The only benefit to not holding elections in 2025 for the government, IMHO, is to avoid potential further momentum for Reform.
Otherwise I really cannot see Labour being too bothered. I hardly think they’ll have a stellar performance, but they will be flattered by the current composition of the seats in play.
2026 is the big test.
We are only getting a White Paper today. It will only go into law some point in 2025. If reports are correct, existing local authorities to be merged will be consulted on who they merge with. The new authorities will take a while to organize. I would suggest that the chances of everything being ready for elections next May is virtually nil.
I saw some talk of the government wanting to get things rolling by the end of the winter to get things started for May 2026, but at less than 3 months away that seems pretty improbable to me, even if things could be organised after that within 12 months. There are past unitarisations to learn from, but some of the potential combinations being floated or multiple unitaries needed in larger counties, seem like it would take a lot of work.
I've been looking at a markscheme for AQA English Language (which is a board I don't normally teach, but I'm stretching a point for an existing tutee).
In their model answer for question 2, they have written this:
The train in Source A is big as it has lots of carriages because it says, ‘five sleeping cars’. This is different to the train in Source B, which is smaller. The train in Source B is not big as it is described as a ‘little engine’ and it has one carriage.
I mean - what's the fucking point of English Language marks for grammar if even the sodding exam boards make awful mistakes like that?
Not sure what you mean. The spg mark is applied separately in relevant questions holistically. Perhaps this answer was purely a content answer?
But then, I'm only an A Level physics marker
The point is, it was written by the chief examiner...
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
Genuine question, how do you see that issue cooling down in the next 5 years? I simply cannot.
YouGov poll in November showed that 54% of Britons who voted leave, including 59% of voters in “red wall seats”, said, in exchange for single market access, they would now accept full free movement for EU and UK citizens to travel, live and work across borders.
I think the issue for most people isn't immigration per se but uncontrolled immigration (eg small boats) and (for the racists) mass immigration from more colourful countries than the EU - which is all down to the Tories and Brexit.
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
It isn't going to cool down unless immigration goes below 100,000 a year, and the chances of that are pretty much zero.
The usual weasel words from Duncan Smith on China.
The utter hypocrite sat on Government for 14 years whilst Prince Andrew was being courted by Chinese spies and did nothing.
Now He blames Starmer just for suggestions we should do trade with China.
Similar bullcrap from Tugenhadt who sat in Government whilst numerous Tories set up rogue Companies to corruptly bid for PPE contracts at hugely inflated prices from ah China.
Add Mr Opportunist the MP for Mar A Lago... He wants to name the Chinese spy yet wants £400m off a South African runt who mass produces badged Cars using Chinese parts in China.
You really couldn't make this up from these weasel spineless opportunists.
SKS is right to be circmspect but he is also 100% right to seek up to open up Chinese markets to boost growth and knowledge.
Shutting the doors totally won't stop a single spy, it will merely be a gross case of cutting off your nose, ears, eyes, tongue etc to spite your face
Thank God we have serious people back in Government not these idiotic imbeciles.
This party political broadcast was brought to you today by the Communist Party of China.
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
It isn't going to cool down unless immigration goes below 100,000 a year, and the chances of that are pretty much zero.
My question is how on earth are we managing to have a flatlining economy whilst importing at least net an additional 1% people per year
I've been looking at a markscheme for AQA English Language (which is a board I don't normally teach, but I'm stretching a point for an existing tutee).
In their model answer for question 2, they have written this:
The train in Source A is big as it has lots of carriages because it says, ‘five sleeping cars’. This is different to the train in Source B, which is smaller. The train in Source B is not big as it is described as a ‘little engine’ and it has one carriage.
I mean - what's the fucking point of English Language marks for grammar if even the sodding exam boards make awful mistakes like that?
Is it so great a solecism ? Both ...to and ... from are grammatically correct, and both acceptable English usage, even if from is the preferred form.
I demand justice! Someone contact the historical crimes unit, this is a nation of laws.
Scientists have uncovered the aftermath of an "exceptionally violent" attack about 4,000 years ago in Somerset when at least 37 people appear to have been butchered and likely eaten.
The error is perhaps in assuming it was a peaceful time. Maybe I'm wrong but I suspect the absence of evidence of violence in early Bronze Age doesn't outweigh humans having a violent nature when threatened.
In most cases violence is triggered by competition for resources and/or fear. The human population was small enough that it was easier to move on vs risk conflict
The usual weasel words from Duncan Smith on China.
The utter hypocrite sat on Government for 14 years whilst Prince Andrew was being courted by Chinese spies and did nothing.
Now He blames Starmer just for suggestions we should do trade with China.
Similar bullcrap from Tugenhadt who sat in Government whilst numerous Tories set up rogue Companies to corruptly bid for PPE contracts at hugely inflated prices from ah China.
Add Mr Opportunist the MP for Mar A Lago... He wants to name the Chinese spy yet wants £400m off a South African runt who mass produces badged Cars using Chinese parts in China.
You really couldn't make this up from these weasel spineless opportunists.
SKS is right to be circmspect but he is also 100% right to seek up to open up Chinese markets to boost growth and knowledge.
Shutting the doors totally won't stop a single spy, it will merely be a gross case of cutting off your nose, ears, eyes, tongue etc to spite your face
Thank God we have serious people back in Government not these idiotic imbeciles.
Fascinating post.
Truly fascinating.
I enjoyed his R4 interview this morning, where he fumed that "anyone with half a brain" would be outraged by this.
"Police chief demands complete rethink on non-crime hate incidents Chairman of the College of Policing says that recording trivial incidents is distracting officers and undermining public confidence"
I've been looking at a markscheme for AQA English Language (which is a board I don't normally teach, but I'm stretching a point for an existing tutee).
In their model answer for question 2, they have written this:
The train in Source A is big as it has lots of carriages because it says, ‘five sleeping cars’. This is different to the train in Source B, which is smaller. The train in Source B is not big as it is described as a ‘little engine’ and it has one carriage.
I mean - what's the fucking point of English Language marks for grammar if even the sodding exam boards make awful mistakes like that?
Is it so great a solecism ? Both ...to and ... from are grammatically correct, and both acceptable English usage, even if from is the preferred form.
If the A-level English examiners can't preserve the old standards, what is the point of them? If they follow the descriptivist notion that however English is spoken is ipso facto correct English, then what precisely is the point of an exam in the first place?
"Police chief demands complete rethink on non-crime hate incidents Chairman of the College of Policing says that recording trivial incidents is distracting officers and undermining public confidence"
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
It isn't going to cool down unless immigration goes below 100,000 a year, and the chances of that are pretty much zero.
My question is how on earth are we managing to have a flatlining economy whilst importing at least net an additional 1% people per year
It's an article of faith that high levels of immigration turbo-charge economies, but the evidence for that claim is pretty thin.
I've been looking at a markscheme for AQA English Language (which is a board I don't normally teach, but I'm stretching a point for an existing tutee).
In their model answer for question 2, they have written this:
The train in Source A is big as it has lots of carriages because it says, ‘five sleeping cars’. This is different to the train in Source B, which is smaller. The train in Source B is not big as it is described as a ‘little engine’ and it has one carriage.
I mean - what's the fucking point of English Language marks for grammar if even the sodding exam boards make awful mistakes like that?
Is it so great a solecism ? Both ...to and ... from are grammatically correct, and both acceptable English usage, even if from is the preferred form.
If the A-level English examiners can't preserve the old standards, what is the point of them? If they follow the descriptivist notion that however English is spoken is ipso facto correct English, then what precisely is the point of an exam in the first place?
If the standard is no longer useful it does not need to be maintained. That's not about abandoning all rules en masse, but there's no doubt plenty of 'rules' which are arbitrary and serve little or no useful purpose, and thus can over time be discarded like the ha'penny.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
I've been looking at a markscheme for AQA English Language (which is a board I don't normally teach, but I'm stretching a point for an existing tutee).
In their model answer for question 2, they have written this:
The train in Source A is big as it has lots of carriages because it says, ‘five sleeping cars’. This is different to the train in Source B, which is smaller. The train in Source B is not big as it is described as a ‘little engine’ and it has one carriage.
I mean - what's the fucking point of English Language marks for grammar if even the sodding exam boards make awful mistakes like that?
Is it so great a solecism ? Both ...to and ... from are grammatically correct, and both acceptable English usage, even if from is the preferred form.
If the A-level English examiners can't preserve the old standards, what is the point of them? If they follow the descriptivist notion that however English is spoken is ipso facto correct English, then what precisely is the point of an exam in the first place?
Both usages are correct, and have been so for quite some time. This is not the adoption of modern street patois, as you seem to imply.
And we do not have, thank heavens, an equivalent of the French Academy.
I disagree with the consensus. Yes if the parties merged today and there was an election tomorrow it would play out as per the header and posters.
But over time, as we have seen with the Republicans in the US, voters can come round to positions they themselves would have seen as absurd, and not "them", a decade earlier.
That works if Reform merge into the Tories but Farage isn't going to do that.
Why not? It has been his stated and long term ambition for over a decade. Of course he will, if the time and circumstance is right.
Agree: Amongst the solid tips (Laying Farage not to be PM) I can sense the general direction of the broad right of UK politics heading toward Reform/changing the Tories to a more Reform like direction which seems to be being dismissed (tepid analysis pace Dura-Ace) here..
I’m happy to be laying Farage as next PM but if there was a market on if Farage was to ever be PM I wouldn’t be laying him.
Well then the issue becomes "if so, then when?". He is already 60 and we have a clear 5 year Parliament ahead.
The oldest PM to assume office for the first time was Palmerston who was aged 70, but who had been a key figure in Parliament and government for several decades before. The oldest PM ever was Gladstone who was 84 when he retired at the end of his fourth term.
So, if you decide to back Farage becoming PM "sometime", you need to ask yourself a) how long Farage will live in health and strength and b) how long it would take RefUk to become a party of government that would allow Farage to be PM. While obviously "Farage next PM" is a clear lay, I think "Farage PM sometime" is also probably a lay, just at much lower prices. Father Time may be a bigger enemy than Kemi here.
Reform currently have 5 seats in the House of Commons.
This feels like Trump's going to jail/Putin's got cancer level analysis.
On the bright side, the comparative brevity is commendable.
Incidentally I note the Archbishop of York is under pressure now too (although if that standard was applied consistently a number of former Ofsted chiefs would not rest easily).
I was trying to work out what would happen in the event of a vacancy in both Canterbury and York. That’s not happened since the 1650s and never, as far as I know, while the hierarchy was functioning.
I presume either the Bishop of London - who is also under pressure - would be asked to take charge, or the Bench of Bishops would elect one of their number to carry out the functions of the office of Archbishop until an appointment is made.
If the latter, that has interesting betting implications depending on who they choose. Whoever it is might suddenly become favourite to be archbishop especially if, as seems possible, they picked Martyn Snow.
The situation in York province is complicated by the vacancies of Durham and Carlisle. I imagine Nick Baines as the longest serving Bishop would have to step up.
If it were the case that he did everything he could for reasons of law, and had done everything he could to keep the offender from anything that looked like preferment, then I would reluctantly support him remaining in post.
But I don't believe - listening to the programme - that that is the case. He had the moral authority and responsibility to intervene, for example by withdrawing the offender's permission to officiate (PTO) in his Diocese. He did not take action.
Therefore imo ++York needs to stand down.
Although if the individual had been through due process and the church authorities had decided on a punishment (I don’t know the specifics of this case) then how is it just for ++York to apply an extra punishment
If a small charity allowed someone who is a previous safeguarding risk into a safeguarding covered role, they would have a bridge dropped on them. Rightly. This has happened.
It is quite simple. Why should different rules apply?
Though of course they do. Look at the large charities and the behaviour of staff in developing countries…
I don’t know the specifics of this case.
But he’d gone through the disciplinary process and a punishment applied. Suspending him would be an additional punishment after the event.
The church believes in redemption. You son, you are punished, you are forgiven and get to continue
On of the reasons behind the Reformation was stuff like the chap who murdered the landlord in a tavern, shows he could read and write and got given some Hail Marys by an ecclesiastical court….
"Police chief demands complete rethink on non-crime hate incidents Chairman of the College of Policing says that recording trivial incidents is distracting officers and undermining public confidence"
"Police chief demands complete rethink on non-crime hate incidents Chairman of the College of Policing says that recording trivial incidents is distracting officers and undermining public confidence"
Sounds great but on second thought, I wonder if that is true. Maybe acknowledging public complaints of bad behaviour that falls below a criminal standard serves a cathartic function and prevents those upset taking the law into their own hands.
I cannot imagine it takes up a great deal of police time: the police still need to listen to the complaint, and log it, even if they later decide it is not worth following up. The only difference is some official code number.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when London got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
"Police chief demands complete rethink on non-crime hate incidents Chairman of the College of Policing says that recording trivial incidents is distracting officers and undermining public confidence"
I can only assume that the people who dreamt up "non-crime hate incidents" hadn't read books like 1984, The Trial, and Fahrenheit 451. Or if they had read them they were using them as non-ironic guides to the sort of the future they want to see.
I've been looking at a markscheme for AQA English Language (which is a board I don't normally teach, but I'm stretching a point for an existing tutee).
In their model answer for question 2, they have written this:
The train in Source A is big as it has lots of carriages because it says, ‘five sleeping cars’. This is different to the train in Source B, which is smaller. The train in Source B is not big as it is described as a ‘little engine’ and it has one carriage.
I mean - what's the fucking point of English Language marks for grammar if even the sodding exam boards make awful mistakes like that?
Is it so great a solecism ? Both ...to and ... from are grammatically correct, and both acceptable English usage, even if from is the preferred form.
If the A-level English examiners can't preserve the old standards, what is the point of them? If they follow the descriptivist notion that however English is spoken is ipso facto correct English, then what precisely is the point of an exam in the first place?
If the standard is no longer useful it does not need to be maintained. That's not about abandoning all rules en masse, but there's no doubt plenty of 'rules' which are arbitrary and serve little or no useful purpose, and thus can over time be discarded like the ha'penny.
Then let's get rid of the 40% of marks awarded for SPaG (which is a horrible acronym anyway).
After all, there was a quite famous bloke called Bill Shaksper who couldn't spell to save his life.
(I should note this was a GCSE examiner not an A-level one. But that, in a sense, is worse because the GCSE is more or less compulsory - the A-level is not.)
I've been looking at a markscheme for AQA English Language (which is a board I don't normally teach, but I'm stretching a point for an existing tutee).
In their model answer for question 2, they have written this:
The train in Source A is big as it has lots of carriages because it says, ‘five sleeping cars’. This is different to the train in Source B, which is smaller. The train in Source B is not big as it is described as a ‘little engine’ and it has one carriage.
I mean - what's the fucking point of English Language marks for grammar if even the sodding exam boards make awful mistakes like that?
Is it so great a solecism ? Both ...to and ... from are grammatically correct, and both acceptable English usage, even if from is the preferred form.
Anybody getting riled at that is missing an opportunity to get REALLY riled at stuff elsewhere....
I've been looking at a markscheme for AQA English Language (which is a board I don't normally teach, but I'm stretching a point for an existing tutee).
In their model answer for question 2, they have written this:
The train in Source A is big as it has lots of carriages because it says, ‘five sleeping cars’. This is different to the train in Source B, which is smaller. The train in Source B is not big as it is described as a ‘little engine’ and it has one carriage.
I mean - what's the fucking point of English Language marks for grammar if even the sodding exam boards make awful mistakes like that?
Not sure what you mean. The spg mark is applied separately in relevant questions holistically. Perhaps this answer was purely a content answer?
But then, I'm only an A Level physics marker
The point is, it was written by the chief examiner...
Yes, but there's a serious argument that English has changed fundamentally over the past century on the question of "different from" - just as it has over splitting infinitives, or any of the other changes in the past thousand years.
English is a real, living, language, spoken (and written) almost globally. And it doesn't have the convention it's subject to the rules of one, "hegemonic" Academy - like the Academie Francaise. "Different to" is now used so frequently, especially outside the UK, that we really can say it's now become standard usage.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when London got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
Not at all - London loves an overregulated economy with expensive power and high barriers to entry; it serves big corporations very well. I am talking about recreating the conditions (bar slavery) that made the provinces wealthy in the first place.
I've been looking at a markscheme for AQA English Language (which is a board I don't normally teach, but I'm stretching a point for an existing tutee).
In their model answer for question 2, they have written this:
The train in Source A is big as it has lots of carriages because it says, ‘five sleeping cars’. This is different to the train in Source B, which is smaller. The train in Source B is not big as it is described as a ‘little engine’ and it has one carriage.
I mean - what's the fucking point of English Language marks for grammar if even the sodding exam boards make awful mistakes like that?
Not sure what you mean. The spg mark is applied separately in relevant questions holistically. Perhaps this answer was purely a content answer?
But then, I'm only an A Level physics marker
The point is, it was written by the chief examiner...
Yes, but there's a serious argument that English has changed fundamentally over the past century on the question of "different from" - just as it has over splitting infinitives, or any of the other changes in the past thousand years.
English is a real, living, language, spoken (and written) almost globally. And it doesn't have the convention it's subject to the rules of one, "hegemonic" Academy - like the Academie Francaise. "Different to" is now used so frequently, especially outside the UK, that we really can say it's now become standard usage.
In the same way it's now acceptable to put pineapple on pizza?
The usual weasel words from Duncan Smith on China.
The utter hypocrite sat on Government for 14 years whilst Prince Andrew was being courted by Chinese spies and did nothing.
Now He blames Starmer just for suggestions we should do trade with China.
Similar bullcrap from Tugenhadt who sat in Government whilst numerous Tories set up rogue Companies to corruptly bid for PPE contracts at hugely inflated prices from ah China.
Add Mr Opportunist the MP for Mar A Lago... He wants to name the Chinese spy yet wants £400m off a South African runt who mass produces badged Cars using Chinese parts in China.
You really couldn't make this up from these weasel spineless opportunists.
SKS is right to be circmspect but he is also 100% right to seek up to open up Chinese markets to boost growth and knowledge.
Shutting the doors totally won't stop a single spy, it will merely be a gross case of cutting off your nose, ears, eyes, tongue etc to spite your face
Thank God we have serious people back in Government not these idiotic imbeciles.
Fascinating post.
Truly fascinating.
I enjoyed his R4 interview this morning, where he fumed that "anyone with half a brain" would be outraged by this.
As indeed, he is.
I'm more interested in our friend broadcasting from Shenzhen.
I've been looking at a markscheme for AQA English Language (which is a board I don't normally teach, but I'm stretching a point for an existing tutee).
In their model answer for question 2, they have written this:
The train in Source A is big as it has lots of carriages because it says, ‘five sleeping cars’. This is different to the train in Source B, which is smaller. The train in Source B is not big as it is described as a ‘little engine’ and it has one carriage.
I mean - what's the fucking point of English Language marks for grammar if even the sodding exam boards make awful mistakes like that?
Not sure what you mean. The spg mark is applied separately in relevant questions holistically. Perhaps this answer was purely a content answer?
But then, I'm only an A Level physics marker
The point is, it was written by the chief examiner...
Yes, but there's a serious argument that English has changed fundamentally over the past century on the question of "different from" - just as it has over splitting infinitives, or any of the other changes in the past thousand years.
English is a real, living, language, spoken (and written) almost globally. And it doesn't have the convention it's subject to the rules of one, "hegemonic" Academy - like the Academie Francaise. "Different to" is now used so frequently, especially outside the UK, that we really can say it's now become standard usage.
Actually, the US appears to believe it's a British English usage.
F1: I am quite tired so apologies if I already mentioned this, but I was running the numbers and recently discovered Verstappen would've won the title even if you cut out the first five races during which (Australia excepted) the Red Bull was dominant. Impressive performance.
Di Conservative Party leader, wey dem born for di UK but wey mostly grow up in Nigeria, don repeatedly describe say she bin grow up in fear and insecurity for di kontri wey corruption dey worry.
On Monday, Nigeria Vice-President Kashim Shettima bin suggest say Badenoch fit "remove di Kemi from her name" if she no dey proud of her "nation of origin".
Wen dem ask her about Shettima comments, Badenoch tok-tok pesin say she "stand by wetin she tok" and "no be PR for Nigeria".
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when London got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
London was a Golf GTi, the north east was a second-hand Mini Metro.
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
It isn't going to cool down unless immigration goes below 100,000 a year, and the chances of that are pretty much zero.
My question is how on earth are we managing to have a flatlining economy whilst importing at least net an additional 1% people per year
It's an article of faith that high levels of immigration turbo-charge economies, but the evidence for that claim is pretty thin.
I always find it quite interesting reading the "in depth" analysis of this issue when they interview (many) former Home Secretaries who talk about how difficult it is to handle this issue given the politics of it.
What their arguments all boil down to is that the public should change their minds and embrace it, and welcome more of it.
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
Genuine question, how do you see that issue cooling down in the next 5 years? I simply cannot.
Some possibilities.
1. Numbers will come down, due mostly to things the previous government did to retighten rules that they had previously overloosened. And whilst it's a bit unfair for the current government to take the credit for that, they are also taking the blame for the bad consequences of pervious government decisions, so it sort of balances out.
2. @MoonRabbit may well be right, that the flow of migrants across Europe has already slowed down, so fewer boat people at our end next year. Positive actions like closing the German legal loophole may help as well.
3. A lot of the immigration anger fades if the pressure on public services fades. If people can't see a doctor easily, the twisted logic that says "the answer is to have fewer of Them" sounds compelling. (It's twisted because of how many of Them are working in healthcare.)
None of these are certain, and they may not add up to enough. But they're all possible.
These are good points, but I would err to the side of caution. I expect immigration will come down over the next few years, but the big question is (a) how far will it fall and (b) will it fall far enough so as no impact is felt given economic growth and the development of infrastructure and housing.
There’s a big lag factor here, and one that I am far from convinced can be solved in 4 years.
On that basis the Labour argument would have to be “immigration is falling, and it will continue to fall so stick with us because the system is working.” For that to succeed, people have to believe it will, and that Reform won’t offer a better alternative.
The other thing here is that for a lot of people even the levels of immigration Labour are likely to preside over will be too much, and there will be a lot of noise made about that.
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
It isn't going to cool down unless immigration goes below 100,000 a year, and the chances of that are pretty much zero.
My question is how on earth are we managing to have a flatlining economy whilst importing at least net an additional 1% people per year
It's an article of faith that high levels of immigration turbo-charge economies, but the evidence for that claim is pretty thin.
I always find it quite interesting reading the "in depth" analysis of this issue when they interview (many) former Home Secretaries who talk about how difficult it is to handle this issue given the politics of it.
What their arguments all boil down to is that the public should change their minds and embrace it, and welcome more of it.
The policy change needs to come from the Treasury rather than the Home Office.
I've been looking at a markscheme for AQA English Language (which is a board I don't normally teach, but I'm stretching a point for an existing tutee).
In their model answer for question 2, they have written this:
The train in Source A is big as it has lots of carriages because it says, ‘five sleeping cars’. This is different to the train in Source B, which is smaller. The train in Source B is not big as it is described as a ‘little engine’ and it has one carriage.
I mean - what's the fucking point of English Language marks for grammar if even the sodding exam boards make awful mistakes like that?
Not sure what you mean. The spg mark is applied separately in relevant questions holistically. Perhaps this answer was purely a content answer?
But then, I'm only an A Level physics marker
The point is, it was written by the chief examiner...
Yes, but there's a serious argument that English has changed fundamentally over the past century on the question of "different from" - just as it has over splitting infinitives, or any of the other changes in the past thousand years.
English is a real, living, language, spoken (and written) almost globally. And it doesn't have the convention it's subject to the rules of one, "hegemonic" Academy - like the Academie Francaise. "Different to" is now used so frequently, especially outside the UK, that we really can say it's now become standard usage.
Well, first, we are in the UK.
And if not abiding to standards, what is the point of an English Language exam? Everyone knows "different to" means "different from" – sure, but how many examinees will not twig that big trains are bigger than small trains, which is what concerns the rest of that model answer?
The danger is that, especially post-Gove, we teach schoolchildren all sorts of pointless trivia about gerunds and participles and the difference between adjectives and adverbs, whilst telling them they can say and write whatever seems right. For day to day communication, sure, but this is for the badge.
I demand justice! Someone contact the historical crimes unit, this is a nation of laws.
Scientists have uncovered the aftermath of an "exceptionally violent" attack about 4,000 years ago in Somerset when at least 37 people appear to have been butchered and likely eaten.
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
It isn't going to cool down unless immigration goes below 100,000 a year, and the chances of that are pretty much zero.
My question is how on earth are we managing to have a flatlining economy whilst importing at least net an additional 1% people per year
It's an article of faith that high levels of immigration turbo-charge economies, but the evidence for that claim is pretty thin.
I always find it quite interesting reading the "in depth" analysis of this issue when they interview (many) former Home Secretaries who talk about how difficult it is to handle this issue given the politics of it.
What their arguments all boil down to is that the public should change their minds and embrace it, and welcome more of it.
The policy change needs to come from the Treasury rather than the Home Office.
"Safe and legal routes" is also a remarkably clichéd canard.
It essentially boils down to: it's hard to police the doors to the nightclub, so we may as well admit everyone who wants to come in by leaving our calling card.
I demand justice! Someone contact the historical crimes unit, this is a nation of laws.
Scientists have uncovered the aftermath of an "exceptionally violent" attack about 4,000 years ago in Somerset when at least 37 people appear to have been butchered and likely eaten.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when fLondon got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
It's weird because, on the whole, people in the northeast pay much less tax because they are either not in work or on low salaries. Average GVA per capita (2017):
NE £20,100 London £48,900
The question is why, given this difference, don't more firms take advantage of the cheap labour, land and buildings up north? Education, infrastructure, perhaps? I also note that high-tax Scotland has the highest GVA per head anywhere outside the SE of England.
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
It isn't going to cool down unless immigration goes below 100,000 a year, and the chances of that are pretty much zero.
My question is how on earth are we managing to have a flatlining economy whilst importing at least net an additional 1% people per year
It's an article of faith that high levels of immigration turbo-charge economies, but the evidence for that claim is pretty thin.
I always find it quite interesting reading the "in depth" analysis of this issue when they interview (many) former Home Secretaries who talk about how difficult it is to handle this issue given the politics of it.
What their arguments all boil down to is that the public should change their minds and embrace it, and welcome more of it.
Lol, that's completely the opposite argument they make whilst in the Home Sec job.
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
It isn't going to cool down unless immigration goes below 100,000 a year, and the chances of that are pretty much zero.
My question is how on earth are we managing to have a flatlining economy whilst importing at least net an additional 1% people per year
It's an article of faith that high levels of immigration turbo-charge economies, but the evidence for that claim is pretty thin.
I always find it quite interesting reading the "in depth" analysis of this issue when they interview (many) former Home Secretaries who talk about how difficult it is to handle this issue given the politics of it.
What their arguments all boil down to is that the public should change their minds and embrace it, and welcome more of it.
When they say they can't do anything about it, people think of what the state did during the lockdowns, and think: "Yes you can do things, when it suits you."
Absolutely right that a formal Conservative/Reform electoral alliance will probably never work, as they would lose at least as many consequential votes as they would gain.
There are two important points that many more exciteable commentators on the right forget, or at least overlook:
1. The 2024 Labour vote is exceptionally efficiently spread, such that in the next election, even if Labour took third place in total votes, they could still get by far the most seats. The Conservatives need therefore to try to take voters from Labour most of all (and Reform are working on doing the same, though in a different set of seats).
2. Donald Trump will not be president when the next general election is likely to take place. At that point he may well be extremely unpopular and/or discredited, and have fallen out with influential allies like Elon Musk. So currying favour with the Orange One is not the priority for long-term success.
Badenoch's only option, because of the hand she has been dealt, is to play the long game. My current assumption is that the best she can probably hope for in the next election is a 2005-style result, and even that may be a tall order. Currently there is an opening for the Conservatives to get a hearing from business leaders disillusioned by the budget and various new regulations, but with everyone else they still need to 'earn the right to be heard' as many in their own party have put it.
I demand justice! Someone contact the historical crimes unit, this is a nation of laws.
Scientists have uncovered the aftermath of an "exceptionally violent" attack about 4,000 years ago in Somerset when at least 37 people appear to have been butchered and likely eaten.
Reading an interesting World Bank report on water and energy.
Saudi Arabia's water consumption has risen since 1980 by a factor of fifteen.
We think of Saudi as a massive producer of the world's energy. However, it "already burns a third of its oil production just to meet domestic water [desalination] and energy needs."
I don't imagine the combined forces of Reform and Conservative will have an overall majority in 2028/9, but if they do it would be the most hilarious coalition of chaos ever. The idea that Farage and his mates, in conjunction with the Tories, could form any sort of stable government is for the birds.
In a sense it is hard to say. Neither Reform nor the Tories have presented anything like a credible set of principles, policies, direction, use of power and competence demonstration. In particular, how each would successfully depart significantly from the current lot in power.
Until then NOTA is going to do quite well, and the current 3 and bit way split between unconvinced voters carries on.
I doubt that a Tory/Reform Govt would go well for Nige. The protesting Red Wall voters which gave Reform their MPs would soon peel away as the rigours and compromises of Govt took their toll. They'd soon find another avenue for protest, even if it wasn't back to Labour, tho it likely would be. And that's if Farage stayed the course as poor old Nick Clegg did between 2010-15. Who knows what could happen if he just walked away.
Reading an inteeresting World Bank report on water and energy.
Saudi Arabia's water consumption has risen since 1980 by a factor of fifteen.
We think of Saudi as a massive producer of the world's energy. However, it "already burns a third of its oil production just to meet domestic water [desalination] and energy needs."
A prime use case for the massive solar farms they are building.
The ReFuk leadership and the average ReFuk voter are a world apart when it comes to economic issues.
At some point, this has to blow up in their faces.
A privatised NHS, massive row backs on workers rights, 10+ hour working days, even crappier public services. Red Wall voter love affair with PM Farage would be even briefer than it was with Big Dog.
I don't imagine the combined forces of Reform and Conservative will have an overall majority in 2028/9, but if they do it would be the most hilarious coalition of chaos ever. The idea that Farage and his mates, in conjunction with the Tories, could form any sort of stable government is for the birds.
In a sense it is hard to say. Neither Reform nor the Tories have presented anything like a credible set of principles, policies, direction, use of power and competence demonstration. In particular, how each would successfully depart significantly from the current lot in power.
Until then NOTA is going to do quite well, and the current 3 and bit way split between unconvinced voters carries on.
I doubt that a Tory/Reform Govt would go well for Nige. The protesting Red Wall voters which gave Reform their MPs would soon peel away as the rigours and compromises of Govt took their toll. They'd soon find another avenue for protest, even if it wasn't back to Labour, tho it likely would be. And that's if Farage stayed the course as poor old Nick Clegg did between 2010-15. Who knows what could happen if he just walked away.
The only way there will be a Tory/Reform government is if Reform are the senior partner and can cannibalise the Tories.
Farage knows exactly what game he’ll play if he holds the balance of power in the next Parliament. He’ll sit on the fence, bide his time, support the government (whichever that may be) when it suits him and when he has the maximum political advantage he’ll bring it down and use it as a springboard for another GE.
Absolutely right that a formal Conservative/Reform electoral alliance will probably never work, as they would lose at least as many consequential votes as they would gain.
There are two important points that many more exciteable commentators on the right forget, or at least overlook:
1. The 2024 Labour vote is exceptionally efficiently spread, such that in the next election, even if Labour took third place in total votes, they could still get by far the most seats. The Conservatives need therefore to try to take voters from Labour most of all (and Reform are working on doing the same, though in a different set of seats).
2. Donald Trump will not be president when the next general election is likely to take place. At that point he may well be extremely unpopular and/or discredited, and have fallen out with influential allies like Elon Musk. So currying favour with the Orange One is not the priority for long-term success.
Badenoch's only option, because of the hand she has been dealt, is to play the long game. My current assumption is that the best she can probably hope for in the next election is a 2005-style result, and even that may be a tall order. Currently there is an opening for the Conservatives to get a hearing from business leaders disillusioned by the budget and various new regulations, but with everyone else they still need to 'earn the right to be heard' as many in their own party have put it.
The logical course for Badenoch (it seems to me) is to hammer Labour over jobs, the economy and the neglect of business. After the budget there's lot to go on there. That's what the Tories need to be central to the political debate.
Immigration and Woke Wars just validates Farage/Reform and keeps them relevant. Best avoided.
Reading an inteeresting World Bank report on water and energy.
Saudi Arabia's water consumption has risen since 1980 by a factor of fifteen.
We think of Saudi as a massive producer of the world's energy. However, it "already burns a third of its oil production just to meet domestic water [desalination] and energy needs."
A prime use case for the massive solar farms they are building.
They are definitely embracing renewables. I mean, why use a product you can export for cash when you have a giant desert kingdom that could certainly power itself from the sun.
I can’t understand why we knew the government was going to collapse over a month ago but it’s taking them until the end of February to hold an election. Talk about taking your time.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when fLondon got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
It's weird because, on the whole, people in the northeast pay much less tax because they are either not in work or on low salaries. Average GVA per capita (2017):
NE £20,100 London £48,900
The question is why, given this difference, don't more firms take advantage of the cheap labour, land and buildings up north? Education, infrastructure, perhaps? I also note that high-tax Scotland has the highest GVA per head anywhere outside the SE of England.
Doesn't that just reflect where companies have their head office, so that is where the profit appears to be made?
I can’t understand why we knew the government was going to collapse over a month ago but it’s taking them until the end of February to hold an election. Talk about taking your time.
And that’s before you get to the post-election wrangling over forming a coalition.
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
It isn't going to cool down unless immigration goes below 100,000 a year, and the chances of that are pretty much zero.
My question is how on earth are we managing to have a flatlining economy whilst importing at least net an additional 1% people per year
It's an article of faith that high levels of immigration turbo-charge economies, but the evidence for that claim is pretty thin.
I always find it quite interesting reading the "in depth" analysis of this issue when they interview (many) former Home Secretaries who talk about how difficult it is to handle this issue given the politics of it.
What their arguments all boil down to is that the public should change their minds and embrace it, and welcome more of it.
When they say they can't do anything about it, people think of what the state did during the lockdowns, and think: "Yes you can do things, when it suits you."
The "Conservatives", as people in office, lack the courage of their convictions and confidence and are thus easily influenced /pushed around.
Meloni has shown what can be done, if you really want to.
I can’t understand why we knew the government was going to collapse over a month ago but it’s taking them until the end of February to hold an election. Talk about taking your time.
Well, Macron has just demonstrated the unwisdom of having the election first and the government collapse second...
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You need infrastructure to get people to where you want them to work otherwise the company will just go to London where there are enough qualified people in a sane commuting area to work there.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when London got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
Not at all - London loves an overregulated economy with expensive power and high barriers to entry; it serves big corporations very well. I am talking about recreating the conditions (bar slavery) that made the provinces wealthy in the first place.
Not quite you are badly quoting what happened on the Industrial Revolution with little understanding of how things have changed.
Nowadays for companies to be successful they need a critical mass of qualified workers within the appropriate commuting area hence why London does so well because if I need another data analyst there are a lot of London and so always a few looking for a new job.
Up north there may be 100 rather than 5000 so recruitment is far harder
@Nigel_Farage We now live in a country where you can assault a Member of Parliament and not go to prison.
The latest example of two-tier justice.
Well, she did get a suspended prison sentence, and have egg throwers ever been sent down? On the other hand, the harmless drunks who got too friendly with Chris Witty were banged up. Two tiers or just wildly inconsistent?
I disagree with the consensus. Yes if the parties merged today and there was an election tomorrow it would play out as per the header and posters.
But over time, as we have seen with the Republicans in the US, voters can come round to positions they themselves would have seen as absurd, and not "them", a decade earlier.
That works if Reform merge into the Tories but Farage isn't going to do that.
Why not? It has been his stated and long term ambition for over a decade. Of course he will, if the time and circumstance is right.
Agree: Amongst the solid tips (Laying Farage not to be PM) I can sense the general direction of the broad right of UK politics heading toward Reform/changing the Tories to a more Reform like direction which seems to be being dismissed (tepid analysis pace Dura-Ace) here..
I’m happy to be laying Farage as next PM but if there was a market on if Farage was to ever be PM I wouldn’t be laying him.
You can get 5/2 on Reform UK having most seats at the next general election. That’s a more attractive bet than Farage next PM, although still not attractive enough, I think. I can’t see a most votes market.
I think 7/4 on Labour most seats or 50/1 on the LibDems are more value.
@Nigel_Farage We now live in a country where you can assault a Member of Parliament and not go to prison.
The latest example of two-tier justice.
Well, she did get a suspended prison sentence, and have egg throwers ever been sent down? On the other hand, the harmless drunks who got too friendly with Chris Witty were banged up. Two tiers or just wildly inconsistent?
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when fLondon got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
It's weird because, on the whole, people in the northeast pay much less tax because they are either not in work or on low salaries. Average GVA per capita (2017):
NE £20,100 London £48,900
The question is why, given this difference, don't more firms take advantage of the cheap labour, land and buildings up north? Education, infrastructure, perhaps? I also note that high-tax Scotland has the highest GVA per head anywhere outside the SE of England.
Critical mass of skill set - so your options are
London pay market rate and you can recruit Elsewhere - find a trainee and train them up.
Worse elsewhere the number of possible recruits will be lower because London has a 15 million within a 1 hour commute of London, Newcastle 1/2 million or so
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
It isn't going to cool down unless immigration goes below 100,000 a year, and the chances of that are pretty much zero.
My question is how on earth are we managing to have a flatlining economy whilst importing at least net an additional 1% people per year
It's an article of faith that high levels of immigration turbo-charge economies, but the evidence for that claim is pretty thin.
I always find it quite interesting reading the "in depth" analysis of this issue when they interview (many) former Home Secretaries who talk about how difficult it is to handle this issue given the politics of it.
What their arguments all boil down to is that the public should change their minds and embrace it, and welcome more of it.
The issue is the framing, which is rather like that around privatised vs public ownership of services which is stereotypically either public sector good or public sector bad.
The economic impact of immigration is just a branch of the economic impact of demographics. For a growing economy you want either major productivity gains, or failing that an expansion of the working population and contraction of the dependent population.
We and everywhere in the West have the opposite thanks to our ageing populations: shrinking working age cohorts and growing dependency ratios. All things being equal immigration of people who work and pay taxes (or are rich and spend money) helps the situation; immigration of people who are financially dependent and/or don’t work exacerbates it.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You need infrastructure to get people to where you want them to work otherwise the company will just go to London where there are enough qualified people in a sane commuting area to work there.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when London got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
Not at all - London loves an overregulated economy with expensive power and high barriers to entry; it serves big corporations very well. I am talking about recreating the conditions (bar slavery) that made the provinces wealthy in the first place.
Not quite you are badly quoting what happened on the Industrial Revolution with little understanding of how things have changed.
Nowadays for companies to be successful they need a critical mass of qualified workers within the appropriate commuting area hence why London does so well because if I need another data analyst there are a lot of London and so always a few looking for a new job.
Up north there may be 100 rather than 5000 so recruitment is far harder
True up to a point but, well, there is training (and these days, remote working for sitting down jobs). When Mrs Thatcher invented North Sea Oil, there were not already rig workers in every Aberdeen bedsit.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You need infrastructure to get people to where you want them to work otherwise the company will just go to London where there are enough qualified people in a sane commuting area to work there.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when London got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
Not at all - London loves an overregulated economy with expensive power and high barriers to entry; it serves big corporations very well. I am talking about recreating the conditions (bar slavery) that made the provinces wealthy in the first place.
Not quite you are badly quoting what happened on the Industrial Revolution with little understanding of how things have changed.
Nowadays for companies to be successful they need a critical mass of qualified workers within the appropriate commuting area hence why London does so well because if I need another data analyst there are a lot of London and so always a few looking for a new job.
Up north there may be 100 rather than 5000 so recruitment is far harder
Firstly, no you don't - remote working appears to have passed you by, speaking of having little understanding about the way things have changed...
Secondly, you are talking about professional services companies. Clearly I am not. I am talking about Northampton shoemakers, Birmingham glass, Welsh clothiers. None of which need 'a lot' of data analysts in the vicinity - yes data analysis is still important, but companies of the sort I describe don't need big departments of them. They need people who are pretty good with their hands and want to make stuff.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You need infrastructure to get people to where you want them to work otherwise the company will just go to London where there are enough qualified people in a sane commuting area to work there.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when London got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
Not at all - London loves an overregulated economy with expensive power and high barriers to entry; it serves big corporations very well. I am talking about recreating the conditions (bar slavery) that made the provinces wealthy in the first place.
Not quite you are badly quoting what happened on the Industrial Revolution with little understanding of how things have changed.
Nowadays for companies to be successful they need a critical mass of qualified workers within the appropriate commuting area hence why London does so well because if I need another data analyst there are a lot of London and so always a few looking for a new job.
Up north there may be 100 rather than 5000 so recruitment is far harder
True up to a point but, well, there is training (and these days, remote working for sitting down jobs). When Mrs Thatcher invented North Sea Oil, there were not already rig workers in every Aberdeen bedsit.
North Sea oil - that’s a bad example as an awful lot of rig workers commuted from where they lived (it’s why Teesside had multiple flights a day to Aberdeen and Amsterdam and nowhere else).
Likewise is Silicon Glen - we aren’t in the 1980s anymore where that type of placement works
I demand justice! Someone contact the historical crimes unit, this is a nation of laws.
Scientists have uncovered the aftermath of an "exceptionally violent" attack about 4,000 years ago in Somerset when at least 37 people appear to have been butchered and likely eaten.
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
Genuine question, how do you see that issue cooling down in the next 5 years? I simply cannot.
YouGov poll in November showed that 54% of Britons who voted leave, including 59% of voters in “red wall seats”, said, in exchange for single market access, they would now accept full free movement for EU and UK citizens to travel, live and work across borders.
I think the issue for most people isn't immigration per se but uncontrolled immigration (eg small boats) and (for the racists) mass immigration from more colourful countries than the EU - which is all down to the Tories and Brexit.
YouGov have issues polling data on their website. Immigration being one of the most important issues has ranged from 71% (Sep 2015) to 14% (Apr 2020). If it can drop 56% in that 5-year period, I see no reason to presume that it will necessarily be an issue at the next general election.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You need infrastructure to get people to where you want them to work otherwise the company will just go to London where there are enough qualified people in a sane commuting area to work there.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when London got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
Not at all - London loves an overregulated economy with expensive power and high barriers to entry; it serves big corporations very well. I am talking about recreating the conditions (bar slavery) that made the provinces wealthy in the first place.
Not quite you are badly quoting what happened on the Industrial Revolution with little understanding of how things have changed.
Nowadays for companies to be successful they need a critical mass of qualified workers within the appropriate commuting area hence why London does so well because if I need another data analyst there are a lot of London and so always a few looking for a new job.
Up north there may be 100 rather than 5000 so recruitment is far harder
Firstly, no you don't - remote working appears to have passed you by, speaking of having little understanding about the way things have changed...
Secondly, you are talking about professional services companies. Clearly I am not. I am talking about Northampton shoemakers, Birmingham glass, Welsh clothiers. None of which need 'a lot' of data analysts in the vicinity - yes data analysis is still important, but companies of the sort I describe don't need big departments of them. They need people who are pretty good with their hands and want to make stuff.
All of that was offshored back in the 90s and until people are willing to pay £100 for a shirt it’s not coming back.
And even if it did come back it’s now been automated through productivity enhancements to the extent there are plastic box manufacturers who used to employ 80 people who now have 2 people operating forklifts at either end of the factory, pellets go in boxes get carried into a HGV
And that carefully picked example was chosen as its one of the few areas where local manufacturing is desirable because of shipping costs
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You need infrastructure to get people to where you want them to work otherwise the company will just go to London where there are enough qualified people in a sane commuting area to work there.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when London got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
Not at all - London loves an overregulated economy with expensive power and high barriers to entry; it serves big corporations very well. I am talking about recreating the conditions (bar slavery) that made the provinces wealthy in the first place.
Not quite you are badly quoting what happened on the Industrial Revolution with little understanding of how things have changed.
Nowadays for companies to be successful they need a critical mass of qualified workers within the appropriate commuting area hence why London does so well because if I need another data analyst there are a lot of London and so always a few looking for a new job.
Up north there may be 100 rather than 5000 so recruitment is far harder
Firstly, no you don't - remote working appears to have passed you by, speaking of having little understanding about the way things have changed...
Secondly, you are talking about professional services companies. Clearly I am not. I am talking about Northampton shoemakers, Birmingham glass, Welsh clothiers. None of which need 'a lot' of data analysts in the vicinity - yes data analysis is still important, but companies of the sort I describe don't need big departments of them. They need people who are pretty good with their hands and want to make stuff.
None of that stuff is going to bring prosperity to the North. We are an advanced high-tech economy and we are competitive in advanced products, be it professional services or advanced manufacturing. Both require high level skills, whether you work on the shop floor or in the office.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You need infrastructure to get people to where you want them to work otherwise the company will just go to London where there are enough qualified people in a sane commuting area to work there.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when London got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
Not at all - London loves an overregulated economy with expensive power and high barriers to entry; it serves big corporations very well. I am talking about recreating the conditions (bar slavery) that made the provinces wealthy in the first place.
Not quite you are badly quoting what happened on the Industrial Revolution with little understanding of how things have changed.
Nowadays for companies to be successful they need a critical mass of qualified workers within the appropriate commuting area hence why London does so well because if I need another data analyst there are a lot of London and so always a few looking for a new job.
Up north there may be 100 rather than 5000 so recruitment is far harder
True up to a point but, well, there is training (and these days, remote working for sitting down jobs). When Mrs Thatcher invented North Sea Oil, there were not already rig workers in every Aberdeen bedsit.
North Sea oil - that’s a bad example as an awful lot of rig workers commuted from where they lived (it’s why Teesside had multiple flights a day to Aberdeen and Amsterdam and nowhere else).
Likewise is Silicon Glen - we aren’t in the 1980s anymore where that type of placement works
Goodness, a thread header from TSE with which I agree. I must go and do some real work to recover.
The sanest most sensible header for weeks. Merry Christmas TSE ❤️
And great from Kemi Badenoch too. 👍🏻
But are the PB “25%+25%=50” club actually listening? Are they even capable of understanding what is being explained?
Ref+Tory is not, so clearly electorally demonstrated as not, and never will be a mutually supportive voting block. It’s a death match.
This period of UK politics is about the Reform v Tory deathmatch till one eats the other - and until that meal is over and the plates scraped into pigbin, FPTP keeps Labour in power - this period of Labour could be 20 years or more.
The Conservatives could be replaced as official opposition by the Lib Dem’s. The Conservatives could go the same place as the Liberals went 100 years ago. They need to get the policy platform credible, eye catching and watertight going into that May 2029 election.
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
Genuine question, how do you see that issue cooling down in the next 5 years? I simply cannot.
YouGov poll in November showed that 54% of Britons who voted leave, including 59% of voters in “red wall seats”, said, in exchange for single market access, they would now accept full free movement for EU and UK citizens to travel, live and work across borders.
I think the issue for most people isn't immigration per se but uncontrolled immigration (eg small boats) and (for the racists) mass immigration from more colourful countries than the EU - which is all down to the Tories and Brexit.
YouGov have issues polling data on their website. Immigration being one of the most important issues has ranged from 71% (Sep 2015) to 14% (Apr 2020). If it can drop 56% in that 5-year period, I see no reason to presume that it will necessarily be an issue at the next general election.
The period in question where it was polling as a lower priority is a rather politically unstable period though. It captures the Brexit negotiation period (where a lot of the public’s concern will have manifested in leaving the EU/freedom of movement) and then the Covid pandemic (where everyone had the pandemic on their minds).
If it had been acid, she would have got a very different sentence. But it wasn’t. So she didn’t.
No. That kind of thinking creates the circumstances for it to be acid next time.
Anyone attacking any politician needs to receive a nasty sentence pour encourager les autres.
No they should get the same sentence an attack on anyone else should get. Otherwise it truly is two tier.
That’s not how the law has ever worked. If it was, we wouldn’t have a different offence for “assaulting a police officer”. If you have a profile, and perform a public function, deterrence is important.
Though I am sympathetic to your basis point and have questioned the “assaulting a police officer” offence before.
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
It isn't going to cool down unless immigration goes below 100,000 a year, and the chances of that are pretty much zero.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You need infrastructure to get people to where you want them to work otherwise the company will just go to London where there are enough qualified people in a sane commuting area to work there.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when London got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
Not at all - London loves an overregulated economy with expensive power and high barriers to entry; it serves big corporations very well. I am talking about recreating the conditions (bar slavery) that made the provinces wealthy in the first place.
Not quite you are badly quoting what happened on the Industrial Revolution with little understanding of how things have changed.
Nowadays for companies to be successful they need a critical mass of qualified workers within the appropriate commuting area hence why London does so well because if I need another data analyst there are a lot of London and so always a few looking for a new job.
Up north there may be 100 rather than 5000 so recruitment is far harder
True up to a point but, well, there is training (and these days, remote working for sitting down jobs). When Mrs Thatcher invented North Sea Oil, there were not already rig workers in every Aberdeen bedsit.
North Sea oil - that’s a bad example as an awful lot of rig workers commuted from where they lived (it’s why Teesside had multiple flights a day to Aberdeen and Amsterdam and nowhere else).
Likewise is Silicon Glen - we aren’t in the 1980s anymore where that type of placement works
Well, we could be. Imagine an alternative universe in which the Scottish government had set up datacentres to run Gov.Scot and take advantage of Scotland's colder climate to reduce air conditioning costs, rather than relentlessly focussing on Edinburgh tram routes. Look at what American companies are doing as they move between states.
If it had been acid, she would have got a very different sentence. But it wasn’t. So she didn’t.
No. That kind of thinking creates the circumstances for it to be acid next time.
Anyone attacking any politician needs to receive a nasty sentence pour encourager les autres.
No they should get the same sentence an attack on anyone else should get. Otherwise it truly is two tier.
That’s not how the law has ever worked. If it was, we wouldn’t have a different offence for “assaulting a police officer”. If you have a profile, and perform a public function, deterrence is important.
Though I am sympathetic to your basis point and have questioned the “assaulting a police officer” offence before.
I personally don’t think assaulting a police officer should be a different offence but there we go. If the deterrent effect of the sentencing guidelines for common assault/abh/gbh is not strong enough then I think that is a different argument
By then Tudor is not only a Team Rector but also a Rural Dean, appointed by an earlier bishop, John Gladwin. (No idea how or why, but from a modern point of vierw it's crazy).
In 2012 he knows that Tudor has paid off a very serious allegation about a very young girl by paying £10K.
He also knows that previously Tudor has been imprisoned for similar offences, quashed on appeal, but earlier suspended from office under church law for 5 years for similar deeds.
Cottrell then does two things: He allows the Rural Dean job to continue. And in 2015 appoints Tudor an honorary canon. In context both these are inexplicable.
There may be 'res judicata' points about the wider charges, but these two actions look very like a smoking gun to me. This has got legs.
(The current Bp Chelmsford is an outside bet for Canterbury. She looks out of trouble as she took office in 2021, and Tudor was suspended from 2019).
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You need infrastructure to get people to where you want them to work otherwise the company will just go to London where there are enough qualified people in a sane commuting area to work there.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when London got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
Not at all - London loves an overregulated economy with expensive power and high barriers to entry; it serves big corporations very well. I am talking about recreating the conditions (bar slavery) that made the provinces wealthy in the first place.
Not quite you are badly quoting what happened on the Industrial Revolution with little understanding of how things have changed.
Nowadays for companies to be successful they need a critical mass of qualified workers within the appropriate commuting area hence why London does so well because if I need another data analyst there are a lot of London and so always a few looking for a new job.
Up north there may be 100 rather than 5000 so recruitment is far harder
True up to a point but, well, there is training (and these days, remote working for sitting down jobs). When Mrs Thatcher invented North Sea Oil, there were not already rig workers in every Aberdeen bedsit.
North Sea oil - that’s a bad example as an awful lot of rig workers commuted from where they lived (it’s why Teesside had multiple flights a day to Aberdeen and Amsterdam and nowhere else).
Likewise is Silicon Glen - we aren’t in the 1980s anymore where that type of placement works
Well, we could be. Imagine an alternative universe in which the Scottish government had set up datacentres to run Gov.Scot and take advantage of Scotland's colder climate to reduce air conditioning costs, rather than relentlessly focussing on Edinburgh tram routes. Look at what American companies are doing as they move between states.
Government can do more than one thing at the same time, you would think
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You need infrastructure to get people to where you want them to work otherwise the company will just go to London where there are enough qualified people in a sane commuting area to work there.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when London got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
Not at all - London loves an overregulated economy with expensive power and high barriers to entry; it serves big corporations very well. I am talking about recreating the conditions (bar slavery) that made the provinces wealthy in the first place.
Not quite you are badly quoting what happened on the Industrial Revolution with little understanding of how things have changed.
Nowadays for companies to be successful they need a critical mass of qualified workers within the appropriate commuting area hence why London does so well because if I need another data analyst there are a lot of London and so always a few looking for a new job.
Up north there may be 100 rather than 5000 so recruitment is far harder
True up to a point but, well, there is training (and these days, remote working for sitting down jobs). When Mrs Thatcher invented North Sea Oil, there were not already rig workers in every Aberdeen bedsit.
North Sea oil - that’s a bad example as an awful lot of rig workers commuted from where they lived (it’s why Teesside had multiple flights a day to Aberdeen and Amsterdam and nowhere else).
Likewise is Silicon Glen - we aren’t in the 1980s anymore where that type of placement works
Well, we could be. Imagine an alternative universe in which the Scottish government had set up datacentres to run Gov.Scot and take advantage of Scotland's colder climate to reduce air conditioning costs, rather than relentlessly focussing on Edinburgh tram routes. Look at what American companies are doing as they move between states.
Blame the Scottish Greens (ironically) and the Tories for forcing the SG to focus on the Edinburgh trams, and the LDs and Slab for screwing up the trams and making further focus inevitable. The SG of the time did not want the trams.
But fair point re aircon, though water cooling would be more useful. Also locally generated energy too. If it was tidal, you'd have water for cooling ... unless it was a very confined sealoch.
On topic: Nigel Farage is reliant on people being het up about immigration. He could struggle if that issue cools down. Anger about immigration is his Rodri.
Genuine question, how do you see that issue cooling down in the next 5 years? I simply cannot.
Some possibilities.
1. Numbers will come down, due mostly to things the previous government did to retighten rules that they had previously overloosened. And whilst it's a bit unfair for the current government to take the credit for that, they are also taking the blame for the bad consequences of pervious government decisions, so it sort of balances out.
2. @MoonRabbit may well be right, that the flow of migrants across Europe has already slowed down, so fewer boat people at our end next year. Positive actions like closing the German legal loophole may help as well.
3. A lot of the immigration anger fades if the pressure on public services fades. If people can't see a doctor easily, the twisted logic that says "the answer is to have fewer of Them" sounds compelling. (It's twisted because of how many of Them are working in healthcare.)
None of these are certain, and they may not add up to enough. But they're all possible.
These are good points, but I would err to the side of caution. I expect immigration will come down over the next few years, but the big question is (a) how far will it fall and (b) will it fall far enough so as no impact is felt given economic growth and the development of infrastructure and housing.
There’s a big lag factor here, and one that I am far from convinced can be solved in 4 years.
On that basis the Labour argument would have to be “immigration is falling, and it will continue to fall so stick with us because the system is working.” For that to succeed, people have to believe it will, and that Reform won’t offer a better alternative.
The other thing here is that for a lot of people even the levels of immigration Labour are likely to preside over will be too much, and there will be a lot of noise made about that.
The public’s concern over immigration is only loosely related to how much immigration there actually is. It’s driven also by events, media reporting, social media etc. Concern about immigration was high in part because the Tories insisted on highlighting it all the time. They kept saying it was a crisis and the public believed them. (Why they highlighted something that they weren’t delivering on, who knows?)
Labour aren’t making the same mistake. They don’t bang on about immigration all the time. When they do highlight it, it’s when it suits them (e.g., deportations being at a 5-year high). Concern about immigration may fall consequently. But then Ref UK and maybe the Tories will be banging on about it, as will some of the right-wing press, so we’ll have to see how that balances things out.
Goodness, a thread header from TSE with which I agree. I must go and do some real work to recover.
The sanest most sensible header for weeks. Merry Christmas TSE ❤️
And great from Kemi Badenoch too. 👍🏻
But are the PB “25%+25%=50” club actually listening? Are they even capable of understanding what is being explained?
Ref+Tory is not, so clearly electorally demonstrated as not, and never will be a mutually supportive voting block. It’s a death match.
This period of UK politics is about the Reform v Tory deathmatch till one eats the other - and until that meal is over and the plates scraped into pigbin, FPTP keeps Labour in power - this period of Labour could be 20 years or more.
The Conservatives could be replaced as official opposition by the Lib Dem’s. The Conservatives could go the same place as the Liberals went 100 years ago. They need to get the policy platform credible, eye catching and watertight going into that May 2029 election.
I suppose the LibDems could, theoretically, become the official opposition if Reform and the Tories cut each others throats at the next election but it is pretty unlikely. Ultimately someone on the right will prevail as the alternative to Labour and it will almost certainly be badged "Conservative" whether Reform in part or whole is absorbed or ultimately stifled. Politics is certainly turbulent and the old party loyalties have withered but the Tories remain part of the country's political DNA. They won't be replaced by either LibDems or Reform.
I can’t understand why we knew the government was going to collapse over a month ago but it’s taking them until the end of February to hold an election. Talk about taking your time.
Apparently this is feature not bug in their view. The idea is to force some structure onto things, create time to reflect on and manage the situation, avoid quick febrile crisis elections of the sort the Nazis profited from in the 1930s.
What is very clear to me, Nigel Farage’s chances of becoming UK Prime Minister are now over.
If he had nothing to do with Reform in the 2024 election, explained he was voting Conservative, and was allowed back into the party, that was the last route open to him. But he chose a different path.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You need infrastructure to get people to where you want them to work otherwise the company will just go to London where there are enough qualified people in a sane commuting area to work there.
“Levelling up” didn’t happen because like everything Johnson did, it was a slogan not a policy.
Probably just as well, because it's not a very good policy. Economic wealth will not return to the North becauase they have gleaming trams and no potholes. We need a wider economic revival based on low taxes, easy regulation, a flexible labour market and low energy costs, then build the infrastructure we need when things take off, not build the infrastructure first and hope a backward process takes place. The idea is more absurd the more one thinks about it.
You mean, what we've had since the 1980s, when London got turbocharged and the north went backwards?
Not at all - London loves an overregulated economy with expensive power and high barriers to entry; it serves big corporations very well. I am talking about recreating the conditions (bar slavery) that made the provinces wealthy in the first place.
Not quite you are badly quoting what happened on the Industrial Revolution with little understanding of how things have changed.
Nowadays for companies to be successful they need a critical mass of qualified workers within the appropriate commuting area hence why London does so well because if I need another data analyst there are a lot of London and so always a few looking for a new job.
Up north there may be 100 rather than 5000 so recruitment is far harder
True up to a point but, well, there is training (and these days, remote working for sitting down jobs). When Mrs Thatcher invented North Sea Oil, there were not already rig workers in every Aberdeen bedsit.
North Sea oil - that’s a bad example as an awful lot of rig workers commuted from where they lived (it’s why Teesside had multiple flights a day to Aberdeen and Amsterdam and nowhere else).
Likewise is Silicon Glen - we aren’t in the 1980s anymore where that type of placement works
Ireland's tech sector argues otherwise.
What tech sector - if you are talking head office accountants employed in Ireland for tax purposes then that’s an international corporation tax game.
If you are talking actual skilled IT staff, that’s done in London and elsewhere - Irish tech staff really aren’t that great and many moved to London to double their pay or more.
Northern Ireland is slightly different and a number of US firms had development centres in Belfast as the wages were the lowest in any English speaking part of the western world
Comments
At some point, this has to blow up in their faces.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/dec/12/majority-of-brexit-voters-would-accept-free-movement-to-access-single-market-uk-eu
I think the issue for most people isn't immigration per se but uncontrolled immigration (eg small boats) and (for the racists) mass immigration from more colourful countries than the EU - which is all down to the Tories and Brexit.
Victoria Thomas Bowen avoids jail after throwing milkshake at Nigel Farage in Clacton during election campaign
https://news.sky.com/story/victoria-thomas-bowen-avoid-jail-for-throwing-milkshake-at-nigel-farage-in-clacton-during-election-campaign-13274797
Two-tier Keir. It could have been acid.
The single-issue independents may be a reduced force by 2026, and the government has more chance to have gained a bit of popularity by then.
Even then, with the added impact of boundary changes I think it will be a battle to retain the 3 seats in my ward.
Both ...to and ... from are grammatically correct, and both acceptable English usage, even if from is the preferred form.
As indeed, he is.
Chairman of the College of Policing says that recording trivial incidents is distracting officers and undermining public confidence"
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/times-crime-and-justice-commission-non-hate-crimes-slkb6hrsq
https://news.sky.com/story/victoria-thomas-bowen-avoid-jail-for-throwing-milkshake-at-nigel-farage-in-clacton-during-election-campaign-13274797
Oh:
"She has suffered multiple threats since this happened, which have had a serious impact on her mental health.
"Victoria understands the impact of her actions and wishes to put the whole episode behind her. She hopes others can do the same."
This is not the adoption of modern street patois, as you seem to imply.
And we do not have, thank heavens, an equivalent of the French Academy.
I cannot imagine it takes up a great deal of police time: the police still need to listen to the complaint, and log it, even if they later decide it is not worth following up. The only difference is some official code number.
After all, there was a quite famous bloke called Bill Shaksper who couldn't spell to save his life.
(I should note this was a GCSE examiner not an A-level one. But that, in a sense, is worse because the GCSE is more or less compulsory - the A-level is not.)
English is a real, living, language, spoken (and written) almost globally. And it doesn't have the convention it's subject to the rules of one, "hegemonic" Academy - like the Academie Francaise. "Different to" is now used so frequently, especially outside the UK, that we really can say it's now become standard usage.
https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/articles/crmn3k70nz4o
Di Conservative Party leader, wey dem born for di UK but wey mostly grow up in Nigeria, don repeatedly describe say she bin grow up in fear and insecurity for di kontri wey corruption dey worry.
On Monday, Nigeria Vice-President Kashim Shettima bin suggest say Badenoch fit "remove di Kemi from her name" if she no dey proud of her "nation of origin".
Wen dem ask her about Shettima comments, Badenoch tok-tok pesin say she "stand by wetin she tok" and "no be PR for Nigeria".
What their arguments all boil down to is that the public should change their minds and embrace it, and welcome more of it.
There’s a big lag factor here, and one that I am far from convinced can be solved in 4 years.
On that basis the Labour argument would have to be “immigration is falling, and it will continue to fall so stick with us because the system is working.” For that to succeed, people have to believe it will, and that Reform won’t offer a better alternative.
The other thing here is that for a lot of people even the levels of immigration Labour are likely to preside over will be too much, and there will be a lot of noise made about that.
And if not abiding to standards, what is the point of an English Language exam? Everyone knows "different to" means "different from" – sure, but how many examinees will not twig that big trains are bigger than small trains, which is what concerns the rest of that model answer?
The danger is that, especially post-Gove, we teach schoolchildren all sorts of pointless trivia about gerunds and participles and the difference between adjectives and adverbs, whilst telling them they can say and write whatever seems right. For day to day communication, sure, but this is for the badge.
It essentially boils down to: it's hard to police the doors to the nightclub, so we may as well admit everyone who wants to come in by leaving our calling card.
Oh, not that Golden Shower?
NE £20,100
London £48,900
The question is why, given this difference, don't more firms take advantage of the cheap labour, land and buildings up north? Education, infrastructure, perhaps? I also note that high-tax Scotland has the highest GVA per head anywhere outside the SE of England.
There are two important points that many more exciteable commentators on the right forget, or at least overlook:
1. The 2024 Labour vote is exceptionally efficiently spread, such that in the next election, even if Labour took third place in total votes, they could still get by far the most seats. The Conservatives need therefore to try to take voters from Labour most of all (and Reform are working on doing the same, though in a different set of seats).
2. Donald Trump will not be president when the next general election is likely to take place. At that point he may well be extremely unpopular and/or discredited, and have fallen out with influential allies like Elon Musk. So currying favour with the Orange One is not the priority for long-term success.
Badenoch's only option, because of the hand she has been dealt, is to play the long game. My current assumption is that the best she can probably hope for in the next election is a 2005-style result, and even that may be a tall order.
Currently there is an opening for the Conservatives to get a hearing from business leaders disillusioned by the budget and various new regulations, but with everyone else they still need to 'earn the right to be heard' as many in their own party have put it.
Saudi Arabia's water consumption has risen since 1980 by a factor of fifteen.
We think of Saudi as a massive producer of the world's energy. However, it "already burns a third of its oil production just to meet domestic water [desalination] and energy needs."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/dec/16/germany-parliament-no-confidence-olaf-scholz-chancellor-latest-updates
For connoisseurs of schadenfreude...
Farage knows exactly what game he’ll play if he holds the balance of power in the next Parliament. He’ll sit on the fence, bide his time, support the government (whichever that may be) when it suits him and when he has the maximum political advantage he’ll bring it down and use it as a springboard for another GE.
Immigration and Woke Wars just validates Farage/Reform and keeps them relevant. Best avoided.
@Nigel_Farage
We now live in a country where you can assault a Member of Parliament and not go to prison.
The latest example of two-tier justice.
Of course, Farage wasn't an MP at the time, but I think the point stands.
Meloni has shown what can be done, if you really want to.
Nowadays for companies to be successful they need a critical mass of qualified workers within the appropriate commuting area hence why London does so well because if I need another data analyst there are a lot of London and so always a few looking for a new job.
Up north there may be 100 rather than 5000 so recruitment is far harder
I think 7/4 on Labour most seats or 50/1 on the LibDems are more value.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47691606
A Brexit supporter who egged Jeremy Corbyn while yelling "respect the vote" has been jailed for 28 days.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/28/sentence-man-who-threw-object-at-nigel-farage-barnsley
London pay market rate and you can recruit
Elsewhere - find a trainee and train them up.
Worse elsewhere the number of possible recruits will be lower because London has a 15 million within a 1 hour commute of London, Newcastle 1/2 million or so
The economic impact of immigration is just a branch of the economic impact of demographics. For a growing economy you want either major productivity gains, or failing that an expansion of the working population and contraction of the dependent population.
We and everywhere in the West have the opposite thanks to our ageing populations: shrinking working age cohorts and growing dependency ratios. All things being equal immigration of people who work and pay taxes (or are rich and spend money) helps the situation; immigration of people who are financially dependent and/or don’t work exacerbates it.
They .make amazing jam.
Or see this BBC documentary about the heyday of IBM's Silicon Glen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOkiNe0-jxw
Secondly, you are talking about professional services companies. Clearly I am not. I am talking about Northampton shoemakers, Birmingham glass, Welsh clothiers. None of which need 'a lot' of data analysts in the vicinity - yes data analysis is still important, but companies of the sort I describe don't need big departments of them. They need people who are pretty good with their hands and want to make stuff.
Likewise is Silicon Glen - we aren’t in the 1980s anymore where that type of placement works
And even if it did come back it’s now been automated through productivity enhancements to the extent there are plastic box manufacturers who used to employ 80 people who now have 2 people operating forklifts at either end of the factory, pellets go in boxes get carried into a HGV
And that carefully picked example was chosen as its one of the few areas where local manufacturing is desirable because of shipping costs
Get over it.
Anyone attacking any politician needs to receive a nasty sentence pour encourager les autres.
And great from Kemi Badenoch too. 👍🏻
But are the PB “25%+25%=50” club actually listening? Are they even capable of understanding what is being explained?
Ref+Tory is not, so clearly electorally demonstrated as not, and never will be a mutually supportive voting block. It’s a death match.
This period of UK politics is about the Reform v Tory deathmatch till one eats the other - and until that meal is over and the plates scraped into pigbin, FPTP keeps Labour in power - this period of Labour could be 20 years or more.
The Conservatives could be replaced as official opposition by the Lib Dem’s. The Conservatives could go the same place as the Liberals went 100 years ago. They need to get the policy platform credible, eye catching and watertight going into that May 2029 election.
Though I am sympathetic to your basis point and have questioned the “assaulting a police officer” offence before.
Cottrell becomes Bp Chelmsford in 2010.
By then Tudor is not only a Team Rector but also a Rural Dean, appointed by an earlier bishop, John Gladwin. (No idea how or why, but from a modern point of vierw it's crazy).
In 2012 he knows that Tudor has paid off a very serious allegation about a very young girl by paying £10K.
He also knows that previously Tudor has been imprisoned for similar offences, quashed on appeal, but earlier suspended from office under church law for 5 years for similar deeds.
Cottrell then does two things: He allows the Rural Dean job to continue. And in 2015 appoints Tudor an honorary canon. In context both these are inexplicable.
There may be 'res judicata' points about the wider charges, but these two actions look very like a smoking gun to me. This has got legs.
(The current Bp Chelmsford is an outside bet for Canterbury. She looks out of trouble as she took office in 2021, and Tudor was suspended from 2019).
But fair point re aircon, though water cooling would be more useful. Also locally generated energy too. If it was tidal, you'd have water for cooling ... unless it was a very confined sealoch.
Labour aren’t making the same mistake. They don’t bang on about immigration all the time. When they do highlight it, it’s when it suits them (e.g., deportations being at a 5-year high). Concern about immigration may fall consequently. But then Ref UK and maybe the Tories will be banging on about it, as will some of the right-wing press, so we’ll have to see how that balances things out.
If he had nothing to do with Reform in the 2024 election, explained he was voting Conservative, and was allowed back into the party, that was the last route open to him. But he chose a different path.
If you are talking actual skilled IT staff, that’s done in London and elsewhere - Irish tech staff really aren’t that great and many moved to London to double their pay or more.
Northern Ireland is slightly different and a number of US firms had development centres in Belfast as the wages were the lowest in any English speaking part of the western world