Some good news - 2024 saw the lowest annual murder rate in London since 2014 (105) and the second lowest for 22 years. It's less than half the rate it was 20 years ago.
Can’t be true. Londonistan is a fallen city, under Sharia law, where Islamists have their way with white girls or something. At least that’s what I’ve read on FREE SPEECHX
Ah, that's because the police are deliberately not recording killings by London's 19 million Muslims as murders.
He is changing the world order with far reaching consequences
He said that if all the hostages are not released by his auguration 'all hell will break out'
He is demanding 5% NATO spending, is to implement substantial tariffs on Mexico and Canada and he was very disparaging about the EU no doubt also with the intention of imposing tariffs
He has scrapped Bidens ban on oil and gas exploration together with a ban on building wind farms
It seems he is likely to meet Putin very soon and it looks like he will demand peace within 6 months
He wants to take back the Panama canal even by force and has Greenland in his sights
A new imperial age. America wants Greenland. China wants Tawain. Russia wants Ukraine. Turkey wants Kurdish areas of Syria. Hopefully America wants the Chagos Islands to save the British taxpayer £800m a year.
He did also indeed that he loves Erdogan in the press conference, so that might be very bad news for any Kurdish hopes. The Greeks will be concerned too, as the Biden administration seemed to have been able to rein him on.
He wants some of the Aegean islands, and Trump cares little about Nato.
Aaron Rupar @atrupar · 1h Marjorie Taylor Greene says she has already directed her staff to write legislation officially changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America
Is that such a big deal? The same stretch of water sometimes does go by different names in different countries. The French refer to the English Channel as La Manche, for example.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Yes what wonderful years the 1970s were with unions near running the country, inflation surging, sky high taxes and nationalised industry and a brain drain!
MPs salaries are more than 95% of their constitiuents earn so hardly rubbish, even if the PM should be paid £200k to put them in the top 1% of earners and Cabinet Ministers about £150k. Though of course the PM gets a grade listed 16th century manor house in Bucks which would cost millions on the open market and a grade listed 17th century town house in central London and chauffeur driven cars and security on top. The Foreign Secretary also gets a 17th century stately home Chevening and No 1 Carlton Gardens in London and the Chancellor gets No 11 Downing Street and shares Dorneywood with the Deputy PM
Note how the one person he seems terrified of even remotely threatening is Putin. He's a bully and a coward.
Note that his argument for claiming Greenland - "it's essential to our national security" - is exactly the same as Putin's pretext for invading Ukraine.
And similarly mendacious.
Why is it mendacious? Imagine an alternative timeline in where China ends up with control over the Arctic and Canada.
Are you being deliberately obtuse?
The mark of a statesman is someone who sees further into the future than others. Trump is one of the few statesmen leading the West today, if not the only one.
Trump a statesman. Haven't laughed so much for as long as I can remember.
Two countries with a detailed trade agreement with the US threatened with substantial sanctions. And there are people in the UK who think we should be doing a trade deal with Trump!!
The US is the UKs biggest export market at 21.7% followed by Germany 7.3% then Ireland at 6.7%
It is in UKs interest to negotiate a deal with the US
No, the Single Market is the UK's biggest export market.
A trade deal with the US makes the UK beholden to Trump, a man who does not believe that deals are worth the paper they are written on. Just ask Canada and Mexico.
Rather than a trade deal we just need to avoid Trump's tariffs which he is currently focusing on the EU, China and Mexico and Canada first (though Poilievre may be able to avoid them even if Trudeau can't)
He is changing the world order with far reaching consequences
He said that if all the hostages are not released by his auguration 'all hell will break out'
He is demanding 5% NATO spending, is to implement substantial tariffs on Mexico and Canada and he was very disparaging about the EU no doubt also with the intention of imposing tariffs
He has scrapped Bidens ban on oil and gas exploration together with a ban on building wind farms
It seems he is likely to meet Putin very soon and it looks like he will demand peace within 6 months
He wants to take back the Panama canal even by force and has Greenland in his sights
A new imperial age. America wants Greenland. China wants Tawain. Russia wants Ukraine. Turkey wants Kurdish areas of Syria. Hopefully America wants the Chagos Islands to save the British taxpayer £800m a year.
He did also indeed that he loves Erdogan in the press conference, so that might be very bad news for any Kurdish hopes. The Greeks will be concerned too, as the Biden administration seemed to have been able to rein him on.
He wants some of the Aegean islands, and Trump cares little about Nato.
Maybe we need to get in on the act and nab Calais back.
On topic, whoever wins the Liberal leadership in Canada will inevitably lose the General Election. The issue is who will lose it least badly. That probably is Carney, who is clearly highly capable, smooth, and somewhat separate from the internal Liberal drama of recent times.
He has overarching power in foreign affairs and use of the army as Commander in Chief. And he has implicitly or explicitly threatened two NATO allies so far. His ally Musk has threatened the UK directly.
We should treat the US like a hostile power for the next 4 years, while doing nothing to provoke.
Talk of trade deals is the definition of being delusional.
Agreed. At the very sniff of a trade deal Trump would demand we accept some kind of quasi-51st-statehood, probably with American gun laws. He wouldn't want the UK - with what he would perceive as our liberal inclinations - swaying current US politics, so it would also come with voting restrictions.
Will we be spared having to switch to driving on the right?!
On topic, whoever wins the Liberal leadership in Canada will inevitably lose the General Election. The issue is who will lose it least badly. That probably is Carney, who is clearly highly capable, smooth, and somewhat separate from the internal Liberal drama of recent times.
No, as the polling I have just given shows Freeland polls better with Canadians than Carney who leaks Liberals to the more leftwing NDP in particular
I'm old enough to remember, rather too vividly, the 70s and 80s. And guess what? Back then, the general opinion was that the calibre of MPs had declined significantly since the 1950s/60s. Nostalgia persists through generations.
Yes, some think the decline really began with the Great Reform Act of 1832 when those males without significant property started being allowed to vote, after all you used to even get genuine aristocrats and winners of great battles like Waterloo as PM in those days.
We also had Disraeli and Gladstone and Salisbury when we still ran an Empire
He has overarching power in foreign affairs and use of the army as Commander in Chief. And he has implicitly or explicitly threatened two NATO allies so far. His ally Musk has threatened the UK directly.
We should treat the US like a hostile power for the next 4 years, while doing nothing to provoke.
Talk of trade deals is the definition of being delusional.
Agreed. At the very sniff of a trade deal Trump would demand we accept some kind of quasi-51st-statehood, probably with American gun laws. He wouldn't want the UK - with what he would perceive as our liberal inclinations - swaying current US politics, so it would also come with voting restrictions.
The weird guys in the UK who have become MAGA, out of who knows what motivation, don't seem to realise that what would be on offer (which is anyway vanishingly unlikely) is Puerto Rico status, at best.
Re yesterday's debate about the Online Safety Act:
There must be literally millions of posts being made on UK internet forums every single day.
Whilst numerous posts might be deemed to possibly be in breach of a strict interpretation of the Act it is surely completely impractial to think that the police (and in turn CPS) are going to pursue anything other than the very most serious posts - ie posts in connection with things like suicide.
Otherwise where on earth would they start?
I'm not saying I agree with the Act - I don't and I agree with most of the comments posted yesterday. But from a practical point of view I can't see it having any effect on anything which could be considered normal political debate.
Sigh.
The way it works is that they get a complaint that looks like a case and the prosecute it.
Just like the other cases for online stuff - see police blogs for why Farcebook posts are particularly good for the stats.
Another (big) one will be various groups hiring lawyers and conducting lawfare against individuals or groups that they don’t like. Many ISPs and other service providers terminate service the moment they get threatening letters from lawyers.
So one morning PB is gone. Because someone got a lawyer to send a snotty letter to OGH service provider.
Think it can’t happen? That kind of stuff has already happened under other laws in various countries.
Yeah I don’t see how PB survives under the OSA
The fines are potentially horrific. Why take the risk. It only needs one vexatious litigant and the unpaid owners and mods of PB will - understandably - think what’s the effing point
The entire Act is monstrous. Tories are venal cretins, other parties just as bad. It’s another demonstration of how our ruling elite is not fit for purpose. They are simply DUMB
As others have said, online debate will retreat to US forums with people using vpns
It won’t happen overnight but it will slowly erode
No PB will survive even then, even if left discussing topics like the significance of the Parish by election swing in Middle Wallop
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
There is probably something in reforming the structures around politicians as well. The civil service isn’t fit for purpose, and the reason we continually tinker around the edges on the big issues is because there’s some senior civil servant sticking to the what they know best - slow, steady, mediocre.
(Christ, I’ve been radicalised by X 😂)
I refer you to my article on the Blob. I'm on a train (argh) so can't post a link, but may do so later
Note how the one person he seems terrified of even remotely threatening is Putin. He's a bully and a coward.
Note that his argument for claiming Greenland - "it's essential to our national security" - is exactly the same as Putin's pretext for invading Ukraine.
And similarly mendacious.
Why is it mendacious? Imagine an alternative timeline in where China ends up with control over the Arctic and Canada.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Fair
I would reduce the number of Lords by 70% and get rid of as many civil servants and diversity wotsits as possible. Also abolish the devolved parliaments and most of the quangos
But I would use the money saved to double MPs and ministers’ pay, at least. Make it a seriously attractive career for really bright people
You can't abolish the devolved parliaments and assemblies now unless the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish and Londoners also agree given they voted for them in referendums in the first place.
We could certainly reduce the Lords though and focus it on just who have achieved merit in outside careers
Aaron Rupar @atrupar · 1h Marjorie Taylor Greene says she has already directed her staff to write legislation officially changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America
Is that such a big deal? The same stretch of water sometimes does go by different names in different countries. The French refer to the English Channel as La Manche, for example.
Typically, I believe, bodies of water are referred to in English, where they are named after adjacent land, after the second largest bit of adjacent land, hence, Irish Sea, English Channel, Gulf of Mexico. Other postersmay be able to suggest other examples or counterexamples.
He has overarching power in foreign affairs and use of the army as Commander in Chief. And he has implicitly or explicitly threatened two NATO allies so far. His ally Musk has threatened the UK directly.
We should treat the US like a hostile power for the next 4 years, while doing nothing to provoke.
Talk of trade deals is the definition of being delusional.
Agreed. At the very sniff of a trade deal Trump would demand we accept some kind of quasi-51st-statehood, probably with American gun laws. He wouldn't want the UK - with what he would perceive as our liberal inclinations - swaying current US politics, so it would also come with voting restrictions.
Will we be spared having to switch to driving on the right?!
They will take a libertarian approach. American visitors will mostly choose the right.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Yes what wonderful years the 1970s were with unions near running the country, inflation surging, sky high taxes and nationalised industry and a brain drain!
MPs salaries are more than 95% of their constitiuents earn so hardly rubbish, even if the PM should be paid £200k to put them in the top 1% of earners and Cabinet Ministers about £150k. Though of course the PM gets a grade listed 16th century manor house in Bucks which would cost millions on the open market and a grade listed 17th century town house in central London and chauffeur driven cars and security on top. The Foreign Secretary also gets a 17th century stately home Chevening and No 1 Carlton Gardens in London and the Chancellor gets No 11 Downing Street and shares Dorneywood with the Deputy PM
And yet for all those real difficulties the UK managed 2.5% GDP growth per year over the decade. A growth rate which seems to be completely out of reach for the UK in the modern world.
Tories are also now posher than Labour voters for the first time since 2017. Tories get 25% of ABC1s but only 21% of C2DEs, Labour get 31% of C2DEs and 29% of ABC1s. Reform though clearly the working class party now with 26% of C2DEs backing them but only 20% of ABC1s (p3)
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Fair
I would reduce the number of Lords by 70% and get rid of as many civil servants and diversity wotsits as possible. Also abolish the devolved parliaments and most of the quangos
But I would use the money saved to double MPs and ministers’ pay, at least. Make it a seriously attractive career for really bright people
If you double their pay it’s still not attractive for really bright people apart from really bright people who aren’t interested in money anyway.
Even doubling the PM’s salary doesn’t put them in serious city earning levels or legal partnership.
It needs, somehow, to become something that attracts the people with an idea of service and wanting to give back once they have had a life and career. It shouldn’t be a career in itself. Maybe draw lots of the retired cohort each year of 200 that sit proportionately with parties based on last election and dump out 200 MPs each year, keep adding experience and ditching careerists.
Ditch career politicians like Churchill, Thatcher, Wilson and Blair? The only recentish Prime Minister who was not a career politician is, erm, Keir Starmer. Be careful what you wish for.
Er, Thatcher was a successful biochemist AND a successful lawyer before going into politics
Eh? She was a research scientist for about five minutes and a a barrister for less.
That’s nonsense. Several years post Oxford as a chemist in a variety of roles, then a career change to law and five or six years at that before becoming an MP. Pretty decent I’d say. I also see she only published one scientific paper, incidentally in a Journal I have also published in (Journal of the Science of Agriculture and Food).
Tories are also now posher than Labour voters for the first time since 2017. Tories get 25% of ABC1s but only 21% of C2DEs, Labour get 31% of C2DEs and 29% of ABC1s. Reform though clearly the working class party now with 26% of C2DEs backing them but only 20% of ABC1s (p3)
If the Tories can continue to make inroads with the posh, the university educated and the Remainers, then it's bad news for Labour and the Lib Dems and makes the prospect of two-party politics fought between the Tories and Reform look more plausible.
Note how the one person he seems terrified of even remotely threatening is Putin. He's a bully and a coward.
Note that his argument for claiming Greenland - "it's essential to our national security" - is exactly the same as Putin's pretext for invading Ukraine.
And similarly mendacious.
Why is it mendacious? Imagine an alternative timeline in where China ends up with control over the Arctic and Canada.
Tories are also now posher than Labour voters for the first time since 2017. Tories get 25% of ABC1s but only 21% of C2DEs, Labour get 31% of C2DEs and 29% of ABC1s. Reform though clearly the working class party now with 26% of C2DEs backing them but only 20% of ABC1s (p3)
If the Tories can continue to make inroads with the posh, the university educated and the Remainers, then it's bad news for Labour and the Lib Dems and makes the prospect of two-party politics fought between the Tories and Reform look more plausible.
More likely 3 way politics between Labour, the Tories and Reform more likely (Labour will still lead with Remainers and graduates even if the Tories have now won back many of the posh from the LDs)
Note how the one person he seems terrified of even remotely threatening is Putin. He's a bully and a coward.
Note that his argument for claiming Greenland - "it's essential to our national security" - is exactly the same as Putin's pretext for invading Ukraine.
And similarly mendacious.
Why is it mendacious? Imagine an alternative timeline in where China ends up with control over the Arctic and Canada.
Are you being deliberately obtuse?
He does it by reflex.
It's an acute condition
No need to be obtuse about it
He is just tediously promoting the anglesphere as usual.
Aaron Rupar @atrupar · 1h Marjorie Taylor Greene says she has already directed her staff to write legislation officially changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America
Is that such a big deal? The same stretch of water sometimes does go by different names in different countries. The French refer to the English Channel as La Manche, for example.
Typically, I believe, bodies of water are referred to in English, where they are named after adjacent land, after the second largest bit of adjacent land, hence, Irish Sea, English Channel, Gulf of Mexico. Other postersmay be able to suggest other examples or counterexamples.
A counter example: German Ocean, quickly renamed in 1914 admittedly to North Sea. Slightly generous, given the relatively small German seaboard to the west of Denmark (the bit to the east is, of course, Baltic).
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Perhaps we should cut MPs pay back to what it was in the 1970s and 80s then?
Since the 90s MPs pay has increased dramatically in real terms, it was much lower in real terms in the 70s and 80s.
That's a false comparison because the issue is comparative salaries. In the 70s and 80s an MPs salary was much higher than other career options. Today an MPs salary is below a lot of career options. The comparative growth of MPs pay has been much lower than pay for people in top industries. It has definitely lead to a dearth of talent across all parties, not just Labour and the Tories.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Fair
I would reduce the number of Lords by 70% and get rid of as many civil servants and diversity wotsits as possible. Also abolish the devolved parliaments and most of the quangos
But I would use the money saved to double MPs and ministers’ pay, at least. Make it a seriously attractive career for really bright people
If you double their pay it’s still not attractive for really bright people apart from really bright people who aren’t interested in money anyway.
Even doubling the PM’s salary doesn’t put them in serious city earning levels or legal partnership.
It needs, somehow, to become something that attracts the people with an idea of service and wanting to give back once they have had a life and career. It shouldn’t be a career in itself. Maybe draw lots of the retired cohort each year of 200 that sit proportionately with parties based on last election and dump out 200 MPs each year, keep adding experience and ditching careerists.
Ditch career politicians like Churchill, Thatcher, Wilson and Blair? The only recentish Prime Minister who was not a career politician is, erm, Keir Starmer. Be careful what you wish for.
Er, Thatcher was a successful biochemist AND a successful lawyer before going into politics
Eh? She was a research scientist for about five minutes and a a barrister for less.
She invented Mr. Whippy ice cream. If that only took her five minutes it just shows how brilliant she was :-)
Of course, and Boris Johnson invented the Oxford vaccine.
That's very interesting, albeit a subsample with a large MoE.
Always thought Reform was the sort of party that would fall flat in Scotland - too "English".
The anti-establishment vote has always - to my casual looking - been quite fragmented in Scotland. You might go Alba, you might go SSP, maybe UKIP, or you might go fruitloop-local...
If that solidified around Reform - I could see them doing fairly well.
Note how the one person he seems terrified of even remotely threatening is Putin. He's a bully and a coward.
Note that his argument for claiming Greenland - "it's essential to our national security" - is exactly the same as Putin's pretext for invading Ukraine.
And similarly mendacious.
Why is it mendacious? Imagine an alternative timeline in where China ends up with control over the Arctic and Canada.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
There is probably something in reforming the structures around politicians as well. The civil service isn’t fit for purpose, and the reason we continually tinker around the edges on the big issues is because there’s some senior civil servant sticking to the what they know best - slow, steady, mediocre.
(Christ, I’ve been radicalised by X 😂)
I refer you to my article on the Blob. I'm on a train (argh) so can't post a link, but may do so later
Aaron Rupar @atrupar · 1h Marjorie Taylor Greene says she has already directed her staff to write legislation officially changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America
Is that such a big deal? The same stretch of water sometimes does go by different names in different countries. The French refer to the English Channel as La Manche, for example.
Typically, I believe, bodies of water are referred to in English, where they are named after adjacent land, after the second largest bit of adjacent land, hence, Irish Sea, English Channel, Gulf of Mexico. Other postersmay be able to suggest other examples or counterexamples.
A counter example: German Ocean, quickly renamed in 1914 admittedly to North Sea. Slightly generous, given the relatively small German seaboard to the west of Denmark (the bit to the east is, of course, Baltic).
It's the North Sea in German too (Nordsee). The Baltic is the East Sea (Ostsee).
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Perhaps we should cut MPs pay back to what it was in the 1970s and 80s then?
Since the 90s MPs pay has increased dramatically in real terms, it was much lower in real terms in the 70s and 80s.
That's a false comparison because the issue is comparative salaries. In the 70s and 80s an MPs salary was much higher than other career options. Today an MPs salary is below a lot of career options. The comparative growth of MPs pay has been much lower than pay for people in top industries. It has definitely lead to a dearth of talent across all parties, not just Labour and the Tories.
No it wasn't, even in the 70s and 80s QCs and merchant and investment bankers and surgeons and company directors earnt more than MPs. Plus of course CEOs pay has grown far higher than the average wage earners even than it has relative to MPs pay since then
He has overarching power in foreign affairs and use of the army as Commander in Chief. And he has implicitly or explicitly threatened two NATO allies so far. His ally Musk has threatened the UK directly.
We should treat the US like a hostile power for the next 4 years, while doing nothing to provoke.
Talk of trade deals is the definition of being delusional.
Agreed. At the very sniff of a trade deal Trump would demand we accept some kind of quasi-51st-statehood, probably with American gun laws. He wouldn't want the UK - with what he would perceive as our liberal inclinations - swaying current US politics, so it would also come with voting restrictions.
Will we be spared having to switch to driving on the right?!
They will take a libertarian approach. American visitors will mostly choose the right.
That's very interesting, albeit a subsample with a large MoE.
Always thought Reform was the sort of party that would fall flat in Scotland - too "English".
The anti-establishment vote has always - to my casual looking - been quite fragmented in Scotland. You might go Alba, you might go SSP, maybe UKIP, or you might go fruitloop-local...
If that solidified around Reform - I could see them doing fairly well.
Scottish working class unionists of the traditional Glasgow Rangers supporting variety would be a happy hunting ground for Reform. I would expect them to perform well in Lanarkshire, Glasgow, West Lothian and certain parts of Ayrshire.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Fair
I would reduce the number of Lords by 70% and get rid of as many civil servants and diversity wotsits as possible. Also abolish the devolved parliaments and most of the quangos
But I would use the money saved to double MPs and ministers’ pay, at least. Make it a seriously attractive career for really bright people
If you double their pay it’s still not attractive for really bright people apart from really bright people who aren’t interested in money anyway.
Even doubling the PM’s salary doesn’t put them in serious city earning levels or legal partnership.
It needs, somehow, to become something that attracts the people with an idea of service and wanting to give back once they have had a life and career. It shouldn’t be a career in itself. Maybe draw lots of the retired cohort each year of 200 that sit proportionately with parties based on last election and dump out 200 MPs each year, keep adding experience and ditching careerists.
Ditch career politicians like Churchill, Thatcher, Wilson and Blair? The only recentish Prime Minister who was not a career politician is, erm, Keir Starmer. Be careful what you wish for.
Er, Thatcher was a successful biochemist AND a successful lawyer before going into politics
Eh? She was a research scientist for about five minutes and a a barrister for less.
She invented Mr. Whippy ice cream. If that only took her five minutes it just shows how brilliant she was :-)
Of course, and Boris Johnson invented the Oxford vaccine.
He has overarching power in foreign affairs and use of the army as Commander in Chief. And he has implicitly or explicitly threatened two NATO allies so far. His ally Musk has threatened the UK directly.
We should treat the US like a hostile power for the next 4 years, while doing nothing to provoke.
Talk of trade deals is the definition of being delusional.
Agreed. At the very sniff of a trade deal Trump would demand we accept some kind of quasi-51st-statehood, probably with American gun laws. He wouldn't want the UK - with what he would perceive as our liberal inclinations - swaying current US politics, so it would also come with voting restrictions.
The weird guys in the UK who have become MAGA, out of who knows what motivation, don't seem to realise that what would be on offer (which is anyway vanishingly unlikely) is Puerto Rico status, at best.
If you've not come across UK 'preppers' on youtube and the like.... It's really quite something. A sort of weird mix of Telegraph-esque beliefs that Keir == Stalin, heat pumps are some sort of 5G conspiracy, and that refusing to sort your recycling will Show It To The Man.
Note how the one person he seems terrified of even remotely threatening is Putin. He's a bully and a coward.
Note that his argument for claiming Greenland - "it's essential to our national security" - is exactly the same as Putin's pretext for invading Ukraine.
And similarly mendacious.
Why is it mendacious? Imagine an alternative timeline in where China ends up with control over the Arctic and Canada.
Are you being deliberately obtuse?
He does it by reflex.
It's an acute condition
No need to be obtuse about it
He is just tediously promoting the anglesphere as usual.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
There is probably something in reforming the structures around politicians as well. The civil service isn’t fit for purpose, and the reason we continually tinker around the edges on the big issues is because there’s some senior civil servant sticking to the what they know best - slow, steady, mediocre.
(Christ, I’ve been radicalised by X 😂)
I refer you to my article on the Blob. I'm on a train (argh) so can't post a link, but may do so later
Note how the one person he seems terrified of even remotely threatening is Putin. He's a bully and a coward.
Note that his argument for claiming Greenland - "it's essential to our national security" - is exactly the same as Putin's pretext for invading Ukraine.
And similarly mendacious.
Why is it mendacious? Imagine an alternative timeline in where China ends up with control over the Arctic and Canada.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Fair
I would reduce the number of Lords by 70% and get rid of as many civil servants and diversity wotsits as possible. Also abolish the devolved parliaments and most of the quangos
But I would use the money saved to double MPs and ministers’ pay, at least. Make it a seriously attractive career for really bright people
If you double their pay it’s still not attractive for really bright people apart from really bright people who aren’t interested in money anyway.
Even doubling the PM’s salary doesn’t put them in serious city earning levels or legal partnership.
It needs, somehow, to become something that attracts the people with an idea of service and wanting to give back once they have had a life and career. It shouldn’t be a career in itself. Maybe draw lots of the retired cohort each year of 200 that sit proportionately with parties based on last election and dump out 200 MPs each year, keep adding experience and ditching careerists.
Ditch career politicians like Churchill, Thatcher, Wilson and Blair? The only recentish Prime Minister who was not a career politician is, erm, Keir Starmer. Be careful what you wish for.
Er, Thatcher was a successful biochemist AND a successful lawyer before going into politics
Eh? She was a research scientist for about five minutes and a a barrister for less.
She invented Mr. Whippy ice cream. If that only took her five minutes it just shows how brilliant she was :-)
Of course, and Boris Johnson invented the Oxford vaccine.
Margaret Thatcher dealt successfully with Mr Whippy, but not so successfully with the Mr. Softees in her cabinet.
I thought the vegetables had what she was having?
In truth, despite all the “dictator” stuff, she ran a cabinet government. And one stuffed full of her opponents.
Indeed, one thing that does her and her cabinet great credit was the cabinet overruled her when it came to the AIDS crisis, she wanted it to be a moral campaign whereas Norman Fowler and others wanted it to be a practical campaign.
Once the cabinet voted Thatcher got behind the decision.
I will say that Norman Fowler is an utter hero, he undoubtedly saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, if not more.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Perhaps we should cut MPs pay back to what it was in the 1970s and 80s then?
Since the 90s MPs pay has increased dramatically in real terms, it was much lower in real terms in the 70s and 80s.
That's a false comparison because the issue is comparative salaries. In the 70s and 80s an MPs salary was much higher than other career options. Today an MPs salary is below a lot of career options. The comparative growth of MPs pay has been much lower than pay for people in top industries. It has definitely lead to a dearth of talent across all parties, not just Labour and the Tories.
No it wasn't, even in the 70s and 80s QCs and merchant and investment bankers and surgeons and company directors earnt more than MPs. Plus of course CEOs pay has grown far higher than the average wage earners even than it has relative to MPs pay since then
I can’t think of any MP that chose the job because of the salary. Some will have chosen it because of the perks and influence. Most will have chosen it because of their personal political views.
BREAKING: Fact-checkers claim they were blindsided by Meta’s decision to end their partnerships and reportedly fear they won’t be able to secure new business to fill the void, potentially putting them at risk of going out of business, according to Wired.
Can I get odds on Trump wanting to rename The Moon?
Maybe he'll follow Turkey and the Czech Republic in demanding that other languages' speakers change what they use for his country... "Le Meilleur Pays", perhaps.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Fair
I would reduce the number of Lords by 70% and get rid of as many civil servants and diversity wotsits as possible. Also abolish the devolved parliaments and most of the quangos
But I would use the money saved to double MPs and ministers’ pay, at least. Make it a seriously attractive career for really bright people
If you double their pay it’s still not attractive for really bright people apart from really bright people who aren’t interested in money anyway.
Even doubling the PM’s salary doesn’t put them in serious city earning levels or legal partnership.
It needs, somehow, to become something that attracts the people with an idea of service and wanting to give back once they have had a life and career. It shouldn’t be a career in itself. Maybe draw lots of the retired cohort each year of 200 that sit proportionately with parties based on last election and dump out 200 MPs each year, keep adding experience and ditching careerists.
Ditch career politicians like Churchill, Thatcher, Wilson and Blair? The only recentish Prime Minister who was not a career politician is, erm, Keir Starmer. Be careful what you wish for.
Er, Thatcher was a successful biochemist AND a successful lawyer before going into politics
Eh? She was a research scientist for about five minutes and a a barrister for less.
She invented Mr. Whippy ice cream. If that only took her five minutes it just shows how brilliant she was :-)
Of course, and Boris Johnson invented the Oxford vaccine.
Margaret Thatcher dealt successfully with Mr Whippy, but not so successfully with the Mr. Softees in her cabinet.
Thatcher was famously turned down as a chemist by ICI early in her career. Nevertheless, Dulux non-drip emulsion uses a similar technology to Mr Whippy. She vetoed a knighthood for John Harvey-Jones. He had to wait until she was gone.
BREAKING: Fact-checkers claim they were blindsided by Meta’s decision to end their partnerships and reportedly fear they won’t be able to secure new business to fill the void, potentially putting them at risk of going out of business, according to Wired.
In Trump’s brave new world, fact checkers will be redundant anyway.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Perhaps we should cut MPs pay back to what it was in the 1970s and 80s then?
Since the 90s MPs pay has increased dramatically in real terms, it was much lower in real terms in the 70s and 80s.
That's a false comparison because the issue is comparative salaries. In the 70s and 80s an MPs salary was much higher than other career options. Today an MPs salary is below a lot of career options. The comparative growth of MPs pay has been much lower than pay for people in top industries. It has definitely lead to a dearth of talent across all parties, not just Labour and the Tories.
No it wasn't, even in the 70s and 80s QCs and merchant and investment bankers and surgeons and company directors earnt more than MPs. Plus of course CEOs pay has grown far higher than the average wage earners even than it has relative to MPs pay since then
I can’t think of any MP that chose the job because of the salary. Some will have chosen it because of the perks and influence. Most will have chosen it because of their personal political views.
Plenty who won in marginal seats in particular will have earnt more as an MP, salary now about £90,000 + expenses, than they ever did in their job before being elected to Parliament.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Fair
I would reduce the number of Lords by 70% and get rid of as many civil servants and diversity wotsits as possible. Also abolish the devolved parliaments and most of the quangos
But I would use the money saved to double MPs and ministers’ pay, at least. Make it a seriously attractive career for really bright people
If you double their pay it’s still not attractive for really bright people apart from really bright people who aren’t interested in money anyway.
Even doubling the PM’s salary doesn’t put them in serious city earning levels or legal partnership.
It needs, somehow, to become something that attracts the people with an idea of service and wanting to give back once they have had a life and career. It shouldn’t be a career in itself. Maybe draw lots of the retired cohort each year of 200 that sit proportionately with parties based on last election and dump out 200 MPs each year, keep adding experience and ditching careerists.
Ditch career politicians like Churchill, Thatcher, Wilson and Blair? The only recentish Prime Minister who was not a career politician is, erm, Keir Starmer. Be careful what you wish for.
Er, Thatcher was a successful biochemist AND a successful lawyer before going into politics
Eh? She was a research scientist for about five minutes and a a barrister for less.
She invented Mr. Whippy ice cream. If that only took her five minutes it just shows how brilliant she was :-)
Of course, and Boris Johnson invented the Oxford vaccine.
Margaret Thatcher dealt successfully with Mr Whippy, but not so successfully with the Mr. Softees in her cabinet.
I thought the vegetables had what she was having?
In truth, despite all the “dictator” stuff, she ran a cabinet government. And one stuffed full of her opponents.
Indeed, one thing that does her and her cabinet great credit was the cabinet overruled her when it came to the AIDS crisis, she wanted it to be a moral campaign whereas Norman Fowler and others wanted it to be a practical campaign.
Once the cabinet voted Thatcher got behind the decision.
I will say that Norman Fowler is an utter hero, he undoubtedly saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, if not more.
Indeed.
MInd, being persuaded on the poll tax by one of her cabinet was less successful.
That's very interesting, albeit a subsample with a large MoE.
Always thought Reform was the sort of party that would fall flat in Scotland - too "English".
The anti-establishment vote has always - to my casual looking - been quite fragmented in Scotland. You might go Alba, you might go SSP, maybe UKIP, or you might go fruitloop-local...
If that solidified around Reform - I could see them doing fairly well.
Scottish working class unionists of the traditional Glasgow Rangers supporting variety would be a happy hunting ground for Reform. I would expect them to perform well in Lanarkshire, Glasgow, West Lothian and certain parts of Ayrshire.
Indeed. But I've known quite a few radical SSP campaigners who then switched to UKIP too. If Reform could find a half-decent figurehead in Scotland they'd be onto a (almost) winner. Jim Sillars? Someone along those lines I guess. Maybe even a penitent (Scottish) Tommy at a stretch.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Fair
I would reduce the number of Lords by 70% and get rid of as many civil servants and diversity wotsits as possible. Also abolish the devolved parliaments and most of the quangos
But I would use the money saved to double MPs and ministers’ pay, at least. Make it a seriously attractive career for really bright people
If you double their pay it’s still not attractive for really bright people apart from really bright people who aren’t interested in money anyway.
Even doubling the PM’s salary doesn’t put them in serious city earning levels or legal partnership.
It needs, somehow, to become something that attracts the people with an idea of service and wanting to give back once they have had a life and career. It shouldn’t be a career in itself. Maybe draw lots of the retired cohort each year of 200 that sit proportionately with parties based on last election and dump out 200 MPs each year, keep adding experience and ditching careerists.
Ditch career politicians like Churchill, Thatcher, Wilson and Blair? The only recentish Prime Minister who was not a career politician is, erm, Keir Starmer. Be careful what you wish for.
Er, Thatcher was a successful biochemist AND a successful lawyer before going into politics
Eh? She was a research scientist for about five minutes and a a barrister for less.
Nonetheless she did both jobs successfully - however briefly - before coming a politician
For real “career politicians” you should look to the awful types who go straight from PPE at Oxbridge to being a spad to being an MP to being a minister, absolutely zero contact with the world outside politics
Mrs Thatcher (or Miss Roberts then) was a Conservative PPC a year after she graduated. It is pretty clear where her intentions lay. Otherwise it is just semantics.
BREAKING: Fact-checkers claim they were blindsided by Meta’s decision to end their partnerships and reportedly fear they won’t be able to secure new business to fill the void, potentially putting them at risk of going out of business, according to Wired.
In Trump’s brave new world, fact checkers will be redundant anyway.
Repeat something enough times, as this week has shown, and things become facts to many regardless of their veracity. To give him credit for once, Trump was well ahead of the curve in how far this could be pushed in modern politics.
Having read the thread I am not really any the wiser on Canadian politics. I am not even better informed. Have we finally found a subject about which we know nothing and care less? Remarkable and notable.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Fair
I would reduce the number of Lords by 70% and get rid of as many civil servants and diversity wotsits as possible. Also abolish the devolved parliaments and most of the quangos
But I would use the money saved to double MPs and ministers’ pay, at least. Make it a seriously attractive career for really bright people
If you double their pay it’s still not attractive for really bright people apart from really bright people who aren’t interested in money anyway.
Even doubling the PM’s salary doesn’t put them in serious city earning levels or legal partnership.
It needs, somehow, to become something that attracts the people with an idea of service and wanting to give back once they have had a life and career. It shouldn’t be a career in itself. Maybe draw lots of the retired cohort each year of 200 that sit proportionately with parties based on last election and dump out 200 MPs each year, keep adding experience and ditching careerists.
Ditch career politicians like Churchill, Thatcher, Wilson and Blair? The only recentish Prime Minister who was not a career politician is, erm, Keir Starmer. Be careful what you wish for.
Er, Thatcher was a successful biochemist AND a successful lawyer before going into politics
Eh? She was a research scientist for about five minutes and a a barrister for less.
Nonetheless she did both jobs successfully - however briefly - before coming a politician
For real “career politicians” you should look to the awful types who go straight from PPE at Oxbridge to being a spad to being an MP to being a minister, absolutely zero contact with the world outside politics
Mrs Thatcher (or Miss Roberts then) was a Conservative PPC a year after she graduated. It is pretty clear where her intentions lay. Otherwise it is just semantics.
But it was her chemistry background that led her to realise the oxygen of publicity would set off a chain reaction in her career that would not just make her popular with her base but also be the catalyst to make it impossible for Lab to win for a decade.
Having read the thread I am not really any the wiser on Canadian politics. I am not even better informed. Have we finally found a subject about which we know nothing and care less? Remarkable and notable.
The admission of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom, as TSE also clearly demonstrated in the header. Not that you'd know it on PB.
That's very interesting, albeit a subsample with a large MoE.
Always thought Reform was the sort of party that would fall flat in Scotland - too "English".
The anti-establishment vote has always - to my casual looking - been quite fragmented in Scotland. You might go Alba, you might go SSP, maybe UKIP, or you might go fruitloop-local...
If that solidified around Reform - I could see them doing fairly well.
Scottish working class unionists of the traditional Glasgow Rangers supporting variety would be a happy hunting ground for Reform. I would expect them to perform well in Lanarkshire, Glasgow, West Lothian and certain parts of Ayrshire.
Nige & co may have been a bit previous in getting rid of their ‘up to our knees in Fenian blood’ Scottish rep. He seemed to me a perfect fit for the type of Scottish voters they want to appeal to.
That's very interesting, albeit a subsample with a large MoE.
Always thought Reform was the sort of party that would fall flat in Scotland - too "English".
The anti-establishment vote has always - to my casual looking - been quite fragmented in Scotland. You might go Alba, you might go SSP, maybe UKIP, or you might go fruitloop-local...
If that solidified around Reform - I could see them doing fairly well.
Scottish working class unionists of the traditional Glasgow Rangers supporting variety would be a happy hunting ground for Reform. I would expect them to perform well in Lanarkshire, Glasgow, West Lothian and certain parts of Ayrshire.
Nige & co may have been a bit previous in getting rid of their ‘up to our knees in Fenian blood’ Scottish rep. He seemed to me a perfect fit for the type of Scottish voters they want to appeal to.
Also their very loud statements about supporting Anas for FM might have some effect on the Slab vote.
On topic, whoever wins the Liberal leadership in Canada will inevitably lose the General Election. The issue is who will lose it least badly. That probably is Carney, who is clearly highly capable, smooth, and somewhat separate from the internal Liberal drama of recent times.
They're going to get absolutely drubbed, the benchmark of catastrophic performance being the Prog Cons in '93, on 16%.
BREAKING: Fact-checkers claim they were blindsided by Meta’s decision to end their partnerships and reportedly fear they won’t be able to secure new business to fill the void, potentially putting them at risk of going out of business, according to Wired.
That's very interesting, albeit a subsample with a large MoE.
Always thought Reform was the sort of party that would fall flat in Scotland - too "English".
The anti-establishment vote has always - to my casual looking - been quite fragmented in Scotland. You might go Alba, you might go SSP, maybe UKIP, or you might go fruitloop-local...
If that solidified around Reform - I could see them doing fairly well.
Scottish working class unionists of the traditional Glasgow Rangers supporting variety would be a happy hunting ground for Reform. I would expect them to perform well in Lanarkshire, Glasgow, West Lothian and certain parts of Ayrshire.
Nige & co may have been a bit previous in getting rid of their ‘up to our knees in Fenian blood’ Scottish rep. He seemed to me a perfect fit for the type of Scottish voters they want to appeal to.
What do you two reckon on Moray and Banff etc.? Or do the fishing communities feel let down over Brexit?
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Fair
I would reduce the number of Lords by 70% and get rid of as many civil servants and diversity wotsits as possible. Also abolish the devolved parliaments and most of the quangos
But I would use the money saved to double MPs and ministers’ pay, at least. Make it a seriously attractive career for really bright people
If you double their pay it’s still not attractive for really bright people apart from really bright people who aren’t interested in money anyway.
Even doubling the PM’s salary doesn’t put them in serious city earning levels or legal partnership.
It needs, somehow, to become something that attracts the people with an idea of service and wanting to give back once they have had a life and career. It shouldn’t be a career in itself. Maybe draw lots of the retired cohort each year of 200 that sit proportionately with parties based on last election and dump out 200 MPs each year, keep adding experience and ditching careerists.
Ditch career politicians like Churchill, Thatcher, Wilson and Blair? The only recentish Prime Minister who was not a career politician is, erm, Keir Starmer. Be careful what you wish for.
Er, Thatcher was a successful biochemist AND a successful lawyer before going into politics
Eh? She was a research scientist for about five minutes and a a barrister for less.
Nonetheless she did both jobs successfully - however briefly - before coming a politician
For real “career politicians” you should look to the awful types who go straight from PPE at Oxbridge to being a spad to being an MP to being a minister, absolutely zero contact with the world outside politics
Mrs Thatcher (or Miss Roberts then) was a Conservative PPC a year after she graduated. It is pretty clear where her intentions lay. Otherwise it is just semantics.
But the point is she actually DID work for a considerable time outside of politics and reasonably successfully. I've never known the term career politician applied to someone like that. It's usually used about someone who basically goes to work as a SPAD shortly after university and then gets a seat in Parliament.
That's very interesting, albeit a subsample with a large MoE.
Always thought Reform was the sort of party that would fall flat in Scotland - too "English".
The anti-establishment vote has always - to my casual looking - been quite fragmented in Scotland. You might go Alba, you might go SSP, maybe UKIP, or you might go fruitloop-local...
If that solidified around Reform - I could see them doing fairly well.
Scottish working class unionists of the traditional Glasgow Rangers supporting variety would be a happy hunting ground for Reform. I would expect them to perform well in Lanarkshire, Glasgow, West Lothian and certain parts of Ayrshire.
Indeed. But I've known quite a few radical SSP campaigners who then switched to UKIP too. If Reform could find a half-decent figurehead in Scotland they'd be onto a (almost) winner. Jim Sillars? Someone along those lines I guess. Maybe even a penitent (Scottish) Tommy at a stretch.
Jim S too much of a Home Ruler or pro-Indy, I think. And still a SNP member AFAIK.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Fair
I would reduce the number of Lords by 70% and get rid of as many civil servants and diversity wotsits as possible. Also abolish the devolved parliaments and most of the quangos
But I would use the money saved to double MPs and ministers’ pay, at least. Make it a seriously attractive career for really bright people
If you double their pay it’s still not attractive for really bright people apart from really bright people who aren’t interested in money anyway.
Even doubling the PM’s salary doesn’t put them in serious city earning levels or legal partnership.
It needs, somehow, to become something that attracts the people with an idea of service and wanting to give back once they have had a life and career. It shouldn’t be a career in itself. Maybe draw lots of the retired cohort each year of 200 that sit proportionately with parties based on last election and dump out 200 MPs each year, keep adding experience and ditching careerists.
Ditch career politicians like Churchill, Thatcher, Wilson and Blair? The only recentish Prime Minister who was not a career politician is, erm, Keir Starmer. Be careful what you wish for.
Er, Thatcher was a successful biochemist AND a successful lawyer before going into politics
Eh? She was a research scientist for about five minutes and a a barrister for less.
Nonetheless she did both jobs successfully - however briefly - before coming a politician
For real “career politicians” you should look to the awful types who go straight from PPE at Oxbridge to being a spad to being an MP to being a minister, absolutely zero contact with the world outside politics
Mrs Thatcher (or Miss Roberts then) was a Conservative PPC a year after she graduated. It is pretty clear where her intentions lay. Otherwise it is just semantics.
But the point is she actually DID work for a considerable time outside of politics and reasonably successfully. I've never known the term career politician applied to someone like that. It's usually used about someone who basically goes to work as a SPAD shortly after university and then gets a seat in Parliament.
Anyone mention the not so small matter of raising a family?
Are we going about this all wrong? Should we, Canada, Aus/Nz, and the Nordics agree to become U.S. States (say, one state per English region, plus Scotland and Wales, and proportionately the same for the others) with a proportionate number of electoral votes, senators, and representatives, and then make one or two changes?
I did a run-through of Congressional Apportionment (and therefore EVs) for the thought experiment of adding the UK (as four states; the Home Nations), Canada (as ten states; the ten provinces), Australia (as its states plus Northern Territory (no House of Reps members, but 3 EVs as per DC) plus the ACT (which does have Reps as they vote normally), and NZ (one state).
As the House of Reps is limited to 435, the result was:
US (plus DC): 306 Reps, 100 Senators, 409 EVs UK: 61 Reps, 8 Senators, 69 EVs Canada: 37 Reps, 20 Senators, 57 EVs (disproportionately high because so many provinces) Australia: 26 Reps, 14 Senators, 43 EVs NZ: 5 Reps, 2 Senators, 7 EVs
Total of 435 Representatives (of course), 144 Senators, and 585 EVs (including 3EVs each for DC and Australia's Northern Territory, who each have no Representatives or Senators).
The most EVs would be, as expected, England, with 51. Followed by California on 35, Texas on 28, Florida on 21, New York on 18, and then Ontario on 14 (New South Wales would have the most for Australia, with 8 EVs)
I’ll take it, if we can all agree the King slots in above the President.
He is changing the world order with far reaching consequences
He said that if all the hostages are not released by his auguration 'all hell will break out'
He is demanding 5% NATO spending, is to implement substantial tariffs on Mexico and Canada and he was very disparaging about the EU no doubt also with the intention of imposing tariffs
He has scrapped Bidens ban on oil and gas exploration together with a ban on building wind farms
It seems he is likely to meet Putin very soon and it looks like he will demand peace within 6 months
He wants to take back the Panama canal even by force and has Greenland in his sights
A new imperial age. America wants Greenland. China wants Tawain. Russia wants Ukraine. Turkey wants Kurdish areas of Syria. Hopefully America wants the Chagos Islands to save the British taxpayer £800m a year.
He did also indeed that he loves Erdogan in the press conference, so that might be very bad news for any Kurdish hopes. The Greeks will be concerned too, as the Biden administration seemed to have been able to rein him on.
He wants some of the Aegean islands, and Trump cares little about Nato.
Maybe we need to get in on the act and nab Calais back.
Yup. Only thing to do is fight fire with fire and offer California a place in the UK.
That's very interesting, albeit a subsample with a large MoE.
Always thought Reform was the sort of party that would fall flat in Scotland - too "English".
The anti-establishment vote has always - to my casual looking - been quite fragmented in Scotland. You might go Alba, you might go SSP, maybe UKIP, or you might go fruitloop-local...
If that solidified around Reform - I could see them doing fairly well.
Scottish working class unionists of the traditional Glasgow Rangers supporting variety would be a happy hunting ground for Reform. I would expect them to perform well in Lanarkshire, Glasgow, West Lothian and certain parts of Ayrshire.
Nige & co may have been a bit previous in getting rid of their ‘up to our knees in Fenian blood’ Scottish rep. He seemed to me a perfect fit for the type of Scottish voters they want to appeal to.
You said it the other day when you mentioned the Coast historian guy who went all GBNews. He would suit. Or at least I can't really think of anyone else who would.
That's very interesting, albeit a subsample with a large MoE.
Always thought Reform was the sort of party that would fall flat in Scotland - too "English".
The anti-establishment vote has always - to my casual looking - been quite fragmented in Scotland. You might go Alba, you might go SSP, maybe UKIP, or you might go fruitloop-local...
If that solidified around Reform - I could see them doing fairly well.
Scottish working class unionists of the traditional Glasgow Rangers supporting variety would be a happy hunting ground for Reform. I would expect them to perform well in Lanarkshire, Glasgow, West Lothian and certain parts of Ayrshire.
Nige & co may have been a bit previous in getting rid of their ‘up to our knees in Fenian blood’ Scottish rep. He seemed to me a perfect fit for the type of Scottish voters they want to appeal to.
What do you two reckon on Moray and Banff etc.? Or do the fishing communities feel let down over Brexit?
I guess if Reform were ever to get a Scottish mp it would be there, unlikely though. Some fisherfolk still seem to be able to persuade themselves that they’re well out of the eevul EU mind.
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Fair
I would reduce the number of Lords by 70% and get rid of as many civil servants and diversity wotsits as possible. Also abolish the devolved parliaments and most of the quangos
But I would use the money saved to double MPs and ministers’ pay, at least. Make it a seriously attractive career for really bright people
If you double their pay it’s still not attractive for really bright people apart from really bright people who aren’t interested in money anyway.
Even doubling the PM’s salary doesn’t put them in serious city earning levels or legal partnership.
It needs, somehow, to become something that attracts the people with an idea of service and wanting to give back once they have had a life and career. It shouldn’t be a career in itself. Maybe draw lots of the retired cohort each year of 200 that sit proportionately with parties based on last election and dump out 200 MPs each year, keep adding experience and ditching careerists.
Ditch career politicians like Churchill, Thatcher, Wilson and Blair? The only recentish Prime Minister who was not a career politician is, erm, Keir Starmer. Be careful what you wish for.
Er, Thatcher was a successful biochemist AND a successful lawyer before going into politics
Eh? She was a research scientist for about five minutes and a a barrister for less.
Nonetheless she did both jobs successfully - however briefly - before coming a politician
For real “career politicians” you should look to the awful types who go straight from PPE at Oxbridge to being a spad to being an MP to being a minister, absolutely zero contact with the world outside politics
Mrs Thatcher (or Miss Roberts then) was a Conservative PPC a year after she graduated. It is pretty clear where her intentions lay. Otherwise it is just semantics.
But the point is she actually DID work for a considerable time outside of politics and reasonably successfully. I've never known the term career politician applied to someone like that. It's usually used about someone who basically goes to work as a SPAD shortly after university and then gets a seat in Parliament.
Anyone mention the not so small matter of raising a family?
That's very interesting, albeit a subsample with a large MoE.
Always thought Reform was the sort of party that would fall flat in Scotland - too "English".
The anti-establishment vote has always - to my casual looking - been quite fragmented in Scotland. You might go Alba, you might go SSP, maybe UKIP, or you might go fruitloop-local...
If that solidified around Reform - I could see them doing fairly well.
Scottish working class unionists of the traditional Glasgow Rangers supporting variety would be a happy hunting ground for Reform. I would expect them to perform well in Lanarkshire, Glasgow, West Lothian and certain parts of Ayrshire.
Nige & co may have been a bit previous in getting rid of their ‘up to our knees in Fenian blood’ Scottish rep. He seemed to me a perfect fit for the type of Scottish voters they want to appeal to.
What do you two reckon on Moray and Banff etc.? Or do the fishing communities feel let down over Brexit?
I guess if Reform were ever to get a Scottish mp it would be there, unlikely though. Some fisherfolk still seem to be able to persuade themselves that they’re well out of the eevul EU mind.
Having read the thread I am not really any the wiser on Canadian politics. I am not even better informed. Have we finally found a subject about which we know nothing and care less? Remarkable and notable.
In my only provable example of fan fiction (an alt-hist exploration of Babylon 5 filmed in Vancouver), I had to read up on Western Canadian politics in the past. It was one of the few regions worldwide that implemented social credit, a movement not to be confused with the similarly-named Chinese system and now died out. The fanfic is here[1], the social credit explanation is here[2][3].
Note how the one person he seems terrified of even remotely threatening is Putin. He's a bully and a coward.
Note that his argument for claiming Greenland - "it's essential to our national security" - is exactly the same as Putin's pretext for invading Ukraine.
And similarly mendacious.
Why is it mendacious? Imagine an alternative timeline in where China ends up with control over the Arctic and Canada.
Are you being deliberately obtuse?
The mark of a statesman is someone who sees further into the future than others. Trump is one of the few statesmen leading the West today, if not the only one.
You really have gone off the deep end in recent years
Yep. We sorely need lower house prices. Then there's the switch of resource from wealthy to poor pensioners with the WFA removal driving better take-up of pensions credit. A significant upgrading of workers rights and the minimum wage. Ending the ruinous public sector strikes. Knocking WASPI on the head. Removing the tax advantages of the inequality machine aka private schools. Landing a big borrowing budget without spooking the markets. She's not doing too badly. She needs to get lucky on growth though and I'm not optimistic about that. There are, to put it mildly, clouds gathering.
lol. She has absolutely flatlined growth. See the dismal retail stats over Christmas. A calamitous chancellor. We would literally be better off with Rachel from Accounts
So far she’s been utterly useless and more tax increases may be on the horizon as a consequence.
I cannot believe I fell for the govt in waiting schtick. Mugged off doesn’t even enter into it.
The truly unnerving revelation came last week when it was revealed that as Starmer entered number 10 he was dismayed and astonished to find “there was no economic plan”
it induces, in me, a kind of existential dread for my nation. We are governed, and have been governed for a long while, by outright morons. This applies to the Tories as much as Labour, indeed it applies to the entire governing classes - civil servants, quangos, legal system, judges, the whole shebang. Possibly the monarchy as well
Sweep it all away
Well, hmm. Ok. Sweep it all away with what ? Reform?
The reason we have this problem is we have TOTAL DROSS entering parliament, rubbish salaries, an awful culture, ridiculous hours, and horrific abuse.
Look at the quality of politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, who'd had solid business, economic and leadership careers (real ones) and compare to now.
Fair
I would reduce the number of Lords by 70% and get rid of as many civil servants and diversity wotsits as possible. Also abolish the devolved parliaments and most of the quangos
But I would use the money saved to double MPs and ministers’ pay, at least. Make it a seriously attractive career for really bright people
If you double their pay it’s still not attractive for really bright people apart from really bright people who aren’t interested in money anyway.
Even doubling the PM’s salary doesn’t put them in serious city earning levels or legal partnership.
It needs, somehow, to become something that attracts the people with an idea of service and wanting to give back once they have had a life and career. It shouldn’t be a career in itself. Maybe draw lots of the retired cohort each year of 200 that sit proportionately with parties based on last election and dump out 200 MPs each year, keep adding experience and ditching careerists.
Ditch career politicians like Churchill, Thatcher, Wilson and Blair? The only recentish Prime Minister who was not a career politician is, erm, Keir Starmer. Be careful what you wish for.
Er, Thatcher was a successful biochemist AND a successful lawyer before going into politics
Eh? She was a research scientist for about five minutes and a a barrister for less.
That’s nonsense. Several years post Oxford as a chemist in a variety of roles, then a career change to law and five or six years at that before becoming an MP. Pretty decent I’d say. I also see she only published one scientific paper, incidentally in a Journal I have also published in (Journal of the Science of Agriculture and Food).
This started with Thatcher being offered as an example of someone having had a career before politics. I would contend (as I did above) that that doesn’t constitute a “career”. It’s the first chunk of starting one. I’m not diminishing her, just noting that she was always (at least after her post-grad stuff) focused on being an MP and highly political. Being a barrister was the fallback that allowed her to chase a seat and sharpen some debating skills. Nothing wrong with that, but let’s not pretend she brought much experience with her.
I do accept the basic premise that the modern PPE-SpAd-MP route is far worse though.
Acyn @Acyn · 4h Trump: We won the popular vote by millions and millions of people. Nobody even knows how many people. Millions. And they're still counting in some areas. You know they're still counting the vote in some areas.. We got to fix the election so that we get honest counts…
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Erdogan in the press conference, so that might be very bad news for any Kurdish hopes. The Greeks will be concerned too, as the Biden administration seemed to have been able to rein him on.
He wants some of the Aegean islands, and Trump cares little about Nato.
MPs salaries are more than 95% of their constitiuents earn so hardly rubbish, even if the PM should be paid £200k to put them in the top 1% of earners and Cabinet Ministers about £150k. Though of course the PM gets a grade listed 16th century manor house in Bucks which would cost millions on the open market and a grade listed 17th century town house in central London and chauffeur driven cars and security on top. The Foreign Secretary also gets a 17th century stately home Chevening and No 1 Carlton Gardens in London and the Chancellor gets No 11 Downing Street and shares Dorneywood with the Deputy PM
https://x.com/jaheale/status/1876717395693179137
Extraordinary Deltapoll from Scotland where Westminster voting intention puts Reform UK second - joint with Labour
🟡SNP - 32%
➡️ Reform - 17%
🌹Labour - 17%
🟧 Lib Dems - 14%
🔵 Tories - 12%
🟢 Green - 8%
TSE writes - THIS IS A SUBSAMPLE
We also had Disraeli and Gladstone and Salisbury when we still ran an Empire
The ghost of Stuart lives!
Tables are here:
https://deltapoll.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Deltapoll-MoS_250106.pdf
It's also a good way of spotting rather gullible low IQ people.
We could certainly reduce the Lords though and focus it on just who have achieved merit in outside careers
Reform now lead with Leavers on 34% but get only 10% of Remainers, Labour lead Remainers with 39% and are third with Leavers on 20%, the LDs now behind the Tories with Remainers with just 15% of Remainers voting LD
https://deltapoll.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Deltapoll-MoS_250106.pdf (p2)
Tories are also now posher than Labour voters for the first time since 2017. Tories get 25% of ABC1s but only 21% of C2DEs, Labour get 31% of C2DEs and 29% of ABC1s. Reform though clearly the working class party now with 26% of C2DEs backing them but only 20% of ABC1s (p3)
But subsample anyway.
I also see she only published one scientific paper, incidentally in a Journal I have also published in (Journal of the Science of Agriculture and Food).
2. A properly weighted set of voting intentions split by sex would be very interesting.
Always thought Reform was the sort of party that would fall flat in Scotland - too "English".
If that solidified around Reform - I could see them doing fairly well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOjAzI5zALo
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/09/28/the-blob/
In truth, despite all the “dictator” stuff, she ran a cabinet government. And one stuffed full of her opponents.
Once the cabinet voted Thatcher got behind the decision.
I will say that Norman Fowler is an utter hero, he undoubtedly saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, if not more.
BREAKING: Fact-checkers claim they were blindsided by Meta’s decision to end their partnerships and reportedly fear they won’t be able to secure new business to fill the void, potentially putting them at risk of going out of business, according to Wired.
She vetoed a knighthood for John Harvey-Jones. He had to wait until she was gone.
MInd, being persuaded on the poll tax by one of her cabinet was less successful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Canadian_federal_election
[1] https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/valen-in-vancouver.293668/#post-8936021
[2] https://www.sealionpress.co.uk/post/other-ideologies-social-credit
[3] Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit
I do accept the basic premise that the modern PPE-SpAd-MP route is far worse though.
Acyn
@Acyn
·
4h
Trump: We won the popular vote by millions and millions of people. Nobody even knows how many people. Millions. And they're still counting in some areas. You know they're still counting the vote in some areas.. We got to fix the election so that we get honest counts…
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1876669174757589323