It's satirising everyone and everything being labelled as racist, and people being called Hitler or fascist because, for example, they once laughed at a Donald Trump joke.
Next.
Go make that pathetic excuse to those who gave this country against facism backed by treasonable apologists.
As I said before, Musk convinced me himself to pull out of Tesla. Because he's clearly too much of a loose cannon/hates his own customers/is distracted, to not accidentally run the company into the ground.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
I put my money where my mouth is and sold up.
The fact that Musk appears to believe, and act on the belief, that there can and will be viable long term human communities living on Mars in not all that long suggests that he may well be less good at thinking through some things than others.
I'm one of those that believes he got very lucky in his career but he was at least good and picking winning horses/causes. Well, until Twitter.
The folks at PayPal clearly saw what he was, it's why they chucked him out - and he's been holding a grudge ever since.
That must be an amazing amount of luck to become the richest person in the world, with a value of over £400bn.
Always surprises me just how lucky some people continually are, year after year. Just like that Ronaldo bloke, or Djokovic, Wiliams sisters, Michael Johnson, Chris Hoy etc.....so so so so so so lucky.
The first business he had complete control over was Twitter. It's not been a roaring success.
That's not true: he founded SpaceX all by himself, and I'd argue it's his most valuable asset.
He doesn't run it day to day.
Musk identifies the biggest problem a business has and works with the engineers until the problem is resolved He then repeats this 52 times a year. It is not 1950’s management by committee and report.
One wonders where it’s all gone so wrong at Twitter.
He didn't buy twitter to run it as a business and make a stack of money from it.
He bought twitter to have control of twitter to influence political discourse, just as similarly wealthy individuals in previous generations bought newspapers.
In that regard it has been a roaring success for him.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
I'm genuinely wondering whether Elon will eventually go full on Carl Beech. Is there anything in his behaviour to suggest that's a line he'd baulk at crossing? That's why his admirers and defenders need to be careful. There's no telling why the guy might go.
Because of the internet we’re watching ultimately why these algorithms are so dangerous. They’ve totally radicalised him.
And in turn, it’s leaking into GBNews, the Telegraph, and the Mail.
We might be overegging it.
He's Cummings (who also made a lot of news) with money and reach.
I'll be very surprised if he lasts the course with The Donald.
What if he has a point though? (disclaimer: I hate Musk). What if Starmer and other establishment figures did conspire to turn a blind eye to these scandals? A few years ago I would never have believed that it would be possible in the UK that the Post Office Scandal could be allowed (and it continues while there are no arrests of Vennells et al). Equally Carl Beech and the blatant attempt by Labour Party leaders to smear senior Tories?
If Starmer is implicated it could be a resigning issue.
As I said before, Musk convinced me himself to pull out of Tesla. Because he's clearly too much of a loose cannon/hates his own customers/is distracted, to not accidentally run the company into the ground.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
I put my money where my mouth is and sold up.
The fact that Musk appears to believe, and act on the belief, that there can and will be viable long term human communities living on Mars in not all that long suggests that he may well be less good at thinking through some things than others.
I'm one of those that believes he got very lucky in his career but he was at least good and picking winning horses/causes. Well, until Twitter.
The folks at PayPal clearly saw what he was, it's why they chucked him out - and he's been holding a grudge ever since.
That must be an amazing amount of luck to become the richest person in the world, with a value of over £400bn.
Always surprises me just how lucky some people continually are, year after year. Just like that Ronaldo bloke, or Djokovic, Wiliams sisters, Michael Johnson, Chris Hoy etc.....so so so so so so lucky.
The first business he had complete control over was Twitter. It's not been a roaring success.
Oh FFS
Yes there he is the world's richest man, a man who makes more in a day than you will in your lifetime.
What he really needs is a bloke on an obscure website to show him how to create wealth.
Btw why arent you richer than him ?
He’s clearly very unhappy. He spends his life talking to absolute loons on Twitter. Hour after hour. Day after day.
I’ll stay poor, thanks.
Whereas you spends hours talking to loons on PB.
Just how unhappy are you ?
I’m extremely happy thanks and my mental health is at an all time high and has been for the last three years. Thanks for asking.
So talking to all those loons pays off, presumabyt the same for Musk
There aren’t many loons on here. But there are actual far right nut jobs on Twitter that he amplifies. I assume you agree with him and them.
Strange assumption. I can think for myself, you should give it a go.
I dont follow any social media as I think its for prats. I dont has a single social media account unless you count PB.
I don’t know why you felt the need to attack my health and wellbeing. You clearly find being challenged difficult.
So long.
I simply played back to you what you were saying about Musk. If you dont like it then stop accusing others.
If you don’t think there are loons on Twitter that he’s talking to and retweeting then you’ve got no hope. Honestly read what some of these people say and then look yourself in the mirror and say he’s not been radicalised.
Happy to post examples if you like. But please apologise for attacking my mental health.
Im aware of your mental issues hence why I was surprised by you attacking Musk - who speculation says may have some of his own. ( autism ?).
And yes there are loons on twitter which is why I avoid it. But there are loons on every site left wing ones as much as right wing ones, no site has a monopoly.
I did not say Elon was a loon. I said he talks to loons.
Has nothing to do with right or left.
Do you think SKS is responsible for the grooming gangs? That’s the loony I’m talking about. That’s not right or left, it’s just wrong.
Responsible no, but does he have a case to answer for his inaction maybe, we need the facts.
And you accused Musk of being unhappy with no evidence whatsoever.
What inaction are you accusing SKS of.
Even most mainstream Tories acknowledge as DPP he did a great job to attack the Gangs issue. Dealt with it far more urgently than his predecessor.
Did he or did he not get an enhanced pension agreed by PM Cameron precisely for this???
So what are you accusing him of?
Is he accused of not making the Tories do more in 14 years?
He could be accused for not calling for a national enquiry since 5th July?
Most independent experts agree this is not necessary. What they ask Starmer to do is act upon the regional enquiries recommendations the Tories have not taken seriously enough.
But no, you play pathetic political games off the back of lies and distortions from Musk.
It's really utterly pathetic
Yes, but t's the issue that isnt going to go away and SKS is hardly a reliable witness.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
I launched an attack on the establishment types who covered up the Muslim rape gangs, you then took offence to that. I also note that @Eabhal was brave enough to have that honest look in the mirror and realise that he probably wouldn't have been a whistle blower under the circumstances which I accept because 99/100 people would do the same. My question wasn't unreasonable or insulting, it was an honest request and I hope other people have been able to have that conversation with themselves so that if they are faced with something like this in the future they will be braver. I really wasn't being disingenuous or attempting a gotcha, my view is that I don't believe you have the strength of character to be a whistle blower under those circumstances based on what you have said and posted on PB but if you say you would have I really would have believed you.
Of course Labour already promised to implement all of the recommendations from the review that Suella Braverman seems to have forgotten she was involved with.
Tim Shipman's book "Out" is over 900 pages, but utterly fascinating in almost every way.
On the eve of Labour's 2021 party conference a member of Starmer's team told the columnist Dan Hodges that, during the leadership contest of 2020, he'd made a startling confession: "You know, I don't get politics. I don't understand it. And I don't really like it."
Isn't there a theory that Starmer didn't think Labour would win the next election when he won the leadership, he just thought he could improve their seat total then hand over to someone else after?
Yes. Come in as hammer of the lefties. Improve Labour's electoral fortunes. Hand over to West Streeting. If it's true, obviously didn't count on the Sunak implosion. Ruined the Labour plan. And may destroy the entire party. Oh dear how sad never mind.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
Jesus Christ
He's done no such thing
Only someone intellectually challenged could believe this Jack and Jill tripe.
It's satirising everyone and everything being labelled as racist, and people being called Hitler or fascist because, for example, they once laughed at a Donald Trump joke.
Next.
Go make that pathetic excuse to those who gave this country against facism backed by treasonable apologists.
The appeasers gave away other countries' territory to our enemies. Starmer gives away our own territory.
Tim Shipman's book "Out" is over 900 pages, but utterly fascinating in almost every way.
On the eve of Labour's 2021 party conference a member of Starmer's team told the columnist Dan Hodges that, during the leadership contest of 2020, he'd made a startling confession: "You know, I don't get politics. I don't understand it. And I don't really like it."
Isn't there a theory that Starmer didn't think Labour would win the next election when he won the leadership, he just thought he could improve their seat total then hand over to someone else after?
That doesn't seem terribly credible.
Objectively, he clearly wasn't favourite to win the 2024 election when he won the leadership. But I struggle to believe he took it on not wanting to win or not believing there was a credible route to doing so. That would be incredibly unusual for a leader of a major party.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Beware of Americans high on their own supply!
Americans have never been entirely and increasingly are less (see OnlyLivingBoy’s post) “free market”.
The US is not at all shareholder friendly - the UK is the most shareholder friendly country.
The US is controlled by management interests
And yet US investors and shareholders took a 24% gain on the S&P in 2024 vs UK shareholders getting 5% on the FTSE100. Maybe, just maybe the regulator has taken things to far and companies that are beholden to shareholders make poor decisions on investment vs cash returns.
Take out the 7 top tech companies and the S&P is flat. The US is a leader in technology, largely thanks to defence funding
Take out the most important and successful sector in the world that gets the most investment and delivers the best returns? Sure why not...
The Canadians wildly zig-zag their vote and if I were the Liberals I'd eject Trudeau now for virtually anyone else.
Canada has massively underperformed the US over the last decade - which it hadn't in the previous one. There's no good way a government shrugs that off.
(Europe has too, of course, but it's not quite as pointed when you don't share a border and a language.)
Once you net off the big tech stocks, has the U.S. really outperformed the rest of the OECD?
I suspect it has, but the situation is not clear-cut.
Nor is it 100% obvious why British productivity stalled since 2008 (and seemingly again and worse, post-Covid), despite some poster’s quite comic condescension.
This is the $64k question that has never been answered properly, to my satisfaction.
What passes for consensus (but I’d want @OnlyLivingBoy and others to chip in) is a mixture of the financial services bubble popping, and a failure to make capital investment (a feature of Osborne’s austerity which he now regrets I believe). Add in an over-reliance on a housing bubble which further distorted investment away from productive use.
Then, since 2016, you’ve got Brexit as well, though this is vastly overshadowed by the pandemic.
Immigration is a potential exacerbating factor, though I haven’t seen a strong case made. Some link it to a failure to invest by British business (the so-called car-wash problem), some to making the housing bubble worse.
Personally I hold that overall, EU migration was incredibly positive for UK productivity and growth, and perhaps masked an even worse outcome delivered by the factors above.
I think the EU migration point is linked to your business failure to invest.
I can't detect a meaningful boost to growth post 2004 (when it came in) to 2008, as it was already bubbling, nor how the period when it was very high - especially up to 2014/15 - contrasted with growth thereafter, which was already flatter.
As I said before, Musk convinced me himself to pull out of Tesla. Because he's clearly too much of a loose cannon/hates his own customers/is distracted, to not accidentally run the company into the ground.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
I put my money where my mouth is and sold up.
The fact that Musk appears to believe, and act on the belief, that there can and will be viable long term human communities living on Mars in not all that long suggests that he may well be less good at thinking through some things than others.
I'm one of those that believes he got very lucky in his career but he was at least good and picking winning horses/causes. Well, until Twitter.
The folks at PayPal clearly saw what he was, it's why they chucked him out - and he's been holding a grudge ever since.
That must be an amazing amount of luck to become the richest person in the world, with a value of over £400bn.
Always surprises me just how lucky some people continually are, year after year. Just like that Ronaldo bloke, or Djokovic, Wiliams sisters, Michael Johnson, Chris Hoy etc.....so so so so so so lucky.
The first business he had complete control over was Twitter. It's not been a roaring success.
Oh FFS
Yes there he is the world's richest man, a man who makes more in a day than you will in your lifetime.
What he really needs is a bloke on an obscure website to show him how to create wealth.
Btw why arent you richer than him ?
He’s clearly very unhappy. He spends his life talking to absolute loons on Twitter. Hour after hour. Day after day.
I’ll stay poor, thanks.
Whereas you spends hours talking to loons on PB.
Just how unhappy are you ?
I’m extremely happy thanks and my mental health is at an all time high and has been for the last three years. Thanks for asking.
So talking to all those loons pays off, presumabyt the same for Musk
There aren’t many loons on here. But there are actual far right nut jobs on Twitter that he amplifies. I assume you agree with him and them.
Strange assumption. I can think for myself, you should give it a go.
I dont follow any social media as I think its for prats. I dont has a single social media account unless you count PB.
I don’t know why you felt the need to attack my health and wellbeing. You clearly find being challenged difficult.
So long.
I simply played back to you what you were saying about Musk. If you dont like it then stop accusing others.
If you don’t think there are loons on Twitter that he’s talking to and retweeting then you’ve got no hope. Honestly read what some of these people say and then look yourself in the mirror and say he’s not been radicalised.
Happy to post examples if you like. But please apologise for attacking my mental health.
Im aware of your mental issues hence why I was surprised by you attacking Musk - who speculation says may have some of his own. ( autism ?).
And yes there are loons on twitter which is why I avoid it. But there are loons on every site left wing ones as much as right wing ones, no site has a monopoly.
I did not say Elon was a loon. I said he talks to loons.
Has nothing to do with right or left.
Do you think SKS is responsible for the grooming gangs? That’s the loony I’m talking about. That’s not right or left, it’s just wrong.
Responsible no, but does he have a case to answer for his inaction maybe, we need the facts.
And you accused Musk of being unhappy with no evidence whatsoever.
I do think he’s very unhappy. Because he spends every day talking to probably fake accounts on Twitter. But I accept that’s not a judgment I can really validate.
I would be quite surprised. Hes just had several major wins in the last month and is about to u undertake a huge challenge. This time next year if all has gone pear shaped he may be unhappy but for the moment the wind is in his sails.
Unhappy may not be the word. He doesn't act like a man at peace with himself.
It is perfectly possible for someone to be outwardly successful, but have some psychological issues, addiction issues, family issues etc.
He has hinted he is somewhere on the spectrum so his ways of being at ease with himself are different than most.
Oh here we go again.
He's a sociopathic **** so he must be autistic. Leon will be on in a moment to educate us on his "aspie" expertise and how Musk fits the textbook narrative.
As I said before, Musk convinced me himself to pull out of Tesla. Because he's clearly too much of a loose cannon/hates his own customers/is distracted, to not accidentally run the company into the ground.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
I put my money where my mouth is and sold up.
The fact that Musk appears to believe, and act on the belief, that there can and will be viable long term human communities living on Mars in not all that long suggests that he may well be less good at thinking through some things than others.
I'm one of those that believes he got very lucky in his career but he was at least good and picking winning horses/causes. Well, until Twitter.
The folks at PayPal clearly saw what he was, it's why they chucked him out - and he's been holding a grudge ever since.
That must be an amazing amount of luck to become the richest person in the world, with a value of over £400bn.
Always surprises me just how lucky some people continually are, year after year. Just like that Ronaldo bloke, or Djokovic, Wiliams sisters, Michael Johnson, Chris Hoy etc.....so so so so so so lucky.
The first business he had complete control over was Twitter. It's not been a roaring success.
Oh FFS
Yes there he is the world's richest man, a man who makes more in a day than you will in your lifetime.
What he really needs is a bloke on an obscure website to show him how to create wealth.
Btw why arent you richer than him ?
He's a Bond villain and you know what happens to Bond villains when they cross HMG.
In the current absence of an 007 may be we need to send Tommy Shelby and Alfie Solomon out on a juicy contract to sort him out.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
I'm genuinely wondering whether Elon will eventually go full on Carl Beech. Is there anything in his behaviour to suggest that's a line he'd baulk at crossing? That's why his admirers and defenders need to be careful. There's no telling why the guy might go.
Because of the internet we’re watching ultimately why these algorithms are so dangerous. They’ve totally radicalised him.
I think you're right Horse. We've seen this before. Talking head gets really into twitter and becomes a parody of himself. Gary Lineker, Owen Jones, Carol Vorderman, Lawrence Fox. Different paths but same trajectory.
The common thread there (add J K Rowling on top) is that they all end up going over the deep end.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
I'm very happy to trade with Europe, and even China, but I don't think that should come at the expense of our political independence.
For growth, the ones suffocating that are your lot.
You seem to believe what you want to believe.
I’d be tempted to put the strangulation of the British economy in the hands of austerity. See below.
The pre 2007 numbers on that chart are artificially inflated by a financial services bubble that was clearly unsustainable
Well, perhaps, but that problem/mistake hasn't been rectified since.
Larry Elliott would write regularly on the Guardian in the late-90s and early noughties about what he called then fantasy island economy if Britain, where manufacturing and business investment was neglected in favour of financial engineering.
Despite Osborne's much vaunted march of the makers, not a lot has changed in the subsequent couple of decades.
Tim Shipman's book "Out" is over 900 pages, but utterly fascinating in almost every way.
On the eve of Labour's 2021 party conference a member of Starmer's team told the columnist Dan Hodges that, during the leadership contest of 2020, he'd made a startling confession: "You know, I don't get politics. I don't understand it. And I don't really like it."
Isn't there a theory that Starmer didn't think Labour would win the next election when he won the leadership, he just thought he could improve their seat total then hand over to someone else after?
That doesn't seem terribly credible.
Objectively, he clearly wasn't favourite to win the 2024 election when he won the leadership. But I struggle to believe he took it on not wanting to win or not believing there was a credible route to doing so. That would be incredibly unusual for a leader of a major party.
He outlined the approach in 2020. He never once diverged from it.
Same as in government. People don’t get it, he’s not going to change how he works.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
I'm genuinely wondering whether Elon will eventually go full on Carl Beech. Is there anything in his behaviour to suggest that's a line he'd baulk at crossing? That's why his admirers and defenders need to be careful. There's no telling why the guy might go.
Because of the internet we’re watching ultimately why these algorithms are so dangerous. They’ve totally radicalised him.
And in turn, it’s leaking into GBNews, the Telegraph, and the Mail.
We might be overegging it.
He's Cummings (who also made a lot of news) with money and reach.
I'll be very surprised if he lasts the course with The Donald.
What if he has a point though? (disclaimer: I hate Musk). What if Starmer and other establishment figures did conspire to turn a blind eye to these scandals? A few years ago I would never have believed that it would be possible in the UK that the Post Office Scandal could be allowed (and it continues while there are no arrests of Vennells et al). Equally Carl Beech and the blatant attempt by Labour Party leaders to smear senior Tories?
If Starmer is implicated it could be a resigning issue.
When charging decisions were being refused who was DPP? Oh right. I wonder what a full public inquiry with access to the CPS paper trail might turn up? I wonder what Starmer would say under oath without parliamentary privilege and how that might differ from the paper trail?
It's satirising everyone and everything being labelled as racist, and people being called Hitler or fascist because, for example, they once laughed at a Donald Trump joke.
Next.
Go make that pathetic excuse to those who gave this country against facism backed by treasonable apologists.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Beware of Americans high on their own supply!
Americans have never been entirely and increasingly are less (see OnlyLivingBoy’s post) “free market”.
The US is not at all shareholder friendly - the UK is the most shareholder friendly country.
The US is controlled by management interests
And yet US investors and shareholders took a 24% gain on the S&P in 2024 vs UK shareholders getting 5% on the FTSE100. Maybe, just maybe the regulator has taken things to far and companies that are beholden to shareholders make poor decisions on investment vs cash returns.
Take out the 7 top tech companies and the S&P is flat. The US is a leader in technology, largely thanks to defence funding
Take out the most important and successful sector in the world that gets the most investment and delivers the best returns? Sure why not...
Sure: but it's a sign that most of the US economy, that provides 95% of the jobs, is in little better state than it is in other countries.
And which is a major part of why many Americans are mad as hell. (It's almost like a special case of the "Dutch disease", where the outsize success of one sector pulls in capital, sending the currency higher, and exacerbating problems in other sectors.)
I see Elon Musk is now saying SKS is now directly responsible for the grooming gangs because he was head of the CPS.
Perhaps we should educate him as to Starmer's sole responsibility in prosecuting all those sub- Postmasters. Perhaps the Mail should remind itself of this factoid.
As I said before, Musk convinced me himself to pull out of Tesla. Because he's clearly too much of a loose cannon/hates his own customers/is distracted, to not accidentally run the company into the ground.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
I put my money where my mouth is and sold up.
The fact that Musk appears to believe, and act on the belief, that there can and will be viable long term human communities living on Mars in not all that long suggests that he may well be less good at thinking through some things than others.
I'm one of those that believes he got very lucky in his career but he was at least good and picking winning horses/causes. Well, until Twitter.
The folks at PayPal clearly saw what he was, it's why they chucked him out - and he's been holding a grudge ever since.
That must be an amazing amount of luck to become the richest person in the world, with a value of over £400bn.
Always surprises me just how lucky some people continually are, year after year. Just like that Ronaldo bloke, or Djokovic, Wiliams sisters, Michael Johnson, Chris Hoy etc.....so so so so so so lucky.
The first business he had complete control over was Twitter. It's not been a roaring success.
Oh FFS
Yes there he is the world's richest man, a man who makes more in a day than you will in your lifetime.
What he really needs is a bloke on an obscure website to show him how to create wealth.
Btw why arent you richer than him ?
He’s clearly very unhappy. He spends his life talking to absolute loons on Twitter. Hour after hour. Day after day.
I’ll stay poor, thanks.
Whereas you spends hours talking to loons on PB.
Just how unhappy are you ?
I’m extremely happy thanks and my mental health is at an all time high and has been for the last three years. Thanks for asking.
So talking to all those loons pays off, presumabyt the same for Musk
There aren’t many loons on here. But there are actual far right nut jobs on Twitter that he amplifies. I assume you agree with him and them.
Strange assumption. I can think for myself, you should give it a go.
I dont follow any social media as I think its for prats. I dont has a single social media account unless you count PB.
I don’t know why you felt the need to attack my health and wellbeing. You clearly find being challenged difficult.
So long.
I simply played back to you what you were saying about Musk. If you dont like it then stop accusing others.
If you don’t think there are loons on Twitter that he’s talking to and retweeting then you’ve got no hope. Honestly read what some of these people say and then look yourself in the mirror and say he’s not been radicalised.
Happy to post examples if you like. But please apologise for attacking my mental health.
Im aware of your mental issues hence why I was surprised by you attacking Musk - who speculation says may have some of his own. ( autism ?).
And yes there are loons on twitter which is why I avoid it. But there are loons on every site left wing ones as much as right wing ones, no site has a monopoly.
I did not say Elon was a loon. I said he talks to loons.
Has nothing to do with right or left.
Do you think SKS is responsible for the grooming gangs? That’s the loony I’m talking about. That’s not right or left, it’s just wrong.
Responsible no, but does he have a case to answer for his inaction maybe, we need the facts.
And you accused Musk of being unhappy with no evidence whatsoever.
I do think he’s very unhappy. Because he spends every day talking to probably fake accounts on Twitter. But I accept that’s not a judgment I can really validate.
I would be quite surprised. Hes just had several major wins in the last month and is about to u undertake a huge challenge. This time next year if all has gone pear shaped he may be unhappy but for the moment the wind is in his sails.
Unhappy may not be the word. He doesn't act like a man at peace with himself.
It is perfectly possible for someone to be outwardly successful, but have some psychological issues, addiction issues, family issues etc.
He has hinted he is somewhere on the spectrum so his ways of being at ease with himself are different than most.
Oh here we go again.
He's a sociopathic **** so he must be autistic. Leon will be on in a moment to educate us on his "aspie" expertise and how Musk fits the textbook narrative.
Ive said nothing of the sort Ive quoted what he himself as implied. And is he is on the spectrum and has succeeded against the world, good on him.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
I'm genuinely wondering whether Elon will eventually go full on Carl Beech. Is there anything in his behaviour to suggest that's a line he'd baulk at crossing? That's why his admirers and defenders need to be careful. There's no telling why the guy might go.
Because of the internet we’re watching ultimately why these algorithms are so dangerous. They’ve totally radicalised him.
And in turn, it’s leaking into GBNews, the Telegraph, and the Mail.
We might be overegging it.
He's Cummings (who also made a lot of news) with money and reach.
I'll be very surprised if he lasts the course with The Donald.
What if he has a point though? (disclaimer: I hate Musk). What if Starmer and other establishment figures did conspire to turn a blind eye to these scandals? A few years ago I would never have believed that it would be possible in the UK that the Post Office Scandal could be allowed (and it continues while there are no arrests of Vennells et al). Equally Carl Beech and the blatant attempt by Labour Party leaders to smear senior Tories?
If Starmer is implicated it could be a resigning issue.
I suspect Starmer simply shared the prejudices of any metropolitan liberal was disinclined to look too hard.
Tim Shipman's book "Out" is over 900 pages, but utterly fascinating in almost every way.
On the eve of Labour's 2021 party conference a member of Starmer's team told the columnist Dan Hodges that, during the leadership contest of 2020, he'd made a startling confession: "You know, I don't get politics. I don't understand it. And I don't really like it."
Isn't there a theory that Starmer didn't think Labour would win the next election when he won the leadership, he just thought he could improve their seat total then hand over to someone else after?
Yes. Come in as hammer of the lefties. Improve Labour's electoral fortunes. Hand over to West Streeting. If it's true, obviously didn't count on the Sunak implosion. Ruined the Labour plan. And may destroy the entire party. Oh dear how sad never mind.
Here in the real world, winning an election with a majority of 174 can't reasonably said to have "ruined the Labour plan". Nor is a snapshot six months into a five year term a basis for talking about destruction of the party.
It's totally reasonable to talk about the problems Starmer and Labour face, several of them self-inflicted. But anyone who thinks about it rationally would far rather be in Starmer's shoes than those of Badenoch, Farage or Davey.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
I'm very happy to trade with Europe, and even China, but I don't think that should come at the expense of our political independence.
For growth, the ones suffocating that are your lot.
You seem to believe what you want to believe.
I’d be tempted to put the strangulation of the British economy in the hands of austerity. See below.
The pre 2007 numbers on that chart are artificially inflated by a financial services bubble that was clearly unsustainable
Well, perhaps, but that problem/mistake hasn't been rectified since.
Larry Elliott would write regularly on the Guardian in the late-90s and early noughties about what he called then fantasy island economy if Britain, where manufacturing and business investment was neglected in favour of financial engineering.
Despite Osborne's much vaunted march of the makers, not a lot has changed in the subsequent couple of decades.
There's still a widespread failure to acknowledge that things were going wrong in the run up to the crash which leads to mistaken policies in an attempt to get back to the good old days.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
I'm genuinely wondering whether Elon will eventually go full on Carl Beech. Is there anything in his behaviour to suggest that's a line he'd baulk at crossing? That's why his admirers and defenders need to be careful. There's no telling why the guy might go.
Because of the internet we’re watching ultimately why these algorithms are so dangerous. They’ve totally radicalised him.
And in turn, it’s leaking into GBNews, the Telegraph, and the Mail.
We might be overegging it.
He's Cummings (who also made a lot of news) with money and reach.
I'll be very surprised if he lasts the course with The Donald.
What if he has a point though? (disclaimer: I hate Musk). What if Starmer and other establishment figures did conspire to turn a blind eye to these scandals? A few years ago I would never have believed that it would be possible in the UK that the Post Office Scandal could be allowed (and it continues while there are no arrests of Vennells et al). Equally Carl Beech and the blatant attempt by Labour Party leaders to smear senior Tories?
If Starmer is implicated it could be a resigning issue.
When charging decisions were being refused who was DPP? Oh right. I wonder what a full public inquiry with access to the CPS paper trail might turn up? I wonder what Starmer would say under oath without parliamentary privilege and how that might differ from the paper trail?
Isn't the problem more that crimes weren't even been investigated, rather than charges weren't being brought?
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
Jesus Christ
He's done no such thing
Only someone intellectually challenged could believe this Jack and Jill tripe.
It is not a necessity to believe that it must be true to ask whether it is possible. You obviously have a political belief that causes you to think it impossible that Starmer might have done wrong which is somewhat quaint. Unless you are Sir Keir's mum, and then your vociferous defence is entirely understandable.
Tim Shipman's book "Out" is over 900 pages, but utterly fascinating in almost every way.
On the eve of Labour's 2021 party conference a member of Starmer's team told the columnist Dan Hodges that, during the leadership contest of 2020, he'd made a startling confession: "You know, I don't get politics. I don't understand it. And I don't really like it."
Isn't there a theory that Starmer didn't think Labour would win the next election when he won the leadership, he just thought he could improve their seat total then hand over to someone else after?
Yes. Come in as hammer of the lefties. Improve Labour's electoral fortunes. Hand over to West Streeting. If it's true, obviously didn't count on the Sunak implosion. Ruined the Labour plan. And may destroy the entire party. Oh dear how sad never mind.
It will never be Wes Streeting.
He'll be seen as a right-winger and Blairite and will never make it past the College.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Beware of Americans high on their own supply!
Americans have never been entirely and increasingly are less (see OnlyLivingBoy’s post) “free market”.
The US is not at all shareholder friendly - the UK is the most shareholder friendly country.
The US is controlled by management interests
And yet US investors and shareholders took a 24% gain on the S&P in 2024 vs UK shareholders getting 5% on the FTSE100. Maybe, just maybe the regulator has taken things to far and companies that are beholden to shareholders make poor decisions on investment vs cash returns.
Take out the 7 top tech companies and the S&P is flat. The US is a leader in technology, largely thanks to defence funding
Take out the most important and successful sector in the world that gets the most investment and delivers the best returns? Sure why not...
Sure: but it's a sign that most of the US economy, that provides 95% of the jobs, is in little better state than it is in other countries.
And which is a major part of why many Americans are mad as hell. (It's almost like a special case of the "Dutch disease", where the outsize success of one sector pulls in capital, sending the currency higher, and exacerbating problems in other sectors.)
And perhaps analogous to the over-reliance on FS seen in the UK.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Beware of Americans high on their own supply!
Americans have never been entirely and increasingly are less (see OnlyLivingBoy’s post) “free market”.
The US is not at all shareholder friendly - the UK is the most shareholder friendly country.
The US is controlled by management interests
And yet US investors and shareholders took a 24% gain on the S&P in 2024 vs UK shareholders getting 5% on the FTSE100. Maybe, just maybe the regulator has taken things to far and companies that are beholden to shareholders make poor decisions on investment vs cash returns.
Take out the 7 top tech companies and the S&P is flat. The US is a leader in technology, largely thanks to defence funding
Take out the most important and successful sector in the world that gets the most investment and delivers the best returns? Sure why not...
Sure: but it's a sign that most of the US economy, that provides 95% of the jobs, is in little better state than it is in other countries.
And which is a major part of why many Americans are mad as hell. (It's almost like a special case of the "Dutch disease", where the outsize success of one sector pulls in capital, sending the currency higher, and exacerbating problems in other sectors.)
I completely agree with you, my point wasn't about the wider economy but about whether or not being so shareholder first is a net good for the UK. I don't think it is and I also think I'm right, look at how companies are deserting UK indices.
Just a question, why is your account private when I thought this functionality was removed?
No idea. I changed my profile picture recently so maybe it happened then. If you want to VM me you can do so in the normal way or contact me via my website.
Tim Shipman's book "Out" is over 900 pages, but utterly fascinating in almost every way.
On the eve of Labour's 2021 party conference a member of Starmer's team told the columnist Dan Hodges that, during the leadership contest of 2020, he'd made a startling confession: "You know, I don't get politics. I don't understand it. And I don't really like it."
Isn't there a theory that Starmer didn't think Labour would win the next election when he won the leadership, he just thought he could improve their seat total then hand over to someone else after?
Yes. Come in as hammer of the lefties. Improve Labour's electoral fortunes. Hand over to West Streeting. If it's true, obviously didn't count on the Sunak implosion. Ruined the Labour plan. And may destroy the entire party. Oh dear how sad never mind.
It will never be Wes Streeting.
He'll be seen as a right-winger and Blairite and will never make it past the College.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
I'm genuinely wondering whether Elon will eventually go full on Carl Beech. Is there anything in his behaviour to suggest that's a line he'd baulk at crossing? That's why his admirers and defenders need to be careful. There's no telling why the guy might go.
Because of the internet we’re watching ultimately why these algorithms are so dangerous. They’ve totally radicalised him.
And in turn, it’s leaking into GBNews, the Telegraph, and the Mail.
We might be overegging it.
He's Cummings (who also made a lot of news) with money and reach.
I'll be very surprised if he lasts the course with The Donald.
What if he has a point though? (disclaimer: I hate Musk). What if Starmer and other establishment figures did conspire to turn a blind eye to these scandals? A few years ago I would never have believed that it would be possible in the UK that the Post Office Scandal could be allowed (and it continues while there are no arrests of Vennells et al). Equally Carl Beech and the blatant attempt by Labour Party leaders to smear senior Tories?
If Starmer is implicated it could be a resigning issue.
When charging decisions were being refused who was DPP? Oh right. I wonder what a full public inquiry with access to the CPS paper trail might turn up? I wonder what Starmer would say under oath without parliamentary privilege and how that might differ from the paper trail?
Isn't the problem more that crimes weren't even been investigated, rather than charges weren't being brought?
There were a few occasions where investigations went forwards but then they were met with the giant "fuck off" from the CPS after which few to no investigations were carried out by the police and the girls were simply ignored.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
Jesus Christ
He's done no such thing
Only someone intellectually challenged could believe this Jack and Jill tripe.
He’s clearly taking the piss. Why do you take everything so literally ?
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
I'm very happy to trade with Europe, and even China, but I don't think that should come at the expense of our political independence.
For growth, the ones suffocating that are your lot.
You seem to believe what you want to believe.
I’d be tempted to put the strangulation of the British economy in the hands of austerity. See below.
The pre 2007 numbers on that chart are artificially inflated by a financial services bubble that was clearly unsustainable
Well, perhaps, but that problem/mistake hasn't been rectified since.
Larry Elliott would write regularly on the Guardian in the late-90s and early noughties about what he called then fantasy island economy if Britain, where manufacturing and business investment was neglected in favour of financial engineering.
Despite Osborne's much vaunted march of the makers, not a lot has changed in the subsequent couple of decades.
There's still a widespread failure to acknowledge that things were going wrong in the run up to the crash which leads to mistaken policies in an attempt to get back to the good old days.
There’s also a suspicion that attempts to over-index on the FS bubble are a ploy to absolve the Tories somehow.
In reality, you have to look at the whole period since 1979. Successive parties did not differ hugely in their general ideological approach.
Despite that, it remains notable how badly the Tories performed 2010-2024, with Boris/Truss being the utter nadir.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
Jesus Christ
He's done no such thing
Only someone intellectually challenged could believe this Jack and Jill tripe.
As I said before, Musk convinced me himself to pull out of Tesla. Because he's clearly too much of a loose cannon/hates his own customers/is distracted, to not accidentally run the company into the ground.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
I put my money where my mouth is and sold up.
The fact that Musk appears to believe, and act on the belief, that there can and will be viable long term human communities living on Mars in not all that long suggests that he may well be less good at thinking through some things than others.
I'm one of those that believes he got very lucky in his career but he was at least good and picking winning horses/causes. Well, until Twitter.
The folks at PayPal clearly saw what he was, it's why they chucked him out - and he's been holding a grudge ever since.
That must be an amazing amount of luck to become the richest person in the world, with a value of over £400bn.
Always surprises me just how lucky some people continually are, year after year. Just like that Ronaldo bloke, or Djokovic, Wiliams sisters, Michael Johnson, Chris Hoy etc.....so so so so so so lucky.
The first business he had complete control over was Twitter. It's not been a roaring success.
Oh FFS
Yes there he is the world's richest man, a man who makes more in a day than you will in your lifetime.
What he really needs is a bloke on an obscure website to show him how to create wealth.
Btw why arent you richer than him ?
He’s clearly very unhappy. He spends his life talking to absolute loons on Twitter. Hour after hour. Day after day.
I’ll stay poor, thanks.
Whereas you spends hours talking to loons on PB.
Just how unhappy are you ?
I’m extremely happy thanks and my mental health is at an all time high and has been for the last three years. Thanks for asking.
So talking to all those loons pays off, presumabyt the same for Musk
There aren’t many loons on here. But there are actual far right nut jobs on Twitter that he amplifies. I assume you agree with him and them.
Strange assumption. I can think for myself, you should give it a go.
I dont follow any social media as I think its for prats. I dont has a single social media account unless you count PB.
I don’t know why you felt the need to attack my health and wellbeing. You clearly find being challenged difficult.
So long.
I simply played back to you what you were saying about Musk. If you dont like it then stop accusing others.
If you don’t think there are loons on Twitter that he’s talking to and retweeting then you’ve got no hope. Honestly read what some of these people say and then look yourself in the mirror and say he’s not been radicalised.
Happy to post examples if you like. But please apologise for attacking my mental health.
Im aware of your mental issues hence why I was surprised by you attacking Musk - who speculation says may have some of his own. ( autism ?).
And yes there are loons on twitter which is why I avoid it. But there are loons on every site left wing ones as much as right wing ones, no site has a monopoly.
I did not say Elon was a loon. I said he talks to loons.
Has nothing to do with right or left.
Do you think SKS is responsible for the grooming gangs? That’s the loony I’m talking about. That’s not right or left, it’s just wrong.
Responsible no, but does he have a case to answer for his inaction maybe, we need the facts.
And you accused Musk of being unhappy with no evidence whatsoever.
I do think he’s very unhappy. Because he spends every day talking to probably fake accounts on Twitter. But I accept that’s not a judgment I can really validate.
I would be quite surprised. Hes just had several major wins in the last month and is about to u undertake a huge challenge. This time next year if all has gone pear shaped he may be unhappy but for the moment the wind is in his sails.
Unhappy may not be the word. He doesn't act like a man at peace with himself.
It is perfectly possible for someone to be outwardly successful, but have some psychological issues, addiction issues, family issues etc.
He has hinted he is somewhere on the spectrum so his ways of being at ease with himself are different than most.
Oh here we go again.
He's a sociopathic **** so he must be autistic. Leon will be on in a moment to educate us on his "aspie" expertise and how Musk fits the textbook narrative.
He already has as a response to one of my posts last night.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
I'm genuinely wondering whether Elon will eventually go full on Carl Beech. Is there anything in his behaviour to suggest that's a line he'd baulk at crossing? That's why his admirers and defenders need to be careful. There's no telling why the guy might go.
Because of the internet we’re watching ultimately why these algorithms are so dangerous. They’ve totally radicalised him.
And in turn, it’s leaking into GBNews, the Telegraph, and the Mail.
We might be overegging it.
He's Cummings (who also made a lot of news) with money and reach.
I'll be very surprised if he lasts the course with The Donald.
What if he has a point though? (disclaimer: I hate Musk). What if Starmer and other establishment figures did conspire to turn a blind eye to these scandals? A few years ago I would never have believed that it would be possible in the UK that the Post Office Scandal could be allowed (and it continues while there are no arrests of Vennells et al). Equally Carl Beech and the blatant attempt by Labour Party leaders to smear senior Tories?
If Starmer is implicated it could be a resigning issue.
We demanded his resignation this time last year because the client media claimed he was solely responsible for the vexatious prosecution of sub- Postmasters.
What are your thoughts on Braverman inaction whilst Home Secretary?
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
I'm genuinely wondering whether Elon will eventually go full on Carl Beech. Is there anything in his behaviour to suggest that's a line he'd baulk at crossing? That's why his admirers and defenders need to be careful. There's no telling why the guy might go.
Because of the internet we’re watching ultimately why these algorithms are so dangerous. They’ve totally radicalised him.
And in turn, it’s leaking into GBNews, the Telegraph, and the Mail.
We might be overegging it.
He's Cummings (who also made a lot of news) with money and reach.
I'll be very surprised if he lasts the course with The Donald.
What if he has a point though? (disclaimer: I hate Musk). What if Starmer and other establishment figures did conspire to turn a blind eye to these scandals? A few years ago I would never have believed that it would be possible in the UK that the Post Office Scandal could be allowed (and it continues while there are no arrests of Vennells et al). Equally Carl Beech and the blatant attempt by Labour Party leaders to smear senior Tories?
If Starmer is implicated it could be a resigning issue.
When charging decisions were being refused who was DPP? Oh right. I wonder what a full public inquiry with access to the CPS paper trail might turn up? I wonder what Starmer would say under oath without parliamentary privilege and how that might differ from the paper trail?
Well indeed. Perhaps like those in senior positions in the Post Office he thought that the interests of "the many" and broader institutional reputation outweighed the injustice on "the few". Maybe this is actually what is meant by "For the many not the few".
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
I'm genuinely wondering whether Elon will eventually go full on Carl Beech. Is there anything in his behaviour to suggest that's a line he'd baulk at crossing? That's why his admirers and defenders need to be careful. There's no telling why the guy might go.
Because of the internet we’re watching ultimately why these algorithms are so dangerous. They’ve totally radicalised him.
And in turn, it’s leaking into GBNews, the Telegraph, and the Mail.
We might be overegging it.
He's Cummings (who also made a lot of news) with money and reach.
I'll be very surprised if he lasts the course with The Donald.
What if he has a point though? (disclaimer: I hate Musk). What if Starmer and other establishment figures did conspire to turn a blind eye to these scandals? A few years ago I would never have believed that it would be possible in the UK that the Post Office Scandal could be allowed (and it continues while there are no arrests of Vennells et al). Equally Carl Beech and the blatant attempt by Labour Party leaders to smear senior Tories?
If Starmer is implicated it could be a resigning issue.
When charging decisions were being refused who was DPP? Oh right. I wonder what a full public inquiry with access to the CPS paper trail might turn up? I wonder what Starmer would say under oath without parliamentary privilege and how that might differ from the paper trail?
Isn't the problem more that crimes weren't even been investigated, rather than charges weren't being brought?
The extent of some people's Starmer Derangement Syndrome on here is unbelievable.
As I said before, Musk convinced me himself to pull out of Tesla. Because he's clearly too much of a loose cannon/hates his own customers/is distracted, to not accidentally run the company into the ground.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
I put my money where my mouth is and sold up.
The fact that Musk appears to believe, and act on the belief, that there can and will be viable long term human communities living on Mars in not all that long suggests that he may well be less good at thinking through some things than others.
I'm one of those that believes he got very lucky in his career but he was at least good and picking winning horses/causes. Well, until Twitter.
The folks at PayPal clearly saw what he was, it's why they chucked him out - and he's been holding a grudge ever since.
That must be an amazing amount of luck to become the richest person in the world, with a value of over £400bn.
Always surprises me just how lucky some people continually are, year after year. Just like that Ronaldo bloke, or Djokovic, Wiliams sisters, Michael Johnson, Chris Hoy etc.....so so so so so so lucky.
The first business he had complete control over was Twitter. It's not been a roaring success.
Oh FFS
Yes there he is the world's richest man, a man who makes more in a day than you will in your lifetime.
What he really needs is a bloke on an obscure website to show him how to create wealth.
Btw why arent you richer than him ?
He’s clearly very unhappy. He spends his life talking to absolute loons on Twitter. Hour after hour. Day after day.
I’ll stay poor, thanks.
Whereas you spends hours talking to loons on PB.
Just how unhappy are you ?
I’m extremely happy thanks and my mental health is at an all time high and has been for the last three years. Thanks for asking.
So talking to all those loons pays off, presumabyt the same for Musk
There aren’t many loons on here. But there are actual far right nut jobs on Twitter that he amplifies. I assume you agree with him and them.
Strange assumption. I can think for myself, you should give it a go.
I dont follow any social media as I think its for prats. I dont has a single social media account unless you count PB.
I don’t know why you felt the need to attack my health and wellbeing. You clearly find being challenged difficult.
So long.
I simply played back to you what you were saying about Musk. If you dont like it then stop accusing others.
If you don’t think there are loons on Twitter that he’s talking to and retweeting then you’ve got no hope. Honestly read what some of these people say and then look yourself in the mirror and say he’s not been radicalised.
Happy to post examples if you like. But please apologise for attacking my mental health.
Im aware of your mental issues hence why I was surprised by you attacking Musk - who speculation says may have some of his own. ( autism ?).
And yes there are loons on twitter which is why I avoid it. But there are loons on every site left wing ones as much as right wing ones, no site has a monopoly.
I did not say Elon was a loon. I said he talks to loons.
Has nothing to do with right or left.
Do you think SKS is responsible for the grooming gangs? That’s the loony I’m talking about. That’s not right or left, it’s just wrong.
Responsible no, but does he have a case to answer for his inaction maybe, we need the facts.
And you accused Musk of being unhappy with no evidence whatsoever.
I do think he’s very unhappy. Because he spends every day talking to probably fake accounts on Twitter. But I accept that’s not a judgment I can really validate.
I would be quite surprised. Hes just had several major wins in the last month and is about to u undertake a huge challenge. This time next year if all has gone pear shaped he may be unhappy but for the moment the wind is in his sails.
Unhappy may not be the word. He doesn't act like a man at peace with himself.
It is perfectly possible for someone to be outwardly successful, but have some psychological issues, addiction issues, family issues etc.
He has hinted he is somewhere on the spectrum so his ways of being at ease with himself are different than most.
Oh here we go again.
He's a sociopathic **** so he must be autistic. Leon will be on in a moment to educate us on his "aspie" expertise and how Musk fits the textbook narrative.
He already has as a response to one of my posts last night.
I can do without Leon's expertise on ASD matters. Is that the time?
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
I'm very happy to trade with Europe, and even China, but I don't think that should come at the expense of our political independence.
For growth, the ones suffocating that are your lot.
You seem to believe what you want to believe.
I’d be tempted to put the strangulation of the British economy in the hands of austerity. See below.
The pre 2007 numbers on that chart are artificially inflated by a financial services bubble that was clearly unsustainable
Well, perhaps, but that problem/mistake hasn't been rectified since.
Larry Elliott would write regularly on the Guardian in the late-90s and early noughties about what he called then fantasy island economy if Britain, where manufacturing and business investment was neglected in favour of financial engineering.
Despite Osborne's much vaunted march of the makers, not a lot has changed in the subsequent couple of decades.
There's still a widespread failure to acknowledge that things were going wrong in the run up to the crash which leads to mistaken policies in an attempt to get back to the good old days.
There’s also a suspicion that attempts to over-index on the FS bubble are a ploy to absolve the Tories somehow.
In reality, you have to look at the whole period since 1979. Successive parties did not differ hugely in their general ideological approach.
Despite that, it remains notable how badly the Tories performed 2010-2024, with Boris/Truss being the utter nadir.
There are lots of things about that period that don't compute though, or point to deeper problems that need more analysis. For example if you look at employment, the Tories' record over that period was incredibly good, with faster growth in the number of people employed in this country than under Blair and Brown.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
I'm genuinely wondering whether Elon will eventually go full on Carl Beech. Is there anything in his behaviour to suggest that's a line he'd baulk at crossing? That's why his admirers and defenders need to be careful. There's no telling why the guy might go.
Because of the internet we’re watching ultimately why these algorithms are so dangerous. They’ve totally radicalised him.
And in turn, it’s leaking into GBNews, the Telegraph, and the Mail.
We might be overegging it.
He's Cummings (who also made a lot of news) with money and reach.
I'll be very surprised if he lasts the course with The Donald.
What if he has a point though? (disclaimer: I hate Musk). What if Starmer and other establishment figures did conspire to turn a blind eye to these scandals? A few years ago I would never have believed that it would be possible in the UK that the Post Office Scandal could be allowed (and it continues while there are no arrests of Vennells et al). Equally Carl Beech and the blatant attempt by Labour Party leaders to smear senior Tories?
If Starmer is implicated it could be a resigning issue.
When charging decisions were being refused who was DPP? Oh right. I wonder what a full public inquiry with access to the CPS paper trail might turn up? I wonder what Starmer would say under oath without parliamentary privilege and how that might differ from the paper trail?
Isn't the problem more that crimes weren't even been investigated, rather than charges weren't being brought?
The extent of some people's Starmer Derangement Syndrome on here is unbelievable.
I start to wonder if post the election it’s not just Musk that’s been radicalised. It seems that Twitter has radicalised at least two posters here too.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
You regularly launch unprovoked attacks, and act in incredulous disbelief when people respond in kind.
Do you have any self-awareness at all?
I am glad you agree that the comments MaxPB made were unprovoked and not a “gotcha” moment. Thank you for that rare moment of empathy from you.
Err, no. I think you're a dick.
You tried to finger me as a hypocrite yesterday because I criticised how tone-deaf some Democrats were for wanting Harris to run again in 2028.
It was unwarranted and totally uncalled for and it's stuff like that that fucks people off about you.
Stop it. And own your own behaviour.
You like Trump, who ran again after losing, but criticised the idea of Harris running again after losing. It did kinda undermine your argument.
However, I realise now that it was unfair to debate you about something. I can see how having flaws pointed out in your rhetoric can be annoying. You are a delicate snowflake and no-one should be allowed to do that. Your opinions should go unchallenged. I am very sorry.
But it was her ideology that led to this. Like the trains. Why?
It just makes no sense. Don’t have to be a leftie to accept that some things simply shouldn’t be privatised. Anyway, we tried it here. It’s been a disaster.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
I launched an attack on the establishment types who covered up the Muslim rape gangs, you then took offence to that. I also note that @Eabhal was brave enough to have that honest look in the mirror and realise that he probably wouldn't have been a whistle blower under the circumstances which I accept because 99/100 people would do the same. My question wasn't unreasonable or insulting, it was an honest request and I hope other people have been able to have that conversation with themselves so that if they are faced with something like this in the future they will be braver. I really wasn't being disingenuous or attempting a gotcha, my view is that I don't believe you have the strength of character to be a whistle blower under those circumstances based on what you have said and posted on PB but if you say you would have I really would have believed you.
Depends on what you mean by whistleblower. Reported to my manager? Yep. Pushed it really hard and made a name for myself? Probably not, particularly if I was some junior social worker and my ability to pay the bills or my safety was in danger.
Aside from that - you went way too far in your attacks on @bondegezou, accusing them of being complicit with the abuse because you don't think, based on their PB comments, that they would have the personal character to do anything about it in a hypothetical scenario where they were in a place to do so.
Bizarre behaviour, which you continue to exhibit this evening. It's simply impossible to judge someone's character like that, and wrong to do so.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
I'm genuinely wondering whether Elon will eventually go full on Carl Beech. Is there anything in his behaviour to suggest that's a line he'd baulk at crossing? That's why his admirers and defenders need to be careful. There's no telling why the guy might go.
Because of the internet we’re watching ultimately why these algorithms are so dangerous. They’ve totally radicalised him.
And in turn, it’s leaking into GBNews, the Telegraph, and the Mail.
We might be overegging it.
He's Cummings (who also made a lot of news) with money and reach.
I'll be very surprised if he lasts the course with The Donald.
What if he has a point though? (disclaimer: I hate Musk). What if Starmer and other establishment figures did conspire to turn a blind eye to these scandals? A few years ago I would never have believed that it would be possible in the UK that the Post Office Scandal could be allowed (and it continues while there are no arrests of Vennells et al). Equally Carl Beech and the blatant attempt by Labour Party leaders to smear senior Tories?
If Starmer is implicated it could be a resigning issue.
We demanded his resignation this time last year because the client media claimed he was solely responsible for the vexatious prosecution of sub- Postmasters.
What are your thoughts on Braverman inaction whilst Home Secretary?
Re Braverman: It was appalling. I also think that there are questions to be asked about all ministers (yes that includes the current Tory leader and the current Lib Dem leader) about what they knew and why they didn't ask about the obviously disproportionate high number of sub-postmasters who seemed to be thieves.
Starmer may be 100% innocent of any complicity in the rape scandal. It is quite correct to call him to account to ensure that innocence.
Does anyone think that Trump and Musk won’t end up hating each other?
I'd be interested to see a market on whether Musk is in post this time next year.
Musk and Trump have important similarities - bags of braggadocio, but ultimately they do a deal. The trouble is that alpha and alpha tends to work poorly. Musk is just so used to being The Man, but he won't be in this relationship. Trump can't abide being upstaged, and the deal will be his deal (and is far more likely to be a deal that works with a razor thin House majority).
People like Rubio and Vance will quietly take some personal humiliations to be well placed in four years (or sooner, perhaps). Will Musk? I doubt it.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
I'm genuinely wondering whether Elon will eventually go full on Carl Beech. Is there anything in his behaviour to suggest that's a line he'd baulk at crossing? That's why his admirers and defenders need to be careful. There's no telling why the guy might go.
Because of the internet we’re watching ultimately why these algorithms are so dangerous. They’ve totally radicalised him.
And in turn, it’s leaking into GBNews, the Telegraph, and the Mail.
We might be overegging it.
He's Cummings (who also made a lot of news) with money and reach.
I'll be very surprised if he lasts the course with The Donald.
What if he has a point though? (disclaimer: I hate Musk). What if Starmer and other establishment figures did conspire to turn a blind eye to these scandals? A few years ago I would never have believed that it would be possible in the UK that the Post Office Scandal could be allowed (and it continues while there are no arrests of Vennells et al). Equally Carl Beech and the blatant attempt by Labour Party leaders to smear senior Tories?
If Starmer is implicated it could be a resigning issue.
When charging decisions were being refused who was DPP? Oh right. I wonder what a full public inquiry with access to the CPS paper trail might turn up? I wonder what Starmer would say under oath without parliamentary privilege and how that might differ from the paper trail?
Well indeed. Perhaps like those in senior positions in the Post Office he thought that the interests of "the many" and broader institutional reputation outweighed the injustice on "the few". Maybe this is actually what is meant by "For the many not the few".
An inquiry will pour 20 giant buckets of shit all over the police, Labour party, CPS, local councils, care homes for at risk children, NHS services for children who declined to report anything after rape examinations. I think the Tories may get a bit less than that but are still due a fair bit of shit as well deservedly after fumbling the response after they came to power in 2010.
I also think that national politicians may end up being implicated in the cover up.
To go back to the subject of the header: What are US investors predicting about the US economy? (Or speculators, for that matter.)
Higher inflation, and therefore higher interest rates, are likely to depress the non-tech economy.
The tech economy seems to be excited by the prospect of deregulation, especially with respect to crypto.
Trump will want to borrow more in order to even more tax cuts for the wealthiest. It will be interesting to see what Musk - who professes to be a fiscal hawk, hence DOGE - will do when that happens.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
Jesus Christ
He's done no such thing
Only someone intellectually challenged could believe this Jack and Jill tripe.
I think it was meant to be a joke ......
I was using irony (@Shecorns88 doesn't do irony) to identify that Musk seems to consider he has resolved this multi decade scandal. It certainly is no joking matter, although I am surprised and disappointed that Truss and Kemi have gone in studs up over Musk's claims.
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
I'm genuinely wondering whether Elon will eventually go full on Carl Beech. Is there anything in his behaviour to suggest that's a line he'd baulk at crossing? That's why his admirers and defenders need to be careful. There's no telling why the guy might go.
Because of the internet we’re watching ultimately why these algorithms are so dangerous. They’ve totally radicalised him.
And in turn, it’s leaking into GBNews, the Telegraph, and the Mail.
We might be overegging it.
He's Cummings (who also made a lot of news) with money and reach.
I'll be very surprised if he lasts the course with The Donald.
What if he has a point though? (disclaimer: I hate Musk). What if Starmer and other establishment figures did conspire to turn a blind eye to these scandals? A few years ago I would never have believed that it would be possible in the UK that the Post Office Scandal could be allowed (and it continues while there are no arrests of Vennells et al). Equally Carl Beech and the blatant attempt by Labour Party leaders to smear senior Tories?
If Starmer is implicated it could be a resigning issue.
We demanded his resignation this time last year because the client media claimed he was solely responsible for the vexatious prosecution of sub- Postmasters.
What are your thoughts on Braverman inaction whilst Home Secretary?
Re Braverman: It was appalling. I also think that there are questions to be asked about all ministers (yes that includes the current Tory leader and the current Lib Dem leader) about what they knew and why they didn't ask about the obviously disproportionate high number of sub-postmasters who seemed to be thieves.
Starmer may be 100% innocent of any complicity in the rape scandal. It is quite correct to call him to account to ensure that innocence.
Does anyone think that Trump and Musk won’t end up hating each other?
I'd be interested to see a market on whether Musk is in post this time next year.
Musk and Trump have important similarities - bags of braggadocio, but ultimately they do a deal. The trouble is that alpha and alpha tends to work poorly. Musk is just so used to being The Man, but he won't be in this relationship. Trump can't abide being upstaged, and the deal will be his deal (and is far more likely to be a deal that works with a razor thin House majority).
People like Rubio and Vance will quietly take some personal humiliations to be well placed in four years (or sooner, perhaps). Will Musk? I doubt it.
Talking of which, did everyone see this appointment from Trump:
In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that he has chosen Morgan Ortagus as deputy special presidential envoy for Middle East peace. Ortagus has a background in foreign policy and diplomacy, and she is a former Fox News contributor. But in his announcement, Trump appeared to express little faith in her ability to perform in the role, and even chastised her for going against him without offering details.
“Early on Morgan fought me for three years, but hopefully has learned her lesson,” he wrote. “These things usually don’t work out, but she has strong Republican support, and I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing it for them. Let’s see what happens.”
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
I'm very happy to trade with Europe, and even China, but I don't think that should come at the expense of our political independence.
For growth, the ones suffocating that are your lot.
You seem to believe what you want to believe.
I’d be tempted to put the strangulation of the British economy in the hands of austerity. See below.
The pre 2007 numbers on that chart are artificially inflated by a financial services bubble that was clearly unsustainable
Well, perhaps, but that problem/mistake hasn't been rectified since.
Larry Elliott would write regularly on the Guardian in the late-90s and early noughties about what he called then fantasy island economy if Britain, where manufacturing and business investment was neglected in favour of financial engineering.
Despite Osborne's much vaunted march of the makers, not a lot has changed in the subsequent couple of decades.
There's still a widespread failure to acknowledge that things were going wrong in the run up to the crash which leads to mistaken policies in an attempt to get back to the good old days.
There’s also a suspicion that attempts to over-index on the FS bubble are a ploy to absolve the Tories somehow.
In reality, you have to look at the whole period since 1979. Successive parties did not differ hugely in their general ideological approach.
Despite that, it remains notable how badly the Tories performed 2010-2024, with Boris/Truss being the utter nadir.
There are lots of things about that period that don't compute though, or point to deeper problems that need more analysis. For example if you look at employment, the Tories' record over that period was incredibly good, with faster growth in the number of people employed in this country than under Blair and Brown.
Caused by an explosion in insecure work in the gig economy.
Water was privatised in 1989, towards the end of Thatcher's administration. Major was involved in it, of course, as a senior cabinet minister. But it was just about Thatcher era.
She was also responsible for dragging this country back to being a country where you could do business rather than being ruled by unelected union barons, and where even removal services were run by unionised nationalised loss making industries.
Sadly the current bunch of incompetent economically illiterate numpties would like to take us back there.
“We’re entering this sort of parallel reality based on Musk’s ignorance of the thing he wants to talk about.”
Reflecting on over a decade writing about grooming gangs, @HugoRifkind explains why he’s not sure an inquiry into grooming gangs will provide any answers.
Answers are not what Musk and his fanbase want. They want 2 things. To damage Keir Starmer. To whip up hatred of Muslims. Both of these things being in the interests of their far right politics.
Heard it all now. Wanting to damage the most left wing PM of my lifetime means you are far right.
We’re not far from ‘Everyone who disagrees with me is Hitler’ on this.
Who was it here who said the other day that if you disagree with him, that means you would have enabled child rape? The incoherent rage posting comes Musk supporters, not Musk critics.
You specialise in ad-hominem against your political opponents, always seeking to contrive or fabricate a "gotcha" moment - even if you have to do so by lying or being fraudulent - which is why noone likes you.
How have I lied or been fraudulent in the above?
How did I engineer a gotcha moment in this case? @MaxPB launched an unprovoked attack at me.
You regularly launch unprovoked attacks, and act in incredulous disbelief when people respond in kind.
Do you have any self-awareness at all?
I am glad you agree that the comments MaxPB made were unprovoked and not a “gotcha” moment. Thank you for that rare moment of empathy from you.
Err, no. I think you're a dick.
You tried to finger me as a hypocrite yesterday because I criticised how tone-deaf some Democrats were for wanting Harris to run again in 2028.
It was unwarranted and totally uncalled for and it's stuff like that that fucks people off about you.
Stop it. And own your own behaviour.
You like Trump, who ran again after losing, but criticised the idea of Harris running again after losing. It did kinda undermine your argument.
However, I realise now that it was unfair to debate you about something. I can see how having flaws pointed out in your rhetoric can be annoying. You are a delicate snowflake and no-one should be allowed to do that. Your opinions should go unchallenged. I am very sorry.
@TheScreamingEagles why have all profiles not been set to public now? It seems manifestly unfair that Leon’s has been set to public yet others allowed to stay private.
She was also responsible for dragging this country back to being a country where you could do business rather than being ruled by unelected union barons, and where even removal services were run by unionised nationalised loss making industries.
Sadly the current bunch of incompetent economically illiterate numpties would like to take us back there.
She did some good things which I acknowledge. She was a strong and principled leader which I admire.
But she also did a lot of very bad things that have caused the problems we now face. Surely that can be acknowledged.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
I'm very happy to trade with Europe, and even China, but I don't think that should come at the expense of our political independence.
For growth, the ones suffocating that are your lot.
You seem to believe what you want to believe.
I’d be tempted to put the strangulation of the British economy in the hands of austerity. See below.
The pre 2007 numbers on that chart are artificially inflated by a financial services bubble that was clearly unsustainable
Well, perhaps, but that problem/mistake hasn't been rectified since.
Larry Elliott would write regularly on the Guardian in the late-90s and early noughties about what he called then fantasy island economy if Britain, where manufacturing and business investment was neglected in favour of financial engineering.
Despite Osborne's much vaunted march of the makers, not a lot has changed in the subsequent couple of decades.
There's still a widespread failure to acknowledge that things were going wrong in the run up to the crash which leads to mistaken policies in an attempt to get back to the good old days.
There’s also a suspicion that attempts to over-index on the FS bubble are a ploy to absolve the Tories somehow.
In reality, you have to look at the whole period since 1979. Successive parties did not differ hugely in their general ideological approach.
Despite that, it remains notable how badly the Tories performed 2010-2024, with Boris/Truss being the utter nadir.
There are lots of things about that period that don't compute though, or point to deeper problems that need more analysis. For example if you look at employment, the Tories' record over that period was incredibly good, with faster growth in the number of people employed in this country than under Blair and Brown.
Caused by an explosion in insecure work in the gig economy.
Liz Truss held her victory party after the Tory leadership election at Deliveroo's London headquarters.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
I'm very happy to trade with Europe, and even China, but I don't think that should come at the expense of our political independence.
For growth, the ones suffocating that are your lot.
You seem to believe what you want to believe.
I’d be tempted to put the strangulation of the British economy in the hands of austerity. See below.
The pre 2007 numbers on that chart are artificially inflated by a financial services bubble that was clearly unsustainable
Well, perhaps, but that problem/mistake hasn't been rectified since.
Larry Elliott would write regularly on the Guardian in the late-90s and early noughties about what he called then fantasy island economy if Britain, where manufacturing and business investment was neglected in favour of financial engineering.
Despite Osborne's much vaunted march of the makers, not a lot has changed in the subsequent couple of decades.
There's still a widespread failure to acknowledge that things were going wrong in the run up to the crash which leads to mistaken policies in an attempt to get back to the good old days.
There’s also a suspicion that attempts to over-index on the FS bubble are a ploy to absolve the Tories somehow.
In reality, you have to look at the whole period since 1979. Successive parties did not differ hugely in their general ideological approach.
Despite that, it remains notable how badly the Tories performed 2010-2024, with Boris/Truss being the utter nadir.
There are lots of things about that period that don't compute though, or point to deeper problems that need more analysis. For example if you look at employment, the Tories' record over that period was incredibly good, with faster growth in the number of people employed in this country than under Blair and Brown.
Caused by an explosion in insecure work in the gig economy.
Liz Truss held her victory party after the Tory leadership election at Deliveroo's London headquarters.
I accept I was wrong about who privatised it. But the thrust of what I was saying, I still think makes sense.
Actually, you've admitted fault prematurely there. Water privatisation was in 1989, and Thatcher left office in November 1990. LostPassword was possibly thinking of rail.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
I'm very happy to trade with Europe, and even China, but I don't think that should come at the expense of our political independence.
For growth, the ones suffocating that are your lot.
You seem to believe what you want to believe.
I’d be tempted to put the strangulation of the British economy in the hands of austerity. See below.
The pre 2007 numbers on that chart are artificially inflated by a financial services bubble that was clearly unsustainable
Well, perhaps, but that problem/mistake hasn't been rectified since.
Larry Elliott would write regularly on the Guardian in the late-90s and early noughties about what he called then fantasy island economy if Britain, where manufacturing and business investment was neglected in favour of financial engineering.
Despite Osborne's much vaunted march of the makers, not a lot has changed in the subsequent couple of decades.
There's still a widespread failure to acknowledge that things were going wrong in the run up to the crash which leads to mistaken policies in an attempt to get back to the good old days.
There’s also a suspicion that attempts to over-index on the FS bubble are a ploy to absolve the Tories somehow.
In reality, you have to look at the whole period since 1979. Successive parties did not differ hugely in their general ideological approach.
Despite that, it remains notable how badly the Tories performed 2010-2024, with Boris/Truss being the utter nadir.
There are lots of things about that period that don't compute though, or point to deeper problems that need more analysis. For example if you look at employment, the Tories' record over that period was incredibly good, with faster growth in the number of people employed in this country than under Blair and Brown.
Caused by an explosion in insecure work in the gig economy.
Liz Truss held her victory party after the Tory leadership election at Deliveroo's London headquarters.
And your point is…?
If any company symbolises the gig economy, it's Deliveroo.
She was also responsible for dragging this country back to being a country where you could do business rather than being ruled by unelected union barons, and where even removal services were run by unionised nationalised loss making industries.
Sadly the current bunch of incompetent economically illiterate numpties would like to take us back there.
She did some good things which I acknowledge. She was a strong and principled leader which I admire.
But she also did a lot of very bad things that have caused the problems we now face. Surely that can be acknowledged.
Like her policy on council housing.
Even the council housing policy was a mixture of good (allowing tenants to buy) and bad (disallowing councils to replenish the housing stock).
You should be interested. He has investigated and busted Starmer as individually and personally responsible for the Rochdale and Rotherham child abuse scandals. Liz and Kemi are also on the case and they are drawing the same conclusions.
I'm genuinely wondering whether Elon will eventually go full on Carl Beech. Is there anything in his behaviour to suggest that's a line he'd baulk at crossing? That's why his admirers and defenders need to be careful. There's no telling why the guy might go.
Because of the internet we’re watching ultimately why these algorithms are so dangerous. They’ve totally radicalised him.
And in turn, it’s leaking into GBNews, the Telegraph, and the Mail.
We might be overegging it.
He's Cummings (who also made a lot of news) with money and reach.
I'll be very surprised if he lasts the course with The Donald.
What if he has a point though? (disclaimer: I hate Musk). What if Starmer and other establishment figures did conspire to turn a blind eye to these scandals? A few years ago I would never have believed that it would be possible in the UK that the Post Office Scandal could be allowed (and it continues while there are no arrests of Vennells et al). Equally Carl Beech and the blatant attempt by Labour Party leaders to smear senior Tories?
If Starmer is implicated it could be a resigning issue.
We demanded his resignation this time last year because the client media claimed he was solely responsible for the vexatious prosecution of sub- Postmasters.
What are your thoughts on Braverman inaction whilst Home Secretary?
Re Braverman: It was appalling. I also think that there are questions to be asked about all ministers (yes that includes the current Tory leader and the current Lib Dem leader) about what they knew and why they didn't ask about the obviously disproportionate high number of sub-postmasters who seemed to be thieves.
Starmer may be 100% innocent of any complicity in the rape scandal. It is quite correct to call him to account to ensure that innocence.
Musk is not implicating any of the parties you suggest. He has gone in as Judge, Jury and Executioner and has determined Phillips's and Starmer's guilt and is demanding HIS summary justice is served. It is probably both dangerous politically and personally for Starmer. I suspect his personal protection level has been raised.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
I'm very happy to trade with Europe, and even China, but I don't think that should come at the expense of our political independence.
For growth, the ones suffocating that are your lot.
You seem to believe what you want to believe.
I’d be tempted to put the strangulation of the British economy in the hands of austerity. See below.
The pre 2007 numbers on that chart are artificially inflated by a financial services bubble that was clearly unsustainable
Well, perhaps, but that problem/mistake hasn't been rectified since.
Larry Elliott would write regularly on the Guardian in the late-90s and early noughties about what he called then fantasy island economy if Britain, where manufacturing and business investment was neglected in favour of financial engineering.
Despite Osborne's much vaunted march of the makers, not a lot has changed in the subsequent couple of decades.
There's still a widespread failure to acknowledge that things were going wrong in the run up to the crash which leads to mistaken policies in an attempt to get back to the good old days.
There’s also a suspicion that attempts to over-index on the FS bubble are a ploy to absolve the Tories somehow.
In reality, you have to look at the whole period since 1979. Successive parties did not differ hugely in their general ideological approach.
Despite that, it remains notable how badly the Tories performed 2010-2024, with Boris/Truss being the utter nadir.
There are lots of things about that period that don't compute though, or point to deeper problems that need more analysis. For example if you look at employment, the Tories' record over that period was incredibly good, with faster growth in the number of people employed in this country than under Blair and Brown.
Caused by an explosion in insecure work in the gig economy.
Liz Truss held her victory party after the Tory leadership election at Deliveroo's London headquarters.
And your point is…?
If any company symbolises the gig economy, it's Deliveroo.
Whose HQ served as venue for Liz Truss’s victory party upon winning the Tory leadership.
Water was privatised in 1989, towards the end of Thatcher's administration. Major was involved in it, of course, as a senior cabinet minister. But it was just about Thatcher era.
Evening, PB"ers.
Quite a few of the most damaging policies were enacted during this period, between the end of the Thatcher regime and the beginning of the Major one. Rail privatisation and the very damaging total deregulation of British TV were also conducted during this time.
To go back to the subject of the header: What are US investors predicting about the US economy? (Or speculators, for that matter.)
Higher inflation, and therefore higher interest rates, are likely to depress the non-tech economy.
The tech economy seems to be excited by the prospect of deregulation, especially with respect to crypto.
Trump will want to borrow more in order to even more tax cuts for the wealthiest. It will be interesting to see what Musk - who professes to be a fiscal hawk, hence DOGE - will do when that happens.
The tech people are over the Moon, as I understand it. They think they will get all the deregulation they want. They presumably just handwave away Trump threatening to invade Panama or imposing crippling tariffs. What will actually happen, God only knows.
@Eabhal when you understand the user in question has been radicalised over the last few months, it will make a lot more sense.
You feel this way because the government has moved very far to the left. I'm in exactly the same place I've always been, just to the right of the centre right. I have always been on the right wing of the Tories but realise that to win there's a need to be more centrist. You've only just realised that I'm actually pretty right wing recently because I'm attacking a left wing government rather than a right wing one.
All the commentary here about Meeks is rather Freudian.
He was, and so far as I can tell remains, utterly correct in his diagnosis of Brexit.
Not really.
It's only a few irreconcilables like you and him and Scott and Foxy that continue to be obsessed by Brexit.
The rest of us have moved on.
I’ve literally moved on, to the U.S.
Not the EU then?
I’d absolutely live in the EU (a diverse place), but right now the U.S. makes sense for my economic situation.
Which is fair, what's very worrying is that Europe (and I include Labour's UK in this) is become a retirement home for people who have found success elsewhere in the world because it is now actively hostile to wealth creation. The welfare states across Europe have created an entitlement culture and people think they are owed wealth transfers from successful people whether that's directly in the form of cash benefits or indirectly in the form of healthcare/education/state employment etc...
I don't know what the solution to this is, but the entitlement culture across Europe is bankrupting the continent, the UK included and it's become a negative spiral as we're having to increase tax to pay for it which further harms economic growth and the tax base and eventually we turn into Argentina.
I agree with all of this.
As ever the refrain I hear from American business people is very true - America innovated and Europe regulates. I think without the UK in the EU it's worse than ever, the regulations are stifling for EU companies now that there's no significant free market voice at the top table. I'm extremely worried that Starmer will sell out the nation to the EU which I hope that the next government will just undo on day one.
Starmer is absolutely going to sell the nation out to the EU, and well the EU knows it.
It's one of my most certain predictions for this year and next.
You don't want to open up with Europe. You don't want to do much with China. But you do want to prioritise growth. Is that fair?
I'm very happy to trade with Europe, and even China, but I don't think that should come at the expense of our political independence.
For growth, the ones suffocating that are your lot.
You seem to believe what you want to believe.
I’d be tempted to put the strangulation of the British economy in the hands of austerity. See below.
The pre 2007 numbers on that chart are artificially inflated by a financial services bubble that was clearly unsustainable
Well, perhaps, but that problem/mistake hasn't been rectified since.
Larry Elliott would write regularly on the Guardian in the late-90s and early noughties about what he called then fantasy island economy if Britain, where manufacturing and business investment was neglected in favour of financial engineering.
Despite Osborne's much vaunted march of the makers, not a lot has changed in the subsequent couple of decades.
There's still a widespread failure to acknowledge that things were going wrong in the run up to the crash which leads to mistaken policies in an attempt to get back to the good old days.
There’s also a suspicion that attempts to over-index on the FS bubble are a ploy to absolve the Tories somehow.
In reality, you have to look at the whole period since 1979. Successive parties did not differ hugely in their general ideological approach.
Despite that, it remains notable how badly the Tories performed 2010-2024, with Boris/Truss being the utter nadir.
There are lots of things about that period that don't compute though, or point to deeper problems that need more analysis. For example if you look at employment, the Tories' record over that period was incredibly good, with faster growth in the number of people employed in this country than under Blair and Brown.
Caused by an explosion in insecure work in the gig economy.
Liz Truss held her victory party after the Tory leadership election at Deliveroo's London headquarters.
And your point is…?
If any company symbolises the gig economy, it's Deliveroo.
Do you make these irrelevant points to wind people up?
Water was privatised in 1989, towards the end of Thatcher's administration. Major was involved in it, of course, as a senior cabinet minister. But it was just about Thatcher era.
Evening, PB"ers.
Quite a few of the most damaging policies were enacted during this period, between the end of the Thatcher regime and the beginning of the Major one. Rail privatisation and the very damaging total deregulation of British TV were also conducted during this time.
Unh? "between the end of the Thatcher regime and the beginning of the Major one"? There was an interregnum?
Does anyone think that Trump and Musk won’t end up hating each other?
I'd be interested to see a market on whether Musk is in post this time next year.
Musk and Trump have important similarities - bags of braggadocio, but ultimately they do a deal. The trouble is that alpha and alpha tends to work poorly. Musk is just so used to being The Man, but he won't be in this relationship. Trump can't abide being upstaged, and the deal will be his deal (and is far more likely to be a deal that works with a razor thin House majority).
People like Rubio and Vance will quietly take some personal humiliations to be well placed in four years (or sooner, perhaps). Will Musk? I doubt it.
Talking of which, did everyone see this appointment from Trump:
In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that he has chosen Morgan Ortagus as deputy special presidential envoy for Middle East peace. Ortagus has a background in foreign policy and diplomacy, and she is a former Fox News contributor. But in his announcement, Trump appeared to express little faith in her ability to perform in the role, and even chastised her for going against him without offering details.
“Early on Morgan fought me for three years, but hopefully has learned her lesson,” he wrote. “These things usually don’t work out, but she has strong Republican support, and I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing it for them. Let’s see what happens.”
The main qualification necessary to work in Trump’s administration remains having worked at Fox News. That really is as sophisticated as his thinking gets: he’s seen these people on telly, so he’ll give the job to them.
She was also responsible for dragging this country back to being a country where you could do business rather than being ruled by unelected union barons, and where even removal services were run by unionised nationalised loss making industries.
Sadly the current bunch of incompetent economically illiterate numpties would like to take us back there.
She did some good things which I acknowledge. She was a strong and principled leader which I admire.
But she also did a lot of very bad things that have caused the problems we now face. Surely that can be acknowledged.
Like her policy on council housing.
Even the council housing policy was a mixture of good (allowing tenants to buy) and bad (disallowing councils to replenish the housing stock).
As far as I can tell, blaming the sale of council houses is usually employed as a way to deflect from talking about the impact of immigration on the housing market. It's often forgotten just how much of the council housing stock was long-term vacant at the time.
She was also responsible for dragging this country back to being a country where you could do business rather than being ruled by unelected union barons, and where even removal services were run by unionised nationalised loss making industries.
Sadly the current bunch of incompetent economically illiterate numpties would like to take us back there.
The unionisation rate in Denmark is 3x higher than ours, and their GDP per capita is 30% higher.
She was also responsible for dragging this country back to being a country where you could do business rather than being ruled by unelected union barons, and where even removal services were run by unionised nationalised loss making industries.
Sadly the current bunch of incompetent economically illiterate numpties would like to take us back there.
The unionisation rate in Denmark is 3x higher than ours, and their GDP per capita is 30% higher.
#economicgrowth
I wonder if that also explains why their centre-left parties are much more anti-immigration than ours.
She was also responsible for dragging this country back to being a country where you could do business rather than being ruled by unelected union barons, and where even removal services were run by unionised nationalised loss making industries.
Sadly the current bunch of incompetent economically illiterate numpties would like to take us back there.
The unionisation rate in Denmark is 3x higher than ours, and their GDP per capita is 30% higher.
#economicgrowth
I wonder if that also explains why their centre-left parties are much more anti-immigration than ours.
Interesting idea! I still think there is an opportunity for Labour to do the same, but would take some brave leadership (Rayner?) to do so.
She was also responsible for dragging this country back to being a country where you could do business rather than being ruled by unelected union barons, and where even removal services were run by unionised nationalised loss making industries.
Sadly the current bunch of incompetent economically illiterate numpties would like to take us back there.
She did some good things which I acknowledge. She was a strong and principled leader which I admire.
But she also did a lot of very bad things that have caused the problems we now face. Surely that can be acknowledged.
Like her policy on council housing.
The problem is that we have no counter-factuals. If she had not done these things, what state would the country been in?
Take rail privatisation: it gave us the safest and busiest rail network ever. Passenger numbers doubled. It's hard to call that an absolute failure, and I also find it hard to believe that the railways would have attracted the same investment if they had remained nationalised.
Also, sometimes people can do things that appear positive in the short- and medium-term, only for the problems to appear in the long-term - and sometimes those problems are not necessarily due to the initial action, but subsequent inaction.
No that user has been completely radicalised, as indicated by the sewer of hatred and bile that they've been spouting for days now, no coincidence that when they start writing, it's after Musk has Tweeted.
She was also responsible for dragging this country back to being a country where you could do business rather than being ruled by unelected union barons, and where even removal services were run by unionised nationalised loss making industries.
Sadly the current bunch of incompetent economically illiterate numpties would like to take us back there.
She did some good things which I acknowledge. She was a strong and principled leader which I admire.
But she also did a lot of very bad things that have caused the problems we now face. Surely that can be acknowledged.
Like her policy on council housing.
Even the council housing policy was a mixture of good (allowing tenants to buy) and bad (disallowing councils to replenish the housing stock).
There is, however, a persistent myth that the sale of council housing has led to a housing shortage. Which unless people are buying council houses but not living in them (or letting them) is clearly bunkum. Changing the tenure doesn't reduce tge overall supply. What it did not do was increase the supply to meet demand. But it didn't need to. Population growth was flat during the 80s.
Water was privatised in 1989, towards the end of Thatcher's administration. Major was involved in it, of course, as a senior cabinet minister. But it was just about Thatcher era.
Evening, PB"ers.
Quite a few of the most damaging policies were enacted during this period, between the end of the Thatcher regime and the beginning of the Major one. Rail privatisation and the very damaging total deregulation of British TV were also conducted during this time.
Unh? "between the end of the Thatcher regime and the beginning of the Major one"? There was an interregnum?
No, I mean more than it felt like a continuum in some policy ways, before Major tried to moderate the national tone a bit, later on There was some kind of damaging ardent, late-Thatcherite dogma at this time, and for a while Major was just Thatcher's favoured son, continuing the work.
As I said before, Musk convinced me himself to pull out of Tesla. Because he's clearly too much of a loose cannon/hates his own customers/is distracted, to not accidentally run the company into the ground.
As well as self-driving being as far away as ever (despite his lies that it's coming every year since 2012), I just can't see how Tesla isn't easily replaced by any of the Chinese companies or another established manufacturer.
I put my money where my mouth is and sold up.
The fact that Musk appears to believe, and act on the belief, that there can and will be viable long term human communities living on Mars in not all that long suggests that he may well be less good at thinking through some things than others.
I'm one of those that believes he got very lucky in his career but he was at least good and picking winning horses/causes. Well, until Twitter.
The folks at PayPal clearly saw what he was, it's why they chucked him out - and he's been holding a grudge ever since.
That must be an amazing amount of luck to become the richest person in the world, with a value of over £400bn.
Always surprises me just how lucky some people continually are, year after year. Just like that Ronaldo bloke, or Djokovic, Wiliams sisters, Michael Johnson, Chris Hoy etc.....so so so so so so lucky.
The first business he had complete control over was Twitter. It's not been a roaring success.
Oh FFS
Yes there he is the world's richest man, a man who makes more in a day than you will in your lifetime.
What he really needs is a bloke on an obscure website to show him how to create wealth.
Btw why arent you richer than him ?
He's a Bond villain and you know what happens to Bond villains when they cross HMG.
In the current absence of an 007 may be we need to send Tommy Shelby and Alfie Solomon out on a juicy contract to sort him out.
Tommy Shelby was a Labour MP. Another Labour wrong 'un!
@Eabhal when you understand the user in question has been radicalised over the last few months, it will make a lot more sense.
You feel this way because the government has moved very far to the left. I'm in exactly the same place I've always been, just to the right of the centre right. I have always been on the right wing of the Tories but realise that to win there's a need to be more centrist. You've only just realised that I'm actually pretty right wing recently because I'm attacking a left wing government rather than a right wing one.
Once upon a time you supported Cameron and George Osborne, thought Truss was a disaster and Britain should be in the single market. You now are on the verge of voting Reform and making pretty big allegations about Starmer and the grooming gangs to say the least. That suggests quite a big shift.
@Eabhal when you understand the user in question has been radicalised over the last few months, it will make a lot more sense.
You feel this way because the government has moved very far to the left. I'm in exactly the same place I've always been, just to the right of the centre right. I have always been on the right wing of the Tories but realise that to win there's a need to be more centrist. You've only just realised that I'm actually pretty right wing recently because I'm attacking a left wing government rather than a right wing one.
Once upon a time you supported Cameron and George Osborne, thought Truss was a disaster and Britain should be in the single market. You now are on the verge of voting Reform and making pretty big allegations about Starmer and the grooming gangs to say the least. That suggests quite a big shift.
Water was privatised in 1989, towards the end of Thatcher's administration. Major was involved in it, of course, as a senior cabinet minister. But it was just about Thatcher era.
Evening, PB"ers.
Quite a few of the most damaging policies were enacted during this period, between the end of the Thatcher regime and the beginning of the Major one. Rail privatisation and the very damaging total deregulation of British TV were also conducted during this time.
There wasn't a period "between the end of the Thatcher regime and the beginning of the Major one" unless you count about ten minutes on 28 November 1990.
Water privatisation was late Thatcher administration, and rail was early to mid Major administration.
The Broadcasting Act 1990 was the closest to being on the cusp, coming into force at the start of November 1990 (although pretty clearly its passage through Parliament was late Thatcher). I do slightly struggle to put that in the same category though. Sale of ITV licences to the highest bidder was quite controversial at the time, but digital TV essentially doomed the concept of the ITV region creating competition and looking back I can't quite see how the broadcasting landscape would be very different now had a different approach been adopted at that point. Certainly, the argument is very different than for water and rail where it remains hard to see where competition comes from - the broadcasting market is competitive (certainly more so than the 1980s, simply due to technology).
Just a question, why is your account private when I thought this functionality was removed?
No idea. I changed my profile picture recently so maybe it happened then. If you want to VM me you can do so in the normal way or contact me via my website.
We can't VM you if your account is set to private. Or see your comment history.
(It's not about whether your personal details are private/public.)
She was also responsible for dragging this country back to being a country where you could do business rather than being ruled by unelected union barons, and where even removal services were run by unionised nationalised loss making industries.
Sadly the current bunch of incompetent economically illiterate numpties would like to take us back there.
She did some good things which I acknowledge. She was a strong and principled leader which I admire.
But she also did a lot of very bad things that have caused the problems we now face. Surely that can be acknowledged.
Like her policy on council housing.
The problem is that we have no counter-factuals. If she had not done these things, what state would the country been in?
Take rail privatisation: it gave us the safest and busiest rail network ever. Passenger numbers doubled. It's hard to call that an absolute failure, and I also find it hard to believe that the railways would have attracted the same investment if they had remained nationalised.
Also, sometimes people can do things that appear positive in the short- and medium-term, only for the problems to appear in the long-term - and sometimes those problems are not necessarily due to the initial action, but subsequent inaction.
The subsidies the railways receive are higher than they ever were when they were nationalised. So my view is the improvements were from spending a lot more money, not because the private sector did a load of innovating.
To give a counterfactual, the NI trains were never privatised. They run fine. Same as London Underground.
Water was privatised in 1989, towards the end of Thatcher's administration. Major was involved in it, of course, as a senior cabinet minister. But it was just about Thatcher era.
Evening, PB"ers.
Quite a few of the most damaging policies were enacted during this period, between the end of the Thatcher regime and the beginning of the Major one. Rail privatisation and the very damaging total deregulation of British TV were also conducted during this time.
Unh? "between the end of the Thatcher regime and the beginning of the Major one"? There was an interregnum?
No, I mean more than it felt like a continuum in some policy ways, before Major tried to moderate the national tone a bit, later on There was some kind of damaging ardent, late-Thatcherite dogma at this time, and for a while Major was just Thatcher's favoured son, continuing the work.
Thanks!
TBF to both our previous posters, the Major administration was also privatising water - in Scotland - in 1994, albeit stymied by the ferocious public reaction and the Strathclyde Council referendum. So both are right ...
Comments
He bought twitter to have control of twitter to influence political discourse, just as similarly wealthy individuals in previous generations bought newspapers.
In that regard it has been a roaring success for him.
If Starmer is implicated it could be a resigning issue.
He's done no such thing
Only someone intellectually challenged could believe this Jack and Jill tripe.
Objectively, he clearly wasn't favourite to win the 2024 election when he won the leadership. But I struggle to believe he took it on not wanting to win or not believing there was a credible route to doing so. That would be incredibly unusual for a leader of a major party.
I can't detect a meaningful boost to growth post 2004 (when it came in) to 2008, as it was already bubbling, nor how the period when it was very high - especially up to 2014/15 - contrasted with growth thereafter, which was already flatter.
He's a sociopathic **** so he must be autistic. Leon will be on in a moment to educate us on his "aspie" expertise and how Musk fits the textbook narrative.
Larry Elliott would write regularly on the Guardian in the late-90s and early noughties about what he called then fantasy island economy if Britain, where manufacturing and business investment was neglected in favour of financial engineering.
Despite Osborne's much vaunted march of the makers, not a lot has changed in the subsequent couple of decades.
Same as in government. People don’t get it, he’s not going to change how he works.
And which is a major part of why many Americans are mad as hell. (It's almost like a special case of the "Dutch disease", where the outsize success of one sector pulls in capital, sending the currency higher, and exacerbating problems in other sectors.)
The Shami Chakrabarti effect.
It's totally reasonable to talk about the problems Starmer and Labour face, several of them self-inflicted. But anyone who thinks about it rationally would far rather be in Starmer's shoes than those of Badenoch, Farage or Davey.
He'll be seen as a right-winger and Blairite and will never make it past the College.
https://x.com/Crazymoments01/status/1875582062096478258
My entry is "w@nker".
In reality, you have to look at the whole period since 1979. Successive parties did not differ hugely in their general ideological approach.
Despite that, it remains notable how badly the Tories performed 2010-2024, with Boris/Truss being the utter nadir.
Like privatising the water system. Why.
What are your thoughts on Braverman inaction whilst Home Secretary?
Or are we just headed toward another night of inebriated and ill-directed fury?
Why can’t we just agree that this particular idea is simply a lie.
However, I realise now that it was unfair to debate you about something. I can see how having flaws pointed out in your rhetoric can be annoying. You are a delicate snowflake and no-one should be allowed to do that. Your opinions should go unchallenged. I am very sorry.
It just makes no sense. Don’t have to be a leftie to accept that some things simply shouldn’t be privatised. Anyway, we tried it here. It’s been a disaster.
Aside from that - you went way too far in your attacks on @bondegezou, accusing them of being complicit with the abuse because you don't think, based on their PB comments, that they would have the personal character to do anything about it in a hypothetical scenario where they were in a place to do so.
Bizarre behaviour, which you continue to exhibit this evening. It's simply impossible to judge someone's character like that, and wrong to do so.
Starmer may be 100% innocent of any complicity in the rape scandal. It is quite correct to call him to account to ensure that innocence.
Musk and Trump have important similarities - bags of braggadocio, but ultimately they do a deal. The trouble is that alpha and alpha tends to work poorly. Musk is just so used to being The Man, but he won't be in this relationship. Trump can't abide being upstaged, and the deal will be his deal (and is far more likely to be a deal that works with a razor thin House majority).
People like Rubio and Vance will quietly take some personal humiliations to be well placed in four years (or sooner, perhaps). Will Musk? I doubt it.
I also think that national politicians may end up being implicated in the cover up.
The tech economy seems to be excited by the prospect of deregulation, especially with respect to crypto.
Trump will want to borrow more in order to even more tax cuts for the wealthiest. It will be interesting to see what Musk - who professes to be a fiscal hawk, hence DOGE - will do when that happens.
https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/trump-morgan-ortagus-deputy-middle-east-envoy-statement-rcna186239
In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that he has chosen Morgan Ortagus as deputy special presidential envoy for Middle East peace. Ortagus has a background in foreign policy and diplomacy, and she is a former Fox News contributor. But in his announcement, Trump appeared to express little faith in her ability to perform in the role, and even chastised her for going against him without offering details.
“Early on Morgan fought me for three years, but hopefully has learned her lesson,” he wrote. “These things usually don’t work out, but she has strong Republican support, and I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing it for them. Let’s see what happens.”
SOME OF THE COMMENTS HAVE THE POTENTIALTO GET OGH IN TROUBLE
Sadly the current bunch of incompetent economically illiterate numpties would like to take us back there.
Don't you ever tire of being wrong?
And I totally support all profiles being public.
But she also did a lot of very bad things that have caused the problems we now face. Surely that can be acknowledged.
Like her policy on council housing.
Quite a few of the most damaging policies were enacted during this period, between the end of the Thatcher regime and the beginning of the Major one. Rail privatisation and the very damaging total deregulation of British TV were also conducted during this time.
#economicgrowth
Take rail privatisation: it gave us the safest and busiest rail network ever. Passenger numbers doubled. It's hard to call that an absolute failure, and I also find it hard to believe that the railways would have attracted the same investment if they had remained nationalised.
Also, sometimes people can do things that appear positive in the short- and medium-term, only for the problems to appear in the long-term - and sometimes those problems are not necessarily due to the initial action, but subsequent inaction.
What it did not do was increase the supply to meet demand. But it didn't need to. Population growth was flat during the 80s.
There was some kind of damaging ardent, late-Thatcherite dogma at this time, and for a while Major was just Thatcher's favoured son, continuing the work.
Water privatisation was late Thatcher administration, and rail was early to mid Major administration.
The Broadcasting Act 1990 was the closest to being on the cusp, coming into force at the start of November 1990 (although pretty clearly its passage through Parliament was late Thatcher). I do slightly struggle to put that in the same category though. Sale of ITV licences to the highest bidder was quite controversial at the time, but digital TV essentially doomed the concept of the ITV region creating competition and looking back I can't quite see how the broadcasting landscape would be very different now had a different approach been adopted at that point. Certainly, the argument is very different than for water and rail where it remains hard to see where competition comes from - the broadcasting market is competitive (certainly more so than the 1980s, simply due to technology).
Jeff Storobinsky
@jeffstorobinsky
·
47m
Michael J Fox honored by President Biden
https://x.com/jeffstorobinsky/status/1875613208561774947
Or see your comment history.
(It's not about whether your personal details are private/public.)
To give a counterfactual, the NI trains were never privatised. They run fine. Same as London Underground.
TBF to both our previous posters, the Major administration was also privatising water - in Scotland - in 1994, albeit stymied by the ferocious public reaction and the Strathclyde Council referendum. So both are right ...