, on the other hand, seem to rely on mercenaries and smugglers who shoot first.
It’s ethically very ambiguous.
*Even then, we aren’t told who is on the planet when it is attacked or what atrocity may have been committed to require a strong response.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
Perfect example of the process state in action (hat tip @Malmesbury) today...
...at the last minute I've been asked to step in at school to mentor a new teacher going through qualification. It's extra work but enjoyable.
Part of the reason it is so much extra work is because I am expected by the DfE to do 20 hours of training in preparation for welcoming the trainee. This is challenging to fit in, in large part because I was asked to do it on Thursday and the trainee arrived on Monday.
Here's the process state in action: I skimmed through the training today; 3 hours of which was assessed by a 10 question multiple choice test. A monkey high on acid could have correctly completed the test.
Yet because I have filled in the correct boxes, my school now gets £120 of funding for the 3 hours I supposedly spent in training.
It's completely bonkers. Give me the gap fill first, allow me to self assess my training needs off the back of it, and fund any training needed. Save the DfE £120, save me being taught to suck eggs.
But that doesn't follow the right process I suppose.
Oh and as an aside @omnium are you about? After our discussion last week about percentage efficiency at work I did a minute by minute accounting of my day on Monday. I'm upping my claim for Monday's efficiency from 95% to 105%. From 0805 to 1610 I had the sum total of 6 minutes where I was not doing an activity necessary for my job (3 mins in the lunch queue, 3 mins drinking coffee and chatting about non work stuff). In the afternoon I was in compulsory training at the same time as emailing parents hence the 105%.
Congratulations on passing your multiple choice exam. You have won a secret prize - A monkey high on acid.
I’ve just done 2 course like that - data security in compliance. Clicked through, then got 100% on the exams and another PDF for no one to ever read.
Mentoring a new starter is one of the few things that puts a smile in my day.
I had my first new start for a while take up post this week. First port of call - 14.5hrs of HR-mandated 'training' videos. "How not to be a massive racist", "How not to be a sex pest", "Why you shouldn't burn the building down", "Why pouring petrol on a burning building is a bad idea", ...
None of it remotely challenging, which at least would be a saving grace. Just hours of borderline am-dram actors saying "I don't like the furrins" and then being quizzed on "Do you think this was a) a good thing to say, or b) a bad thing to say?"
Question 26:
Your customer, Hans, suggests getting an international gang of terrorists together, taking over a Japanese company building and stealing a huge pile of bearer bonds from their safe.
Do you
a) Go along with the scheme b) Suggest doing it at Christmas c) Call Compliance.
Question 27:
Your customer, Emperor Palpatine, wants to lay down a needlessly overcomplicated trap around the forest moon of Endor.
Do you
a) Point out that that planetbound shield generator is too vulnerable and should be shielded and garrisoned at battallion strength minimum b) Point out the inadvisability of your enforcer having to fight his son in your presence, thus posing an avoidable conflict of interest c) Don't have a shaft open to the reactor core that can fit a YT-1300 Corellian light freighter in for goodness' sake. d) Ewoks. Dangerous. Avoid.
"Oh, I'm afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive!"
One thing of note about Star Wars (the proper three films) is that, with the exception of the destruction of the Planet Alderaan*, we never see any evidence of the Empire doing anything very evil. It appears to keep the peace and leave folk alone to make a living.
If anything it is too lax and needs to come down harder on the rampant organised crime we see.
The “rebels”, or terrorists, on the other hand, seem to rely on mercenaries and smugglers who shoot first.
It’s ethically very ambiguous.
*Even then, we aren’t told who is on the planet when it is attacked or what atrocity may have been committed to require a strong response.
So you're saying the Empire kept the transport ships running on time...
One thing of note about Star Wars (the proper three films) is that, with the exception of the destruction of the Planet Alderaan*, we never see any evidence of the Empire doing anything very evil. It appears to keep the peace and leave folk alone to make a living.
If anything it is too lax and needs to come down harder on the rampant organised crime we see.
The “rebels”, or terrorists, on the other hand, seem to rely on mercenaries and smugglers who shoot first.
It’s ethically very ambiguous.
*Even then, we aren’t told who is on the planet when it is attacked or what atrocity may have been committed to require a strong response.
So you're saying the Empire kept the transport ships running on time...
One thing of note about Star Wars (the proper three films) is that, with the exception of the destruction of the Planet Alderaan*, we never see any evidence of the Empire doing anything very evil. It appears to keep the peace and leave folk alone to make a living.
If anything it is too lax and needs to come down harder on the rampant organised crime we see.
The “rebels”, or terrorists, on the other hand, seem to rely on mercenaries and smugglers who shoot first.
It’s ethically very ambiguous.
*Even then, we aren’t told who is on the planet when it is attacked or what atrocity may have been committed to require a strong response.
So you're saying the Empire kept the transport ships running on time...
I’m saying I’m on the side of the Brits. Always an issue in Hollywood…
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
Wrong on current polls if we had PR we likely would get a Tory and Reform coalition government, under FPTP though a Labour minority government with LD support more likely
There is 0% chance of Conservative Party going into government with Reform. It would be the most stupidest thing the Conservative Party has ever done, and probably the last thing because it would be a real threat to the Conservative Parties existence.
You are also embarrassingly wrong when you always take the Reform polling, and tell us it equates to xxx seats. It doesn’t. 😌
You can get an awful lot of seats under FPTP if voters from other parties chose you when their preference can’t win. For example you go up just 0.6% from last election yet go from 11 to 72 seats, up just 1.6% and add 211, or get 14.3% of votes for just 5 seats. In this regard, Reform are friendless. Nobody, including Conservatives, lend their vote to help Reform.
So the Reform seat figures you post from the polling numbers are complete gibberish.
It’s stark it’s not an era of two party politics, it’s like minded on election outcome voting blocks, voting interchangeable in FPTP. Where Reform are friendless in the FPTP exploitation, this has to change.
Far from it, if there is a hung parliament and the only options with a majority are Conservative + Reform or Conservative + Labour then of course the Conservatives would go into government with Reform.
As to not do so and reelect a Labour minority government Tory voters despise really would be the end of the Conservative party and would see most of its remaining voters defect en masse to Reform (mind you if Labour formed a government with the Tories half of the remaining Labour vote would likely go Green too)
Absolute nonsense. Labour form government with Con and lose half voters to Green, yet Con form government with Reform without shattering into little pieces in all directions?
What you will find is, where a week is a long time in politics, the next two and a half years maybe interminable where more defections from Con to Reform, the more bitter this rivalry becomes.
Coalition together? This can only become a deathmatch.
One has to cannibalise the other out of existence. They can’t co exist and get near government - the last General Election result is all the evidence you need of that.
So when it comes to that cannibalism of our bitter deathmatch rival, how do you actually understand the key differences between Reform and Conservatives right now, when you knock on doors and explain the vote has to be Conservatives not reform?
Conservatives are more pro-capitalism, smaller state and lower taxes.
Reform are not.
Thank goodness someone on the right gets it.
If you are any sort of Conservative worthy of the name, Reform are the enemy. Like a particularly unpleasant sexually transmitted parasite, they may give you temporary pleasure, but then they will hollow you out and seek to take over the semi-corpse.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
Wrong on current polls if we had PR we likely would get a Tory and Reform coalition government, under FPTP though a Labour minority government with LD support more likely
There is 0% chance of Conservative Party going into government with Reform. It would be the most stupidest thing the Conservative Party has ever done, and probably the last thing because it would be a real threat to the Conservative Parties existence.
You are also embarrassingly wrong when you always take the Reform polling, and tell us it equates to xxx seats. It doesn’t. 😌
You can get an awful lot of seats under FPTP if voters from other parties chose you when their preference can’t win. For example you go up just 0.6% from last election yet go from 11 to 72 seats, up just 1.6% and add 211, or get 14.3% of votes for just 5 seats. In this regard, Reform are friendless. Nobody, including Conservatives, lend their vote to help Reform.
So the Reform seat figures you post from the polling numbers are complete gibberish.
It’s stark it’s not an era of two party politics, it’s like minded on election outcome voting blocks, voting interchangeable in FPTP. Where Reform are friendless in the FPTP exploitation, this has to change.
Far from it, if there is a hung parliament and the only options with a majority are Conservative + Reform or Conservative + Labour then of course the Conservatives would go into government with Reform.
As to not do so and reelect a Labour minority government Tory voters despise really would be the end of the Conservative party and would see most of its remaining voters defect en masse to Reform (mind you if Labour formed a government with the Tories half of the remaining Labour vote would likely go Green too)
Absolute nonsense. Labour form government with Con and lose half voters to Green, yet Con form government with Reform without shattering into little pieces in all directions?
What you will find is, where a week is a long time in politics, the next two and a half years maybe interminable where more defections from Con to Reform, the more bitter this rivalry becomes.
Coalition together? This can only become a deathmatch.
One has to cannibalise the other out of existence. They can’t co exist and get near government - the last General Election result is all the evidence you need of that.
So when it comes to that cannibalism of our bitter deathmatch rival, how do you actually understand the key differences between Reform and Conservatives right now, when you knock on doors and explain the vote has to be Conservatives not reform?
Conservatives are more pro-capitalism, smaller state and lower taxes.
Reform are not.
Thank goodness someone on the right gets it.
If you are any sort of Conservative worthy of the name, Reform are the enemy. Like a particularly unpleasant sexually transmitted parasite, they may give you temporary pleasure, but then they will hollow you out and seek to take over the semi-corpse.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
Wrong on current polls if we had PR we likely would get a Tory and Reform coalition government, under FPTP though a Labour minority government with LD support more likely
There is 0% chance of Conservative Party going into government with Reform. It would be the most stupidest thing the Conservative Party has ever done, and probably the last thing because it would be a real threat to the Conservative Parties existence.
You are also embarrassingly wrong when you always take the Reform polling, and tell us it equates to xxx seats. It doesn’t. 😌
You can get an awful lot of seats under FPTP if voters from other parties chose you when their preference can’t win. For example you go up just 0.6% from last election yet go from 11 to 72 seats, up just 1.6% and add 211, or get 14.3% of votes for just 5 seats. In this regard, Reform are friendless. Nobody, including Conservatives, lend their vote to help Reform.
So the Reform seat figures you post from the polling numbers are complete gibberish.
It’s stark it’s not an era of two party politics, it’s like minded on election outcome voting blocks, voting interchangeable in FPTP. Where Reform are friendless in the FPTP exploitation, this has to change.
Far from it, if there is a hung parliament and the only options with a majority are Conservative + Reform or Conservative + Labour then of course the Conservatives would go into government with Reform.
As to not do so and reelect a Labour minority government Tory voters despise really would be the end of the Conservative party and would see most of its remaining voters defect en masse to Reform (mind you if Labour formed a government with the Tories half of the remaining Labour vote would likely go Green too)
Absolute nonsense. Labour form government with Con and lose half voters to Green, yet Con form government with Reform without shattering into little pieces in all directions?
What you will find is, where a week is a long time in politics, the next two and a half years maybe interminable where more defections from Con to Reform, the more bitter this rivalry becomes.
Coalition together? This can only become a deathmatch.
One has to cannibalise the other out of existence. They can’t co exist and get near government - the last General Election result is all the evidence you need of that.
So when it comes to that cannibalism of our bitter deathmatch rival, how do you actually understand the key differences between Reform and Conservatives right now, when you knock on doors and explain the vote has to be Conservatives not reform?
Conservatives are more pro-capitalism, smaller state and lower taxes.
Reform are not.
Thank goodness someone on the right gets it.
If you are any sort of Conservative worthy of the name, Reform are the enemy.Like a particularly unpleasant sexually transmitted parasite, they may give you temporary pleasure, but then they will hollow you out and seek to take over the semi-corpse.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
The problem is the recommendation algorithms. Which are tuned to generate as much reaction as possible. Which turns out to be a combination of what you hate, and a slightly more extreme version of what you believe, mixed together.
This creates a radicalisation spiral.
When you add in the social convention of little or no filters in conversation online…
Perfect example of the process state in action (hat tip @Malmesbury) today...
...at the last minute I've been asked to step in at school to mentor a new teacher going through qualification. It's extra work but enjoyable.
Part of the reason it is so much extra work is because I am expected by the DfE to do 20 hours of training in preparation for welcoming the trainee. This is challenging to fit in, in large part because I was asked to do it on Thursday and the trainee arrived on Monday.
Here's the process state in action: I skimmed through the training today; 3 hours of which was assessed by a 10 question multiple choice test. A monkey high on acid could have correctly completed the test.
Yet because I have filled in the correct boxes, my school now gets £120 of funding for the 3 hours I supposedly spent in training.
It's completely bonkers. Give me the gap fill first, allow me to self assess my training needs off the back of it, and fund any training needed. Save the DfE £120, save me being taught to suck eggs.
But that doesn't follow the right process I suppose.
Oh and as an aside @omnium are you about? After our discussion last week about percentage efficiency at work I did a minute by minute accounting of my day on Monday. I'm upping my claim for Monday's efficiency from 95% to 105%. From 0805 to 1610 I had the sum total of 6 minutes where I was not doing an activity necessary for my job (3 mins in the lunch queue, 3 mins drinking coffee and chatting about non work stuff). In the afternoon I was in compulsory training at the same time as emailing parents hence the 105%.
Congratulations on passing your multiple choice exam. You have won a secret prize - A monkey high on acid.
I’ve just done 2 course like that - data security in compliance. Clicked through, then got 100% on the exams and another PDF for no one to ever read.
Mentoring a new starter is one of the few things that puts a smile in my day.
I had my first new start for a while take up post this week. First port of call - 14.5hrs of HR-mandated 'training' videos. "How not to be a massive racist", "How not to be a sex pest", "Why you shouldn't burn the building down", "Why pouring petrol on a burning building is a bad idea", ...
None of it remotely challenging, which at least would be a saving grace. Just hours of borderline am-dram actors saying "I don't like the furrins" and then being quizzed on "Do you think this was a) a good thing to say, or b) a bad thing to say?"
Question 26:
Your customer, Hans, suggests getting an international gang of terrorists together, taking over a Japanese company building and stealing a huge pile of bearer bonds from their safe.
Do you
a) Go along with the scheme b) Suggest doing it at Christmas c) Call Compliance.
Question 27:
Your customer, Emperor Palpatine, wants to lay down a needlessly overcomplicated trap around the forest moon of Endor.
Do you
a) Point out that that planetbound shield generator is too vulnerable and should be shielded and garrisoned at battallion strength minimum b) Point out the inadvisability of your enforcer having to fight his son in your presence, thus posing an avoidable conflict of interest c) Don't have a shaft open to the reactor core that can fit a YT-1300 Corellian light freighter in for goodness' sake. d) Ewoks. Dangerous. Avoid.
You call H&S about the shaft to the reactor in your fucking office…
One thing of note about Star Wars (the proper three films) is that, with the exception of the destruction of the Planet Alderaan*, we never see any evidence of the Empire doing anything very evil. It appears to keep the peace and leave folk alone to make a living.
If anything it is too lax and needs to come down harder on the rampant organised crime we see.
The “rebels”, or terrorists, on the other hand, seem to rely on mercenaries and smugglers who shoot first.
It’s ethically very ambiguous.
*Even then, we aren’t told who is on the planet when it is attacked or what atrocity may have been committed to require a strong response.
That is because the historical model underlying the films is the American Revolution. The Empire being overthrown was the British one, which was not particularly evil, at least not to the people (largely British settlers) doing the rebelling. Taxing tea is not exactly a crime against humanity.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
Hmmm. But it’s the pubs that choose to throw you out, not the state. That’s self regulation not state regulation. I will always worry about state regulation of free speech.
But I take the original point. Terrifying to see so many celebrate a murder.
One thing of note about Star Wars (the proper three films) is that, with the exception of the destruction of the Planet Alderaan*, we never see any evidence of the Empire doing anything very evil. It appears to keep the peace and leave folk alone to make a living.
If anything it is too lax and needs to come down harder on the rampant organised crime we see.
The “rebels”, or terrorists, on the other hand, seem to rely on mercenaries and smugglers who shoot first.
It’s ethically very ambiguous.
*Even then, we aren’t told who is on the planet when it is attacked or what atrocity may have been committed to require a strong response.
So you're saying the Empire kept the transport ships running on time...
Perfect example of the process state in action (hat tip @Malmesbury) today...
...at the last minute I've been asked to step in at school to mentor a new teacher going through qualification. It's extra work but enjoyable.
Part of the reason it is so much extra work is because I am expected by the DfE to do 20 hours of training in preparation for welcoming the trainee. This is challenging to fit in, in large part because I was asked to do it on Thursday and the trainee arrived on Monday.
Here's the process state in action: I skimmed through the training today; 3 hours of which was assessed by a 10 question multiple choice test. A monkey high on acid could have correctly completed the test.
Yet because I have filled in the correct boxes, my school now gets £120 of funding for the 3 hours I supposedly spent in training.
It's completely bonkers. Give me the gap fill first, allow me to self assess my training needs off the back of it, and fund any training needed. Save the DfE £120, save me being taught to suck eggs.
But that doesn't follow the right process I suppose.
Oh and as an aside @omnium are you about? After our discussion last week about percentage efficiency at work I did a minute by minute accounting of my day on Monday. I'm upping my claim for Monday's efficiency from 95% to 105%. From 0805 to 1610 I had the sum total of 6 minutes where I was not doing an activity necessary for my job (3 mins in the lunch queue, 3 mins drinking coffee and chatting about non work stuff). In the afternoon I was in compulsory training at the same time as emailing parents hence the 105%.
Congratulations on passing your multiple choice exam. You have won a secret prize - A monkey high on acid.
I’ve just done 2 course like that - data security in compliance. Clicked through, then got 100% on the exams and another PDF for no one to ever read.
Mentoring a new starter is one of the few things that puts a smile in my day.
I had my first new start for a while take up post this week. First port of call - 14.5hrs of HR-mandated 'training' videos. "How not to be a massive racist", "How not to be a sex pest", "Why you shouldn't burn the building down", "Why pouring petrol on a burning building is a bad idea", ...
None of it remotely challenging, which at least would be a saving grace. Just hours of borderline am-dram actors saying "I don't like the furrins" and then being quizzed on "Do you think this was a) a good thing to say, or b) a bad thing to say?"
Question 26:
Your customer, Hans, suggests getting an international gang of terrorists together, taking over a Japanese company building and stealing a huge pile of bearer bonds from their safe.
Do you
a) Go along with the scheme b) Suggest doing it at Christmas c) Call Compliance.
Question 27:
Your customer, Emperor Palpatine, wants to lay down a needlessly overcomplicated trap around the forest moon of Endor.
Do you
a) Point out that that planetbound shield generator is too vulnerable and should be shielded and garrisoned at battallion strength minimum b) Point out the inadvisability of your enforcer having to fight his son in your presence, thus posing an avoidable conflict of interest c) Don't have a shaft open to the reactor core that can fit a YT-1300 Corellian light freighter in for goodness' sake. d) Ewoks. Dangerous. Avoid.
You call H&S about the shaft to the reactor in your fucking office…
One thing of note about Star Wars (the proper three films) is that, with the exception of the destruction of the Planet Alderaan*, we never see any evidence of the Empire doing anything very evil. It appears to keep the peace and leave folk alone to make a living.
Um, the burning of Luke's Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru? Slaughter of the Jawas? Throttling Captain Antilles to death?
Ministers are planning to cut more than 10,000 civil service jobs as Whitehall departments battle to stay within spending limits under a new government efficiency drive, the Guardian has learned.
So the government is anti-immigration, doing austerity-by-cutting-all-departments-except-NHS and is now claiming to be cutting civil service jobs.
Time warp time or what?
You have to wonder just how worried Starmer and Reeves are on the economy
Taxing, spending and borrowing are at unsustainable levels
This was always going to be the crunch issue. The perfect storm is the coming together of: Brexit, low productivity, post Covid non workers, housing shortage, no growth, tax, spend, borrowing, and being a cradle to grave welfare state in a time of international massive military concern with American isolationism on the way. All Starmer's problems boil down to a collective one of simultaneously solving insoluble problems, and paying for it as he goes along, as none of them stand alone. They all contribute to the one big problem. Add to the mix the fact there is bound to be a black swan coming along sometime.
In order to deal with all this the only thing possible was: to avoid unforced errors, to cultivate honesty and communicate where we are going and how he plans to get there. All these have failed. He 'relaunched' only a few days ago and no-one noticed it had happened. People have stopped being interested in this government.
Perfect example of the process state in action (hat tip @Malmesbury) today...
...at the last minute I've been asked to step in at school to mentor a new teacher going through qualification. It's extra work but enjoyable.
Part of the reason it is so much extra work is because I am expected by the DfE to do 20 hours of training in preparation for welcoming the trainee. This is challenging to fit in, in large part because I was asked to do it on Thursday and the trainee arrived on Monday.
Here's the process state in action: I skimmed through the training today; 3 hours of which was assessed by a 10 question multiple choice test. A monkey high on acid could have correctly completed the test.
Yet because I have filled in the correct boxes, my school now gets £120 of funding for the 3 hours I supposedly spent in training.
It's completely bonkers. Give me the gap fill first, allow me to self assess my training needs off the back of it, and fund any training needed. Save the DfE £120, save me being taught to suck eggs.
But that doesn't follow the right process I suppose.
Oh and as an aside @omnium are you about? After our discussion last week about percentage efficiency at work I did a minute by minute accounting of my day on Monday. I'm upping my claim for Monday's efficiency from 95% to 105%. From 0805 to 1610 I had the sum total of 6 minutes where I was not doing an activity necessary for my job (3 mins in the lunch queue, 3 mins drinking coffee and chatting about non work stuff). In the afternoon I was in compulsory training at the same time as emailing parents hence the 105%.
Congratulations on passing your multiple choice exam. You have won a secret prize - A monkey high on acid.
I’ve just done 2 course like that - data security in compliance. Clicked through, then got 100% on the exams and another PDF for no one to ever read.
Mentoring a new starter is one of the few things that puts a smile in my day.
I had my first new start for a while take up post this week. First port of call - 14.5hrs of HR-mandated 'training' videos. "How not to be a massive racist", "How not to be a sex pest", "Why you shouldn't burn the building down", "Why pouring petrol on a burning building is a bad idea", ...
None of it remotely challenging, which at least would be a saving grace. Just hours of borderline am-dram actors saying "I don't like the furrins" and then being quizzed on "Do you think this was a) a good thing to say, or b) a bad thing to say?"
Question 26:
Your customer, Hans, suggests getting an international gang of terrorists together, taking over a Japanese company building and stealing a huge pile of bearer bonds from their safe.
Do you
a) Go along with the scheme b) Suggest doing it at Christmas c) Call Compliance.
"If this is their idea of Christmas, I gotta be here for New Year!"
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
Wrong on current polls if we had PR we likely would get a Tory and Reform coalition government, under FPTP though a Labour minority government with LD support more likely
There is 0% chance of Conservative Party going into government with Reform. It would be the most stupidest thing the Conservative Party has ever done, and probably the last thing because it would be a real threat to the Conservative Parties existence.
You are also embarrassingly wrong when you always take the Reform polling, and tell us it equates to xxx seats. It doesn’t. 😌
You can get an awful lot of seats under FPTP if voters from other parties chose you when their preference can’t win. For example you go up just 0.6% from last election yet go from 11 to 72 seats, up just 1.6% and add 211, or get 14.3% of votes for just 5 seats. In this regard, Reform are friendless. Nobody, including Conservatives, lend their vote to help Reform.
So the Reform seat figures you post from the polling numbers are complete gibberish.
It’s stark it’s not an era of two party politics, it’s like minded on election outcome voting blocks, voting interchangeable in FPTP. Where Reform are friendless in the FPTP exploitation, this has to change.
Far from it, if there is a hung parliament and the only options with a majority are Conservative + Reform or Conservative + Labour then of course the Conservatives would go into government with Reform.
As to not do so and reelect a Labour minority government Tory voters despise really would be the end of the Conservative party and would see most of its remaining voters defect en masse to Reform (mind you if Labour formed a government with the Tories half of the remaining Labour vote would likely go Green too)
Absolute nonsense. Labour form government with Con and lose half voters to Green, yet Con form government with Reform without shattering into little pieces in all directions?
What you will find is, where a week is a long time in politics, the next two and a half years maybe interminable where more defections from Con to Reform, the more bitter this rivalry becomes.
Coalition together? This can only become a deathmatch.
One has to cannibalise the other out of existence. They can’t co exist and get near government - the last General Election result is all the evidence you need of that.
So when it comes to that cannibalism of our bitter deathmatch rival, how do you actually understand the key differences between Reform and Conservatives right now, when you knock on doors and explain the vote has to be Conservatives not reform?
Conservatives are more pro-capitalism, smaller state and lower taxes.
Reform are not.
Thank goodness someone on the right gets it.
If you are any sort of Conservative worthy of the name, Reform are the enemy. Like a particularly unpleasant sexually transmitted parasite, they may give you temporary pleasure, but then they will hollow you out and seek to take over the semi-corpse.
Lib Dems, even Labour, are merely the opposition.
I agree
Our token former Welsh Nationalist seems to have bought into the would -be Fuhrer's policy offering.
Perfect example of the process state in action (hat tip @Malmesbury) today...
...at the last minute I've been asked to step in at school to mentor a new teacher going through qualification. It's extra work but enjoyable.
Part of the reason it is so much extra work is because I am expected by the DfE to do 20 hours of training in preparation for welcoming the trainee. This is challenging to fit in, in large part because I was asked to do it on Thursday and the trainee arrived on Monday.
Here's the process state in action: I skimmed through the training today; 3 hours of which was assessed by a 10 question multiple choice test. A monkey high on acid could have correctly completed the test.
Yet because I have filled in the correct boxes, my school now gets £120 of funding for the 3 hours I supposedly spent in training.
It's completely bonkers. Give me the gap fill first, allow me to self assess my training needs off the back of it, and fund any training needed. Save the DfE £120, save me being taught to suck eggs.
But that doesn't follow the right process I suppose.
Oh and as an aside @omnium are you about? After our discussion last week about percentage efficiency at work I did a minute by minute accounting of my day on Monday. I'm upping my claim for Monday's efficiency from 95% to 105%. From 0805 to 1610 I had the sum total of 6 minutes where I was not doing an activity necessary for my job (3 mins in the lunch queue, 3 mins drinking coffee and chatting about non work stuff). In the afternoon I was in compulsory training at the same time as emailing parents hence the 105%.
Congratulations on passing your multiple choice exam. You have won a secret prize - A monkey high on acid.
I’ve just done 2 course like that - data security in compliance. Clicked through, then got 100% on the exams and another PDF for no one to ever read.
Mentoring a new starter is one of the few things that puts a smile in my day.
I had my first new start for a while take up post this week. First port of call - 14.5hrs of HR-mandated 'training' videos. "How not to be a massive racist", "How not to be a sex pest", "Why you shouldn't burn the building down", "Why pouring petrol on a burning building is a bad idea", ...
None of it remotely challenging, which at least would be a saving grace. Just hours of borderline am-dram actors saying "I don't like the furrins" and then being quizzed on "Do you think this was a) a good thing to say, or b) a bad thing to say?"
Question 26:
Your customer, Hans, suggests getting an international gang of terrorists together, taking over a Japanese company building and stealing a huge pile of bearer bonds from their safe.
Do you
a) Go along with the scheme b) Suggest doing it at Christmas c) Call Compliance.
Question 27:
Your customer, Emperor Palpatine, wants to lay down a needlessly overcomplicated trap around the forest moon of Endor.
Do you
a) Point out that that planetbound shield generator is too vulnerable and should be shielded and garrisoned at battallion strength minimum b) Point out the inadvisability of your enforcer having to fight his son in your presence, thus posing an avoidable conflict of interest c) Don't have a shaft open to the reactor core that can fit a YT-1300 Corellian light freighter in for goodness' sake. d) Ewoks. Dangerous. Avoid.
You call H&S about the shaft to the reactor in your fucking office…
One thing of note about Star Wars (the proper three films) is that, with the exception of the destruction of the Planet Alderaan*, we never see any evidence of the Empire doing anything very evil. It appears to keep the peace and leave folk alone to make a living.
Um, the burning of Luke's Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru? Slaughter of the Jawas? Throttling Captain Antilles to death?
You can’t criticise an empire based on one or two rotten apples.
Besides, we don’t know whether the uncle and aunt shot first, nor do we know that of the Jawas. And we don’t know that Captain is dead.
Ministers are planning to cut more than 10,000 civil service jobs as Whitehall departments battle to stay within spending limits under a new government efficiency drive, the Guardian has learned.
So the government is anti-immigration, doing austerity-by-cutting-all-departments-except-NHS and is now claiming to be cutting civil service jobs.
Time warp time or what?
You have to wonder just how worried Starmer and Reeves are on the economy
Taxing, spending and borrowing are at unsustainable levels
This was always going to be the crunch issue. The perfect storm is the coming together of: Brexit, low productivity, post Covid non workers, housing shortage, no growth, tax, spend, borrowing, and being a cradle to grave welfare state in a time of international massive military concern with American isolationism on the way. All Starmer's problems boil down to a collective one of simultaneously solving insoluble problems, and paying for it as he goes along, as none of them stand alone. They all contribute to the one big problem. Add to the mix the fact there is bound to be a black swan coming along sometime.
In order to deal with all this the only thing possible was: to avoid unforced errors, to cultivate honesty and communicate where we are going and how he plans to get there. All these have failed. He 'relaunched' only a few days ago and no-one noticed it had happened. People have stopped being interested in this government.
One thing of note about Star Wars (the proper three films) is that, with the exception of the destruction of the Planet Alderaan*, we never see any evidence of the Empire doing anything very evil. It appears to keep the peace and leave folk alone to make a living.
If anything it is too lax and needs to come down harder on the rampant organised crime we see.
The “rebels”, or terrorists, on the other hand, seem to rely on mercenaries and smugglers who shoot first.
It’s ethically very ambiguous.
*Even then, we aren’t told who is on the planet when it is attacked or what atrocity may have been committed to require a strong response.
So you're saying the Empire kept the transport ships running on time...
To do also have nice uniforms, Hugo Boss perhaps?
Can't imagine them going to Gieves & Hawkes.
Is that because they are now gone all Sports Direct?
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
Wrong on current polls if we had PR we likely would get a Tory and Reform coalition government, under FPTP though a Labour minority government with LD support more likely
There is 0% chance of Conservative Party going into government with Reform. It would be the most stupidest thing the Conservative Party has ever done, and probably the last thing because it would be a real threat to the Conservative Parties existence.
You are also embarrassingly wrong when you always take the Reform polling, and tell us it equates to xxx seats. It doesn’t. 😌
You can get an awful lot of seats under FPTP if voters from other parties chose you when their preference can’t win. For example you go up just 0.6% from last election yet go from 11 to 72 seats, up just 1.6% and add 211, or get 14.3% of votes for just 5 seats. In this regard, Reform are friendless. Nobody, including Conservatives, lend their vote to help Reform.
So the Reform seat figures you post from the polling numbers are complete gibberish.
It’s stark it’s not an era of two party politics, it’s like minded on election outcome voting blocks, voting interchangeable in FPTP. Where Reform are friendless in the FPTP exploitation, this has to change.
Far from it, if there is a hung parliament and the only options with a majority are Conservative + Reform or Conservative + Labour then of course the Conservatives would go into government with Reform.
As to not do so and reelect a Labour minority government Tory voters despise really would be the end of the Conservative party and would see most of its remaining voters defect en masse to Reform (mind you if Labour formed a government with the Tories half of the remaining Labour vote would likely go Green too)
Absolute nonsense. Labour form government with Con and lose half voters to Green, yet Con form government with Reform without shattering into little pieces in all directions?
What you will find is, where a week is a long time in politics, the next two and a half years maybe interminable where more defections from Con to Reform, the more bitter this rivalry becomes.
Coalition together? This can only become a deathmatch.
One has to cannibalise the other out of existence. They can’t co exist and get near government - the last General Election result is all the evidence you need of that.
So when it comes to that cannibalism of our bitter deathmatch rival, how do you actually understand the key differences between Reform and Conservatives right now, when you knock on doors and explain the vote has to be Conservatives not reform?
Conservatives are more pro-capitalism, smaller state and lower taxes.
Reform are not.
Thank goodness someone on the right gets it.
If you are any sort of Conservative worthy of the name, Reform are the enemy. Like a particularly unpleasant sexually transmitted parasite, they may give you temporary pleasure, but then they will hollow you out and seek to take over the semi-corpse.
Lib Dems, even Labour, are merely the opposition.
I agree
Our token former Welsh Nationalist seems to have bought into the would -be Fuhrer's policy offering.
Perfect example of the process state in action (hat tip @Malmesbury) today...
...at the last minute I've been asked to step in at school to mentor a new teacher going through qualification. It's extra work but enjoyable.
Part of the reason it is so much extra work is because I am expected by the DfE to do 20 hours of training in preparation for welcoming the trainee. This is challenging to fit in, in large part because I was asked to do it on Thursday and the trainee arrived on Monday.
Here's the process state in action: I skimmed through the training today; 3 hours of which was assessed by a 10 question multiple choice test. A monkey high on acid could have correctly completed the test.
Yet because I have filled in the correct boxes, my school now gets £120 of funding for the 3 hours I supposedly spent in training.
It's completely bonkers. Give me the gap fill first, allow me to self assess my training needs off the back of it, and fund any training needed. Save the DfE £120, save me being taught to suck eggs.
But that doesn't follow the right process I suppose.
Oh and as an aside @omnium are you about? After our discussion last week about percentage efficiency at work I did a minute by minute accounting of my day on Monday. I'm upping my claim for Monday's efficiency from 95% to 105%. From 0805 to 1610 I had the sum total of 6 minutes where I was not doing an activity necessary for my job (3 mins in the lunch queue, 3 mins drinking coffee and chatting about non work stuff). In the afternoon I was in compulsory training at the same time as emailing parents hence the 105%.
Congratulations on passing your multiple choice exam. You have won a secret prize - A monkey high on acid.
I’ve just done 2 course like that - data security in compliance. Clicked through, then got 100% on the exams and another PDF for no one to ever read.
Mentoring a new starter is one of the few things that puts a smile in my day.
I had my first new start for a while take up post this week. First port of call - 14.5hrs of HR-mandated 'training' videos. "How not to be a massive racist", "How not to be a sex pest", "Why you shouldn't burn the building down", "Why pouring petrol on a burning building is a bad idea", ...
None of it remotely challenging, which at least would be a saving grace. Just hours of borderline am-dram actors saying "I don't like the furrins" and then being quizzed on "Do you think this was a) a good thing to say, or b) a bad thing to say?"
Question 26:
Your customer, Hans, suggests getting an international gang of terrorists together, taking over a Japanese company building and stealing a huge pile of bearer bonds from their safe.
Do you
a) Go along with the scheme b) Suggest doing it at Christmas c) Call Compliance.
Question 27:
Your customer, Emperor Palpatine, wants to lay down a needlessly overcomplicated trap around the forest moon of Endor.
Do you
a) Point out that that planetbound shield generator is too vulnerable and should be shielded and garrisoned at battallion strength minimum b) Point out the inadvisability of your enforcer having to fight his son in your presence, thus posing an avoidable conflict of interest c) Don't have a shaft open to the reactor core that can fit a YT-1300 Corellian light freighter in for goodness' sake. d) Ewoks. Dangerous. Avoid.
You call H&S about the shaft to the reactor in your fucking office…
One thing of note about Star Wars (the proper three films) is that, with the exception of the destruction of the Planet Alderaan*, we never see any evidence of the Empire doing anything very evil. It appears to keep the peace and leave folk alone to make a living.
Um, the burning of Luke's Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru? Slaughter of the Jawas? Throttling Captain Antilles to death?
Tesla's letter to the Govt wanting more tax on petrol and diesel. No wonder he's pissed after the budget - a politician who won't do what he wants, even after he said please. At least he had the sense not to puff the Cybertruck, though he does promote his Semi.
I wouldn't get a Tesla if they gave them away free. That's how much he's sh*t on his brand.
I must admit that I find the recent strength in Tesla stock a bit odd: they've shat on their brand in Europe, in China they are likely to be the first company impacted by any retaliation to Trump's tariffs, and in the US people in Red states aren't buying Teslas.
It started going up when Musk got into bed with Trump, and continued after Trump won the election. My *assumption* is therefore people think Musk (and Tesla) will get something back from the Trump administration in return.
With Musk he already has perhaps billions of dollars of contracts - Satellite Terminals and Space Launches for two things.
If he is in Govt, and like other appointees he will have authority in areas where he has business relationships, and so poisonous conflicts of interest.
And none of them will recuse themselves, blind trusts etc. Trump will use it as an earning opportunity from his position, like last time. And so will the others.
One thing of note about Star Wars (the proper three films) is that, with the exception of the destruction of the Planet Alderaan*, we never see any evidence of the Empire doing anything very evil. It appears to keep the peace and leave folk alone to make a living.
If anything it is too lax and needs to come down harder on the rampant organised crime we see.
The “rebels”, or terrorists, on the other hand, seem to rely on mercenaries and smugglers who shoot first.
It’s ethically very ambiguous.
*Even then, we aren’t told who is on the planet when it is attacked or what atrocity may have been committed to require a strong response.
So you're saying the Empire kept the transport ships running on time...
To do also have nice uniforms, Hugo Boss perhaps?
Can't imagine them going to Gieves & Hawkes.
Is that because they are now gone all Sports Direct?
One thing of note about Star Wars (the proper three films) is that, with the exception of the destruction of the Planet Alderaan*, we never see any evidence of the Empire doing anything very evil. It appears to keep the peace and leave folk alone to make a living.
If anything it is too lax and needs to come down harder on the rampant organised crime we see.
The “rebels”, or terrorists, on the other hand, seem to rely on mercenaries and smugglers who shoot first.
It’s ethically very ambiguous.
*Even then, we aren’t told who is on the planet when it is attacked or what atrocity may have been committed to require a strong response.
So you're saying the Empire kept the transport ships running on time...
To do also have nice uniforms, Hugo Boss perhaps?
Can't imagine them going to Gieves & Hawkes.
Is that because they are now gone all Sports Direct?
One thing of note about Star Wars (the proper three films) is that, with the exception of the destruction of the Planet Alderaan*, we never see any evidence of the Empire doing anything very evil. It appears to keep the peace and leave folk alone to make a living.
If anything it is too lax and needs to come down harder on the rampant organised crime we see.
The “rebels”, or terrorists, on the other hand, seem to rely on mercenaries and smugglers who shoot first.
It’s ethically very ambiguous.
*Even then, we aren’t told who is on the planet when it is attacked or what atrocity may have been committed to require a strong response.
So you're saying the Empire kept the transport ships running on time...
To do also have nice uniforms, Hugo Boss perhaps?
Can't imagine them going to Gieves & Hawkes.
Is that because they are now gone all Sports Direct?
Tesla's letter to the Govt wanting more tax on petrol and diesel. No wonder he's pissed after the budget - a politician who won't do what he wants, even after he said please. At least he had the sense not to puff the Cybertruck, though he does promote his Semi.
I wouldn't get a Tesla if they gave them away free. That's how much he's sh*t on his brand.
I must admit that I find the recent strength in Tesla stock a bit odd: they've shat on their brand in Europe, in China they are likely to be the first company impacted by any retaliation to Trump's tariffs, and in the US people in Red states aren't buying Teslas.
The main thing I don’t understand about Tesla is that they have access to billions, they can poach the best car designers in the world to design their sports cars, saloons, 4wds, whatever, And yet every single car they design (apart from that old knock-off lotus Elise) looks like some absolutely dull car with not the tiniest bit of style or a skip on wheels.
(Leaving aside the Cybertruck for a second...)
That's because they are optmizing around drag coefficient. When your battery capacity was small, every tiny aero gain made a big difference.
Good point, well made. They are still ugly cars and a little bit of drag for a better looking car might be more popular than a little more range. This is just one reason why I’m. It a car designer or pioneer of technology perhaps.
Many electric cars follow the same pattern - trying to get the Cd to near 0.2 or even below.
Ok, thinking (lazily) about your point, and RCS’, all cars ICE or electric could/should be designed to their maximum efficiency but a lot aren’t because humans like many things where the perfect is overridden by the heart or soul. People will buy a Ferrari because it’s beautiful and powerful but not remotely efficient, or a G-Wagen. So surely at some point Tesla has to give a little on aero to attract the soul?
Tesla (and others) have noted that when they launch a range of cars with different range, the best sellers are those with the longest range. In fact several times, Tesla discontinued the shortest range option because not enough people were buying it, to make it non-profitable to sell.
So until people are comfortable with range, range will be everything in EVs.
I remember when there was a hurricane in Florida a few years ago Tesla made all the short range cars into long range cars via a download.
There was outrage that people had been spending 10a of thousand for what was essentially a computer programme…
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
Tesla's letter to the Govt wanting more tax on petrol and diesel. No wonder he's pissed after the budget - a politician who won't do what he wants, even after he said please. At least he had the sense not to puff the Cybertruck, though he does promote his Semi.
I wouldn't get a Tesla if they gave them away free. That's how much he's sh*t on his brand.
I must admit that I find the recent strength in Tesla stock a bit odd: they've shat on their brand in Europe, in China they are likely to be the first company impacted by any retaliation to Trump's tariffs, and in the US people in Red states aren't buying Teslas.
The main thing I don’t understand about Tesla is that they have access to billions, they can poach the best car designers in the world to design their sports cars, saloons, 4wds, whatever, And yet every single car they design (apart from that old knock-off lotus Elise) looks like some absolutely dull car with not the tiniest bit of style or a skip on wheels.
(Leaving aside the Cybertruck for a second...)
That's because they are optmizing around drag coefficient. When your battery capacity was small, every tiny aero gain made a big difference.
Good point, well made. They are still ugly cars and a little bit of drag for a better looking car might be more popular than a little more range. This is just one reason why I’m. It a car designer or pioneer of technology perhaps.
Many electric cars follow the same pattern - trying to get the Cd to near 0.2 or even below.
Ok, thinking (lazily) about your point, and RCS’, all cars ICE or electric could/should be designed to their maximum efficiency but a lot aren’t because humans like many things where the perfect is overridden by the heart or soul. People will buy a Ferrari because it’s beautiful and powerful but not remotely efficient, or a G-Wagen. So surely at some point Tesla has to give a little on aero to attract the soul?
Tesla (and others) have noted that when they launch a range of cars with different range, the best sellers are those with the longest range. In fact several times, Tesla discontinued the shortest range option because not enough people were buying it, to make it non-profitable to sell.
So until people are comfortable with range, range will be everything in EVs.
I remember when there was a hurricane in Florida a few years ago Tesla made all the short range cars into long range cars via a download.
There was outrage that people had been spending 10a of thousand for what was essentially a computer programme…
What happened was that the shortest range car was made by selling a longer range vehicle with a software restriction. It was cheaper to include the larger battery, rather than make a separate, smaller one.
It actually gave slightly better value - as the battery degraded, it would “use” the unused extra capacity. So the car would retain its full, as sold, range for about 20 years.
Tesla's letter to the Govt wanting more tax on petrol and diesel. No wonder he's pissed after the budget - a politician who won't do what he wants, even after he said please. At least he had the sense not to puff the Cybertruck, though he does promote his Semi.
I wouldn't get a Tesla if they gave them away free. That's how much he's sh*t on his brand.
I must admit that I find the recent strength in Tesla stock a bit odd: they've shat on their brand in Europe, in China they are likely to be the first company impacted by any retaliation to Trump's tariffs, and in the US people in Red states aren't buying Teslas.
The main thing I don’t understand about Tesla is that they have access to billions, they can poach the best car designers in the world to design their sports cars, saloons, 4wds, whatever, And yet every single car they design (apart from that old knock-off lotus Elise) looks like some absolutely dull car with not the tiniest bit of style or a skip on wheels.
(Leaving aside the Cybertruck for a second...)
That's because they are optmizing around drag coefficient. When your battery capacity was small, every tiny aero gain made a big difference.
Good point, well made. They are still ugly cars and a little bit of drag for a better looking car might be more popular than a little more range. This is just one reason why I’m. It a car designer or pioneer of technology perhaps.
Many electric cars follow the same pattern - trying to get the Cd to near 0.2 or even below.
Ok, thinking (lazily) about your point, and RCS’, all cars ICE or electric could/should be designed to their maximum efficiency but a lot aren’t because humans like many things where the perfect is overridden by the heart or soul. People will buy a Ferrari because it’s beautiful and powerful but not remotely efficient, or a G-Wagen. So surely at some point Tesla has to give a little on aero to attract the soul?
Tesla (and others) have noted that when they launch a range of cars with different range, the best sellers are those with the longest range. In fact several times, Tesla discontinued the shortest range option because not enough people were buying it, to make it non-profitable to sell.
So until people are comfortable with range, range will be everything in EVs.
I remember when there was a hurricane in Florida a few years ago Tesla made all the short range cars into long range cars via a download.
There was outrage that people had been spending 10a of thousand for what was essentially a computer programme…
What happened was that the shortest range car was made by selling a longer range vehicle with a software restriction. It was cheaper to include the larger battery, rather than make a separate, smaller one.
It actually gave slightly better value - as the battery degraded, it would “use” the unused extra capacity. So the car would retain its full, as sold, range for about 20 years.
Ministers are planning to cut more than 10,000 civil service jobs as Whitehall departments battle to stay within spending limits under a new government efficiency drive, the Guardian has learned.
So the government is anti-immigration, doing austerity-by-cutting-all-departments-except-NHS and is now claiming to be cutting civil service jobs.
Time warp time or what?
You have to wonder just how worried Starmer and Reeves are on the economy
Taxing, spending and borrowing are at unsustainable levels
After squandering their golden inheritance after just five months I am warming to your Musk funded coup. I have a good three word slogan too. Farage for Fuhrer!*
*Nice alliteration I thought.
After a few years of power and the collapse of the country - "Farage for Forager!" has a nice ring too.
Starmer and Farage Beyond Thunderdome? Two men enter Farage leaves.
If Trump succeeds in annexing Canada, will he be the greatest US president since Lincoln?
When someone continually asks stupid questions, is it a sign that they're actually stupid?
If political integration is a good idea for Europe, why not North America? It would consolidate the US's position as the primary superpower.
Aren't you selling the idea as an annexation by the USA and Canada is absorbed into the US, rather than a trade partnership between equal (more or less) parties?
I am sure your average Canuck will be outraged.
Speaking for my son and Canadian daughter in law who live in Vancouver
It is not going to happen
Don't you think William has Trump's ear. I'm sure it is on!
He should give it back!
I dislike Trump as much as the next man but that’s taking it a bit far
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
Hang on: while I agree he was an arsehole, I'm not sure the best way to dispense justice is via silenced pistols on street corners.
Tesla's letter to the Govt wanting more tax on petrol and diesel. No wonder he's pissed after the budget - a politician who won't do what he wants, even after he said please. At least he had the sense not to puff the Cybertruck, though he does promote his Semi.
I wouldn't get a Tesla if they gave them away free. That's how much he's sh*t on his brand.
I must admit that I find the recent strength in Tesla stock a bit odd: they've shat on their brand in Europe, in China they are likely to be the first company impacted by any retaliation to Trump's tariffs, and in the US people in Red states aren't buying Teslas.
The main thing I don’t understand about Tesla is that they have access to billions, they can poach the best car designers in the world to design their sports cars, saloons, 4wds, whatever, And yet every single car they design (apart from that old knock-off lotus Elise) looks like some absolutely dull car with not the tiniest bit of style or a skip on wheels.
(Leaving aside the Cybertruck for a second...)
That's because they are optmizing around drag coefficient. When your battery capacity was small, every tiny aero gain made a big difference.
Good point, well made. They are still ugly cars and a little bit of drag for a better looking car might be more popular than a little more range. This is just one reason why I’m. It a car designer or pioneer of technology perhaps.
Many electric cars follow the same pattern - trying to get the Cd to near 0.2 or even below.
Ok, thinking (lazily) about your point, and RCS’, all cars ICE or electric could/should be designed to their maximum efficiency but a lot aren’t because humans like many things where the perfect is overridden by the heart or soul. People will buy a Ferrari because it’s beautiful and powerful but not remotely efficient, or a G-Wagen. So surely at some point Tesla has to give a little on aero to attract the soul?
Tesla (and others) have noted that when they launch a range of cars with different range, the best sellers are those with the longest range. In fact several times, Tesla discontinued the shortest range option because not enough people were buying it, to make it non-profitable to sell.
So until people are comfortable with range, range will be everything in EVs.
I remember when there was a hurricane in Florida a few years ago Tesla made all the short range cars into long range cars via a download.
There was outrage that people had been spending 10a of thousand for what was essentially a computer programme…
What happened was that the shortest range car was made by selling a longer range vehicle with a software restriction. It was cheaper to include the larger battery, rather than make a separate, smaller one.
It actually gave slightly better value - as the battery degraded, it would “use” the unused extra capacity. So the car would retain its full, as sold, range for about 20 years.
Nvidia, Intel and AMD waves....
Ha yes.
NVIDIA took it to an extreme with their mega-GPUs - the yield of perfect chips was tiny. So they would blow “fuses” between sections to make cheaper, low end GPUs. The few perfect ones would be sold at very high prices.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
Hang on: while I agree he was an arsehole, I'm not sure the best way to dispense justice is via silenced pistols on street corners.
No, I don't think it's the best way either, yet justice was done where it wouldn't otherwise have been by the regulators or justice system. I'm honestly going to be surprised if they can find 12 jurors to convict this guy in New York, there's a lot of sympathy for this guy across the political spectrum from what I can tell. Trump voters and Dems alike are aligned.
What's that about Labour abolishing all strike laws?
If you're offering striking train drivers 10%+, don't be surprised when those being offered 2.5% conclude a) they're being fobbed off, and b) that striking works.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
Trump channels the anger, sure, but it seems likely that he will make the situation worse not better.
Once more for those of you at the back: 1. In business, don't be greedy, leave something on the table for everyone else. 2. In politics, it's better to concede reform than wait for revolution.
I suppose the question is whether the dead CEO was a uniquely bad apple, or just someone doing what he had to do to get to the top in a horrible business. (And yes, he could have walked at any moment, but how many of us would have had the guts to do that?) The striking thing is how little condemnation the murderer seems to have got.
If Trump succeeds in annexing Canada, will he be the greatest US president since Lincoln?
He won't, apart from maybe Alberta and the Canadian praries no other Canadian provinces would even consider joining a Trump led US. Indeed if Vance or Trump Jr won in 2028 there is more chance of New England and New York, Illinois and Minnesota and the US Pacific west coast joining Canada than most of Canada joining a Trumpite USA
I was struck on my recent visit to British Colombia by the number of Canadian flags being proudly flown - in backgardens etc
No way they would accept absorption by the USA. They are very definitely Canucks, and they are - rightly - happy in their identity
However they are increasingly anti-Woke and patriotically Canadian Canucks, hence the plunging polls for Trudeau. Yet another western nation shifting right
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
Hang on: while I agree he was an arsehole, I'm not sure the best way to dispense justice is via silenced pistols on street corners.
No, I don't think it's the best way either, yet justice was done where it wouldn't otherwise have been by the regulators or justice system. I'm honestly going to be surprised if they can find 12 jurors to convict this guy in New York, there's a lot of sympathy for this guy across the political spectrum from what I can tell. Trump voters and Dems alike are aligned.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
He shouldn't have been shot though.
He should have been jailed for fraud, for selling a product that was never going to be delivered.
Insurance companies should get bankrupted by the market, but they don't and that's market failure.
I don't find UK health insurers very different*, but at least there is back up via the NHS.
*Exeter Friendly seems about the best. I don't think they have ever refused cover or underpaid my modest bills.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
Trump channels the anger, sure, but it seems likely that he will make the situation worse not better.
Once more for those of you at the back: 1. In business, don't be greedy, leave something on the table for everyone else. 2. In politics, it's better to concede reform than wait for revolution.
I suppose the question is whether the dead CEO was a uniquely bad apple, or just someone doing what he had to do to get to the top in a horrible business. (And yes, he could have walked at any moment, but how many of us would have had the guts to do that?) The striking thing is how little condemnation the murderer seems to have got.
I don't think Trump will make anything better either, but it may lead to someone like Bernie winning next time who will definitely make serious changes to the US economy. If Trump doesn't make changes to the healthcare industrial profit machine then I think the US will swing to whatever candidate can get through the primary process who does promise it.
I think back to 2016 now and I think in a rerun I'd have voted for Bernie all the way through. I think if he hadn't been shafted out of the candidacy by the DNC then he'd have won and what I've learned is that millions of voters who backed Bernie just backed Trump. It's the promise of change that US voters are looking for and the Democratic party really needs to see that before they put forwards another corpo candidate like Harris.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
Trump channels the anger, sure, but it seems likely that he will make the situation worse not better.
Once more for those of you at the back: 1. In business, don't be greedy, leave something on the table for everyone else. 2. In politics, it's better to concede reform than wait for revolution.
I suppose the question is whether the dead CEO was a uniquely bad apple, or just someone doing what he had to do to get to the top in a horrible business. (And yes, he could have walked at any moment, but how many of us would have had the guts to do that?) The striking thing is how little condemnation the murderer seems to have got.
Trump is famous for screwing his customers and suppliers.
He is going to be on the side of the Insurabce companies, not the little guy.
Some of the media coverage of ISIS in suits taking over in Syria is very weird, particularly when they aren't exactly hiding their behaviour.
Most coverage has seemed cautiously optimistic with emphasis on caution - certainly the background of the rebel leadership has not been shied away from - but it is quite possible outlets will get a bit carried away.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
You're not sorry he was murdered??!
Don't be a prat
I'm not. I know it sounds horrible but I can't get exercised by it. The CEO knew what he was doing when he screwed over millions of policy holders by delaying and denying procedures and payments. It was his changes to the company's business practices that saw thousands of Americans die because they weren't getting treatment they'd paid insurance to receive. He really got what was coming to him in the end, it might just put the other health insurance company CEOs on notice too.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
He shouldn't have been shot though.
He should have been jailed for fraud, for selling a product that was never going to be delivered.
Insurance companies should get bankrupted by the market, but they don't and that's market failure.
I don't find UK health insurers very different*, but at least there is back up via the NHS.
*Exeter Friendly seems about the best. I don't think they have ever refused cover or underpaid my modest bills.
He shouldn't have been no, but again this feels like justice to me and maybe that's wrong of me to say but that's how I and millions of others feel about the situation. I'd say the vast majority of Americans have the same outlook on it.
My experience of UK insurance providers is much more positive, I've literally never had a claim denied by AXA. They're truly brilliant, always pay out without any complaints and my heart condition is fully covered, again with no complaints.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
He shouldn't have been shot though.
He should have been jailed for fraud, for selling a product that was never going to be delivered.
Insurance companies should get bankrupted by the market, but they don't and that's market failure.
I don't find UK health insurers very different*, but at least there is back up via the NHS.
*Exeter Friendly seems about the best. I don't think they have ever refused cover or underpaid my modest bills.
He should have been no, but again this feels like justice to me and maybe that's wrong of me to say but that's how I and millions of others feel about the situation. I'd say the vast majority of Americans have the same outlook on it.
My experience of UK insurance providers is much more positive, I've literally never had a claim denied by AXA. They're truly brilliant, always pay out without any complaints and my heart condition is fully covered, again with no complaints.
It is wrong, but it is at least honest, as plenty of people will be thinking it and hemming and hawing about it.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
Trump channels the anger, sure, but it seems likely that he will make the situation worse not better.
Once more for those of you at the back: 1. In business, don't be greedy, leave something on the table for everyone else. 2. In politics, it's better to concede reform than wait for revolution.
I suppose the question is whether the dead CEO was a uniquely bad apple, or just someone doing what he had to do to get to the top in a horrible business. (And yes, he could have walked at any moment, but how many of us would have had the guts to do that?) The striking thing is how little condemnation the murderer seems to have got.
I don't think Trump will make anything better either, but it may lead to someone like Bernie winning next time who will definitely make serious changes to the US economy. If Trump doesn't make changes to the healthcare industrial profit machine then I think the US will swing to whatever candidate can get through the primary process who does promise it.
I think back to 2016 now and I think in a rerun I'd have voted for Bernie all the way through. I think if he hadn't been shafted out of the candidacy by the DNC then he'd have won and what I've learned is that millions of voters who backed Bernie just backed Trump. It's the promise of change that US voters are looking for and the Democratic party really needs to see that before they put forwards another corpo candidate like Harris.
This clip shows why Bernie was unelectable. He was a rabbit in the headlights faced with the modern activist left.
If Trump succeeds in annexing Canada, will he be the greatest US president since Lincoln?
When someone continually asks stupid questions, is it a sign that they're actually stupid?
If political integration is a good idea for Europe, why not North America? It would consolidate the US's position as the primary superpower.
Trump, the first PM of the Dominion of North America. A position conveniently without term limits.
Da Greater English-speaking Federation:
USA and territories Canadia UK and dependencies and territories Ireland Australia and territories NZ and territories The remaining Commonwealth Realms
Can't be US or Ireland though as they are republics
What's stopping my Federation becoming a republic?
Federation? Did someone say Federation?
You are missing the real Federation.
Somebody pointed out the other day that Andor is a defacto remake of Blake's 7.
When Servalan (Jacqueline Pearce) died, Popbitch printed this:
"Jacqueline Pearce received lots of filthy fan mail and gladly read it all. If any missives particularly appealed to her, she would visit the sender and indulge him in his fantasy."
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
He shouldn't have been shot though.
He should have been jailed for fraud, for selling a product that was never going to be delivered.
Insurance companies should get bankrupted by the market, but they don't and that's market failure.
I don't find UK health insurers very different*, but at least there is back up via the NHS.
*Exeter Friendly seems about the best. I don't think they have ever refused cover or underpaid my modest bills.
He should have been no, but again this feels like justice to me and maybe that's wrong of me to say but that's how I and millions of others feel about the situation. I'd say the vast majority of Americans have the same outlook on it.
My experience of UK insurance providers is much more positive, I've literally never had a claim denied by AXA. They're truly brilliant, always pay out without any complaints and my heart condition is fully covered, again with no complaints.
Quite a few of my colleagues won't work with AXA, because they don't pay enough to make seeing their patients worthwhile, and don't allow us to shortfall the difference.
I no longer take AXA patients and I charge substantially below national rates. It varies with the type of policy and speciality of course. BUPA are even worse though.
An insurance company is a company that rents you an umbrella in the sunshine and takes it back when the rain starts.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
He shouldn't have been shot though.
He should have been jailed for fraud, for selling a product that was never going to be delivered.
Insurance companies should get bankrupted by the market, but they don't and that's market failure.
I don't find UK health insurers very different*, but at least there is back up via the NHS.
*Exeter Friendly seems about the best. I don't think they have ever refused cover or underpaid my modest bills.
He should have been no, but again this feels like justice to me and maybe that's wrong of me to say but that's how I and millions of others feel about the situation. I'd say the vast majority of Americans have the same outlook on it.
My experience of UK insurance providers is much more positive, I've literally never had a claim denied by AXA. They're truly brilliant, always pay out without any complaints and my heart condition is fully covered, again with no complaints.
YouGov: 51% inappropriate to feel happy about it 22% appropriate
I'm not sure about "happy" - I suspect "justified" would have seen much higher numbers.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
You're not sorry he was murdered??!
Don't be a prat
I'm not. I know it sounds horrible but I can't get exercised by it. The CEO knew what he was doing when he screwed over millions of policy holders by delaying and denying procedures and payments. It was his changes to the company's business practices that saw thousands of Americans die because they weren't getting treatment they'd paid insurance to receive. He really got what was coming to him in the end, it might just put the other health insurance company CEOs on notice too.
Yeah, but NO
This is cold-blooded murder on a Manhattan street, nothing else. Now, I can think of several hundred people I'd quite like - emotionally - to be gunned down on the streets of London - and many of them deserve it, morally - but I accept it is not right and should not happen, absent total war. You do yourself a disservice with remarks like this. Don't go mad. You're a valued PB commenter
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
Hang on: while I agree he was an arsehole, I'm not sure the best way to dispense justice is via silenced pistols on street corners.
It has a certain, worrying, Gavrilo Princip note about it.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
He shouldn't have been shot though.
He should have been jailed for fraud, for selling a product that was never going to be delivered.
Insurance companies should get bankrupted by the market, but they don't and that's market failure.
I don't find UK health insurers very different*, but at least there is back up via the NHS.
*Exeter Friendly seems about the best. I don't think they have ever refused cover or underpaid my modest bills.
I’ve used a couple (via work) never had a claim denied, or even delayed.
One thing my American relatives noticed, when we discussed this - the U.K. terms are much, much clearer on what is covered. The US ones are written to obfuscate.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
Trump channels the anger, sure, but it seems likely that he will make the situation worse not better.
Once more for those of you at the back: 1. In business, don't be greedy, leave something on the table for everyone else. 2. In politics, it's better to concede reform than wait for revolution.
I suppose the question is whether the dead CEO was a uniquely bad apple, or just someone doing what he had to do to get to the top in a horrible business. (And yes, he could have walked at any moment, but how many of us would have had the guts to do that?) The striking thing is how little condemnation the murderer seems to have got.
I don't think Trump will make anything better either, but it may lead to someone like Bernie winning next time who will definitely make serious changes to the US economy. If Trump doesn't make changes to the healthcare industrial profit machine then I think the US will swing to whatever candidate can get through the primary process who does promise it.
I think back to 2016 now and I think in a rerun I'd have voted for Bernie all the way through. I think if he hadn't been shafted out of the candidacy by the DNC then he'd have won and what I've learned is that millions of voters who backed Bernie just backed Trump. It's the promise of change that US voters are looking for and the Democratic party really needs to see that before they put forwards another corpo candidate like Harris.
This clip shows why Bernie was unelectable. He was a rabbit in the headlights faced with the modern activist left.
Yeah I don't think Bernie could have stood up to the idiot activists in the end like Trump has but Kamala was the activist candidate and she lost. Bernie went on his "I told you so" tour which was fun to watch but now the Dems need a candidate to can tell the leftist BLM and trans activists to shut the fuck up and very publicly eviscerate them and laugh in their faces when they cry about it.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
You're not sorry he was murdered??!
Don't be a prat
I'm not. I know it sounds horrible but I can't get exercised by it. The CEO knew what he was doing when he screwed over millions of policy holders by delaying and denying procedures and payments. It was his changes to the company's business practices that saw thousands of Americans die because they weren't getting treatment they'd paid insurance to receive. He really got what was coming to him in the end, it might just put the other health insurance company CEOs on notice too.
Yeah, but NO
This is cold-blooded murder on a Manhattan street, nothing else. Now, I can think of several hundred people I'd quite like - emotionally - to be gunned down on the streets of London - and many of them deserve it, morally - but I accept it is not right and should not happen, absent total war. You do yourself a disservice with remarks like this. Don't go mad. You're a valued PB commenter
I accept it shouldn't have happened but I'm not sorry about it. I think that's the prevailing view of the incident fwiw.
If Trump succeeds in annexing Canada, will he be the greatest US president since Lincoln?
When someone continually asks stupid questions, is it a sign that they're actually stupid?
If political integration is a good idea for Europe, why not North America? It would consolidate the US's position as the primary superpower.
Trump, the first PM of the Dominion of North America. A position conveniently without term limits.
Da Greater English-speaking Federation:
USA and territories Canadia UK and dependencies and territories Ireland Australia and territories NZ and territories The remaining Commonwealth Realms
Can't be US or Ireland though as they are republics
What's stopping my Federation becoming a republic?
Federation? Did someone say Federation?
You are missing the real Federation.
Somebody pointed out the other day that Andor is a defacto remake of Blake's 7.
When Servalan (Jacqueline Pearce) died, Popbitch printed this:
"Jacqueline Pearce received lots of filthy fan mail and gladly read it all. If any missives particularly appealed to her, she would visit the sender and indulge him in his fantasy."
What a gal!
I remember walking along Oxford Street and seeing her strolling along. Maybe 50ft behind her a gaggle of over-excited fans/fetishists. The gleeful, wicked grin on her face as she strolled along was wider than any Cheshire Cat could have managed. RIP.
Striking how many speakers at the @ChathamHouse conference on 'Safeguarding Europe' have said - correctly, in my view- that many Western capitals are more worried about Russia losing than about Ukraine losing
This was a great response:
Our addiction to maintaining the status quo is, ultimately, what is ensuring the destruction of our precious “rules based order”. Can’t keep it, if we won’t fight for it.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
In traditional Britain, someone would have squashed a cream pie in his face to show their annoyance. (Not really possible today, because people would assume it wasn't just a cream pie but something more dangerous).
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
My goodness. If murder is the right response to an insurance company denying claims, I wonder what all those pillocks in the City deserve. Perhaps overpaid prats can be "offed" just because others don't like them or the way they do business. A bit messier than the law but so much quicker.
@Leon called you a prat. He's being kind. A man was murdered in cold blood and your reaction is to call that "justice". Unbelievable.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
You're not sorry he was murdered??!
Don't be a prat
I'm not. I know it sounds horrible but I can't get exercised by it. The CEO knew what he was doing when he screwed over millions of policy holders by delaying and denying procedures and payments. It was his changes to the company's business practices that saw thousands of Americans die because they weren't getting treatment they'd paid insurance to receive. He really got what was coming to him in the end, it might just put the other health insurance company CEOs on notice too.
Yeah, but NO
This is cold-blooded murder on a Manhattan street, nothing else. Now, I can think of several hundred people I'd quite like - emotionally - to be gunned down on the streets of London - and many of them deserve it, morally - but I accept it is not right and should not happen, absent total war. You do yourself a disservice with remarks like this. Don't go mad. You're a valued PB commenter
Yeah, but then who would you have to chat with on PB?
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
You're not sorry he was murdered??!
Don't be a prat
I'm not. I know it sounds horrible but I can't get exercised by it. The CEO knew what he was doing when he screwed over millions of policy holders by delaying and denying procedures and payments. It was his changes to the company's business practices that saw thousands of Americans die because they weren't getting treatment they'd paid insurance to receive. He really got what was coming to him in the end, it might just put the other health insurance company CEOs on notice too.
Yeah, but NO
This is cold-blooded murder on a Manhattan street, nothing else. Now, I can think of several hundred people I'd quite like - emotionally - to be gunned down on the streets of London - and many of them deserve it, morally - but I accept it is not right and should not happen, absent total war. You do yourself a disservice with remarks like this. Don't go mad. You're a valued PB commenter
Have you had a look on Reddit? Max is coming across as more reasonable than 99% of comments on there. And it's cross cutting - r/Conservative and r/Republican are vicious too. I think it's very difficult to comprehend from a UK perspective.
Top comment on latest thread on r/Conservative: I work in a very conservative industry. This is the general sentiment across it right now. No body give a a shit about this CEO. Did Luigi likely do something wrong? Sure. But these bastards have been fucking us over for decades. Nobody is bothered by his death.
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
You're not sorry he was murdered??!
Don't be a prat
I'm not. I know it sounds horrible but I can't get exercised by it. The CEO knew what he was doing when he screwed over millions of policy holders by delaying and denying procedures and payments. It was his changes to the company's business practices that saw thousands of Americans die because they weren't getting treatment they'd paid insurance to receive. He really got what was coming to him in the end, it might just put the other health insurance company CEOs on notice too.
Striking how many speakers at the @ChathamHouse conference on 'Safeguarding Europe' have said - correctly, in my view- that many Western capitals are more worried about Russia losing than about Ukraine losing
This was a great response:
Our addiction to maintaining the status quo is, ultimately, what is ensuring the destruction of our precious “rules based order”. Can’t keep it, if we won’t fight for it.
I've always been struck by a line in the last episode of The Prisoner
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
In traditional Britain, someone would have squashed a cream pie in his face to show their annoyance. (Not really possible today, because people would assume it wasn't just a cream pie but something more dangerous).
I do wish we had some more Starmer fans here to balance out the site a bit. I feel like I’m the only one writing from that perspective.
We’ve still got a small contingent of lefties but overall the site feels far more hostile to the government that it has since I’ve been around these parts.
I liked this site because it had a range of views across the spectrum.
Starmer is shite though. He's better than what he replaced, but only because he isn't what he replaced. He's just working his notice.
I don’t think he is shite. I think his comms ability is poor but I really believe in some of the fundamental changes he is trying to make.
My concern with him is that he needs to communicate and I’m struggling to see if he has that in him.
My point wasn’t that I am hoping for lots of people to say how fabulous he is because that’s clearly nonsense but I do really think this forum is fairly one-sided on the government and has been since day one.
I just struggle to take seriously some of the people who tell us how bad Starmer is but were also saying how Johnson would be going for a decade. I am struggling to understand how intelligent people here can conclude he’s finished in December 2024.
As someone who didn't vote Labour I would just say I'm fed up with hearing (and not just on here) people saying how terrible Labour are, they're the worst government ever.
Objectively, they have only had a few months, some of which was the summer recess, so they are unlikely to have fixed any of the deep-rooted issues left for them by 9 or 14 years of Tory rule (depending on where you start counting). Have all the people bellyaching been asleep for the past 9 years? It has been one shambles after another, with 3 successive administrations each being the worst in my adult lifetime until Sunak was a slight uptick after Truss.
Perhaps less objectively, they have been poor at communications, timidly conservative and generally underwhelming. But they are a vast improvement on what has gone before; there is a seriousness of purpose that has been missing for a long time.
Most of the noise is from the right, unused to being out of power, but also from the left who see the current government as Tory by another name (which it is, to be fair, partly out of necessity). So there are few natural supporters; I am centrist and don't support Labour so I'm critical, but I'd still much rather a Starmer government than anything the Tories have offered in my lifetime except perhaps for Cameron's version (and he ultimately fails for messing up over Brexit).
I agree they are not as terrible as the last lot, but they should have made no unforced errors, (WFA, IHT, and when they broke their promise on no IT/NI/VAT rises they should have broken it by raising VAT).
'Poor at comms' covers a big area. As they had an agenda starting from disastrous, commanding the narrative was the first priority. As nothing could get better quickly, and taxes had to rise, (and will have to again) the story of 'where are we going and how are we going to get there' had to be fabulously well told and constantly reiterated.
It isn't even possible to discern their direction of travel on migration - which can be an election losing/winning matter. And Angela Rayner was disastrous this week on the relationship of housing need and migration.
What did Rayner do/say this week on housing and migration?!
When she was asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky where will she house all the immigrants she said there is no shortage of homes
That is stupendously dumb and clumsy
Yet it's been the unspoken position of the pro-immigration lobby for the last 25 years. They can just keep coming indefinitely.
It's more that, to suggest that immigration has any costs/issues is considered "anti-immigration" or "pandering to the far right".
Reform will win in 2028. I feel it in my bones
The General Election is on 3rd May 2029 though.
For Reform to win in *2028*: 1) Would need Labour to be well ahead in the polls for Starmer to call an early election 2) Starmer proceeds to have a car crash of a campaign which makes Theresa May's 2017 one look like Obama's 2008 election campaign 3) Badenoch continues to be useless 4) Reform has a set of policies which appeal beyond it's anti-immigration, anti-woke core base. This includes having something to offer younger, working age people in terms of housing, cost of living etc.
You’ve forgotten that UK governments almost never proceed to the full term. They almost always find a reason to go beforehand - eg Rishi Sunak
The last time we saw a full term was Gordon Brown in 2010? IIRC?
And your forgetting the Reform vote is a protest vote - a none of the above vote. They get as many votes as they now get, on the basis they aren’t going to get anywhere near power. Reform have no credibility to their policies - the country is full, so there won’t be any immigration under us, is as detailed as their policy gets.
Also FPTP prevents happening here what happened in America. Even with PR, and many more Reform MPs even largest party, no one will coalition with them.
How does FPTP prevent what happened in America when America uses FPTP?
Because we use FPTP for MPs, and PM commands support of MPs in parliament, we don’t directly elect PM like US directly elects President. 😏
Yes, it's a pretty fundamental difference. Here MPs can and do chuck out Prime Ministers. The electoral college is a once-only process to confirm who will be inaugurated as president.
Would US politics and discourse improve if some of its elections were under PR? Would that stop it being a two party system, and the quality of candidates and debate improve by it becoming multi party?
The level of discourse is determined by the franchise, not the voting system. If you want to improve the quality, you should restrict the franchise.
How has the franchise in the UK changed since the 1970s? I mention this, because the quality of political debate has notably worsened since then.
Is it just possible that there might be other factors - such as social media - that have acted to worsen the quality of discourse?
The reaction to the murder of Brian Thompson has finally convinced me that social media is not a good thing.
Because the businesses that run it have worked out they can make more money by appealing to the worst aspects of human behaviour.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
I'm not sorry that the UHC CEO got offed. He seemed like a complete arsehole, under his leadership UHC denials rose to 30% and further 30% reported delays in payments and treatments. If the government isn't willing to properly regulate these industries then people will react to these changes driven by management. It's almost Newtonian. The US healthcare system is completely fucked up and the people are very, very angry about it. There's a reason that few if any politicians or other business leaders have condemned the killing because there's a realisation that in chasing profit and share value UHC has overseen actual deaths by denying and delaying claims.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
You're not sorry he was murdered??!
Don't be a prat
I'm not. I know it sounds horrible but I can't get exercised by it. The CEO knew what he was doing when he screwed over millions of policy holders by delaying and denying procedures and payments. It was his changes to the company's business practices that saw thousands of Americans die because they weren't getting treatment they'd paid insurance to receive. He really got what was coming to him in the end, it might just put the other health insurance company CEOs on notice too.
Yeah, but NO
This is cold-blooded murder on a Manhattan street, nothing else. Now, I can think of several hundred people I'd quite like - emotionally - to be gunned down on the streets of London - and many of them deserve it, morally - but I accept it is not right and should not happen, absent total war. You do yourself a disservice with remarks like this. Don't go mad. You're a valued PB commenter
Have you had a look on Reddit? Max is coming across as more reasonable than 99% of comments on there. And it's cross cutting - r/Conservative and r/Republican are vicious too. I think it's very difficult to comprehend from a UK perspective.
Top comment on latest thread on r/Conservative: I work in a very conservative industry. This is the general sentiment across it right now. No body give a a shit about this CEO. Did Luigi likely do something wrong? Sure. But these bastards have been fucking us over for decades. Nobody is bothered by his death.
IBM was doing it way, way before those companies. IIRC one of the first examples of this sort of thing was that IBM sold DASDs (what everyone else called a hard drive) where the drive could be upgraded at the flip of a switch by the service personnel.
The best examples of this are IBM mainframes which are stuffed full of redundant/spare/upgradable hardware, configurable for a large fee, and even a lot of the supposedly different parts are software configurable by changing the microcode. What's in the box and what you can do with it is simply down to how much are you willing to pay?
Comments
Your customer, Emperor Palpatine, wants to lay down a needlessly overcomplicated trap around the forest moon of Endor.
Do you
a) Point out that that planetbound shield generator is too vulnerable and should be shielded and garrisoned at battallion strength minimum
b) Point out the inadvisability of your enforcer having to fight his son in your presence, thus posing an avoidable conflict of interest
c) Don't have a shaft open to the reactor core that can fit a YT-1300 Corellian light freighter in for goodness' sake.
d) Ewoks. Dangerous. Avoid.
What you will find is, where a week is a long time in politics, the next two and a half years maybe interminable where more defections from Con to Reform, the more bitter this rivalry becomes.
Coalition together? This can only become a deathmatch.
One has to cannibalise the other out of existence. They can’t co exist and get near government - the last General Election result is all the evidence you need of that.
So when it comes to that cannibalism of our bitter deathmatch rival, how do you actually understand the key differences between Reform and Conservatives right now, when you knock on doors and explain the vote has to be Conservatives not reform?
Met police staff vote to strike
https://www.pcs.org.uk/news-events/news/met-police-staff-vote-strike-action-over-return-offices
Reform are not.
If anything it is too lax and needs to come down harder on the rampant organised crime we see.
The “rebels”, or terrorists, on the other hand, seem to rely on mercenaries and smugglers who shoot first.
It’s ethically very ambiguous.
*Even then, we aren’t told who is on the planet when it is attacked or what atrocity may have been committed to require a strong response.
That's why it needs to be regulated. All human interactions are.
If you're a dickhead, horrendously drunk or disruptive in a pub, you get thrown out. But, if you're well behaved you can put your case to the regulars and try whatever argument you like.
If you are any sort of Conservative worthy of the name, Reform are the enemy. Like a particularly unpleasant sexually transmitted parasite, they may give you temporary pleasure, but then they will hollow you out and seek to take over the semi-corpse.
Lib Dems, even Labour, are merely the opposition.
This creates a radicalisation spiral.
When you add in the social convention of little or no filters in conversation online…
But I take the original point. Terrifying to see so many celebrate a murder.
In order to deal with all this the only thing possible was: to avoid unforced errors, to cultivate honesty and communicate where we are going and how he plans to get there. All these have failed. He 'relaunched' only a few days ago and no-one noticed it had happened. People have stopped being interested in this government.
Man city losing again
Justice swiftly administered...
Besides, we don’t know whether the uncle and aunt shot first, nor do we know that of the Jawas. And we don’t know that Captain is dead.
PLEASE DON'T BAN ME
If he is in Govt, and like other appointees he will have authority in areas where he has business relationships, and so poisonous conflicts of interest.
And none of them will recuse themselves, blind trusts etc. Trump will use it as an earning opportunity from his position, like last time. And so will the others.
Full time
Bee network in Greater Manchester
https://x.com/AndyBurnhamGM/status/1866879132547813379?t=Msl8XA7Vmahxz8xKe9eTUA&s=19
What's that about Labour abolishing all strike laws?
There was outrage that people had been spending 10a of thousand for what was essentially a computer programme…
https://x.com/JakeWSimons/status/1866882723622596786
Some of the media coverage of ISIS in suits taking over in Syria is very weird, particularly when they aren't exactly hiding their behaviour.
The sad part to me is that the CEO comes from a pretty humble background and he seemed to betray everything that helped him get ahead in life and denied that same chance to millions of others with frankly parasitic policies on healthcare payouts. It's sad that someone died over this and really it's the politicians and lobbyists that deserve the ire, but the CEOs being in the target isn't surprising.
I really hope that this is a turning point for US healthcare regulations and insurance companies won't just be able to unilaterally deny and delay payments and treatments without any recourse for policy holders other than a costly lawsuit that they can't afford which the insurance company will defend with millions of dollars.
I think nothing will change ultimately and Americans will get even more angry. They will vote for someone who promises to hang the CEOs from lampposts in that scenario, they're already half way there with Trump.
It actually gave slightly better value - as the battery degraded, it would “use” the unused extra capacity. So the car would retain its full, as sold, range for about 20 years.
I dislike Trump as much as the next man but that’s taking it a bit far
NVIDIA took it to an extreme with their mega-GPUs - the yield of perfect chips was tiny. So they would blow “fuses” between sections to make cheaper, low end GPUs. The few perfect ones would be sold at very high prices.
Once more for those of you at the back:
1. In business, don't be greedy, leave something on the table for everyone else.
2. In politics, it's better to concede reform than wait for revolution.
I suppose the question is whether the dead CEO was a uniquely bad apple, or just someone doing what he had to do to get to the top in a horrible business. (And yes, he could have walked at any moment, but how many of us would have had the guts to do that?) The striking thing is how little condemnation the murderer seems to have got.
No way they would accept absorption by the USA. They are very definitely Canucks, and they are - rightly - happy in their identity
However they are increasingly anti-Woke and patriotically Canadian Canucks, hence the plunging polls for Trudeau. Yet another western nation shifting right
He should have been jailed for fraud, for selling a product that was never going to be delivered.
Insurance companies should get bankrupted by the market, but they don't and that's market failure.
I don't find UK health insurers very different*, but at least there is back up via the NHS.
*Exeter Friendly seems about the best. I don't think they have ever refused cover or underpaid my modest bills.
I think back to 2016 now and I think in a rerun I'd have voted for Bernie all the way through. I think if he hadn't been shafted out of the candidacy by the DNC then he'd have won and what I've learned is that millions of voters who backed Bernie just backed Trump. It's the promise of change that US voters are looking for and the Democratic party really needs to see that before they put forwards another corpo candidate like Harris.
He is going to be on the side of the Insurabce companies, not the little guy.
Don't be a prat
My experience of UK insurance providers is much more positive, I've literally never had a claim denied by AXA. They're truly brilliant, always pay out without any complaints and my heart condition is fully covered, again with no complaints.
https://x.com/choeshow/status/1861079966076866585
"Jacqueline Pearce received lots of filthy fan mail and gladly read it all. If any missives particularly appealed to her, she would visit the sender and indulge him in his fantasy."
What a gal!
I no longer take AXA patients and I charge substantially below national rates. It varies with the type of policy and speciality of course. BUPA are even worse though.
An insurance company is a company that rents you an umbrella in the sunshine and takes it back when the rain starts.
51% inappropriate to feel happy about it
22% appropriate
I'm not sure about "happy" - I suspect "justified" would have seen much higher numbers.
Can't find the tables: https://www.newsweek.com/half-americans-say-not-ok-cheer-ceo-death-poll-1998860
This is cold-blooded murder on a Manhattan street, nothing else. Now, I can think of several hundred people I'd quite like - emotionally - to be gunned down on the streets of London - and many of them deserve it, morally - but I accept it is not right and should not happen, absent total war. You do yourself a disservice with remarks like this. Don't go mad. You're a valued PB commenter
One thing my American relatives noticed, when we discussed this - the U.K. terms are much, much clearer on what is covered. The US ones are written to obfuscate.
https://x.com/ruth_deyermond/status/1866460226293043628
Striking how many speakers at the @ChathamHouse conference on 'Safeguarding Europe' have said - correctly, in my view- that many Western capitals are more worried about Russia losing than about Ukraine losing
This was a great response:
Our addiction to maintaining the status quo is, ultimately, what is ensuring the destruction of our precious “rules based order”. Can’t keep it, if we won’t fight for it.
@Leon called you a prat. He's being kind. A man was murdered in cold blood and your reaction is to call that "justice". Unbelievable.
Top comment on latest thread on r/Conservative:
I work in a very conservative industry. This is the general sentiment across it right now. No body give a a shit about this CEO. Did Luigi likely do something wrong? Sure. But these bastards have been fucking us over for decades. Nobody is bothered by his death.
"We must maintain the status quo!"
Imagine the shame.
The best examples of this are IBM mainframes which are stuffed full of redundant/spare/upgradable hardware, configurable for a large fee, and even a lot of the supposedly different parts are software configurable by changing the microcode. What's in the box and what you can do with it is simply down to how much are you willing to pay?