This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
Absolutely disgusting. And deliberately and vindictively done before Trump takes office so he can't undo their treason.
SKS rather give away £9 Bn than succor to the orange man.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
There is an English word for it.
Look up Brexit as a deal of national self harm and we ended up with a trading bloc smaller than the UK.
EU trade as percentage of total UK trade in 2013:
Goods: 52% Services: 42%
EU trade as percentage of total UK trade in 2023:
Goods: 52% Services: 41%
God what a disaster. How have we survived implementing the biggest democratic vote in this country's history? Clearly we should have become a dictatorship instead.
Wasn't one of the promises of Brexit supposed to be that we'd be able to boost trade with non-EU countries by making our own trade deals with them? That clearly never happened, did it? Brexit just ended up being a drag on our trade with everybody.
Seems to be in a decades-long upswing, minus covid:
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
I am not sure where the confirmation has come from that the deal has been signed as Starmer, apparently, is to discuss it with cabinet tomorrow and the Mauritius Government hope it will be signed before next Monday
It's worth noting that the talks had apparently been going on for some time, mostly under the previous goverment. The UK had been under international pressure to hand back the Chagos Islands after expelling their occupants in the 1960s. I don't know if this deal is right or not, but it's probably better than waiting for them to be taken from us by force in the future.
Who do you think would take them by force?
Clearly the mighty Mauritius navy will soon seize them by main force from << checks notes >> the USA and the UK, so we had better give them up now before we suffer that humiliation
Instead we’ve got THIS humiliation
Maybe he gets off on it?
Politicians whose dicks get hard when the homogenize something, or square away a long-standing anomaly, are a menace. Done for the sake of doing it.
And that's before we get to any humiliation fetish.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
Absolutely disgusting. And deliberately and vindictively done before Trump takes office so he can't undo their treason.
I'm interested n how much longer GB News has to run.
One of the comments Lee Anderson has been making at the Reform UK Ltd regional Knees-Ups has been "We have GB News". Add in the various Ref UK politicos who have jobs there, and the lack of any real attempt at balance even by a cross-partisan policy, and it doesn't look good with Ofcom.
Ah the voice of British liberal democracy. Ban the news you don’t like. Only nice people with approved left wing BBC opinions should be allowed on screen
Fuck off
Got out of bed the wrong side, this morning? I haven't suggested banning anything.
There's a regulatory setup around balance of reporting. If they follow that they have no problems. If you listen to it you'll know it's an opinion channel not a news channel.
It's like speeding in you motor - it's dead easy not to get speeding fines.
Actually they have a formula of always having a token leftie. With one right wing commentator, one left wing commentator, and the presenter (usually a rightie) the debates are interesting. Lloyd Russel Moyle is actually a pretty good left wing commentator on Jacob Rees Mogg's programme.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
There is an English word for it.
Look up Brexit as a deal of national self harm and we ended up with a trading bloc smaller than the UK.
EU trade as percentage of total UK trade in 2013:
Goods: 52% Services: 42%
EU trade as percentage of total UK trade in 2023:
Goods: 52% Services: 41%
God what a disaster. How have we survived implementing the biggest democratic vote in this country's history? Clearly we should have become a dictatorship instead.
Wasn't one of the promises of Brexit supposed to be that we'd be able to boost trade with non-EU countries by making our own trade deals with them? That clearly never happened, did it? Brexit just ended up being a drag on our trade with everybody.
Seems to be in a decades-long upswing, minus covid:
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
There is an English word for it.
Look up Brexit as a deal of national self harm and we ended up with a trading bloc smaller than the UK.
EU trade as percentage of total UK trade in 2013:
Goods: 52% Services: 42%
EU trade as percentage of total UK trade in 2023:
Goods: 52% Services: 41%
God what a disaster. How have we survived implementing the biggest democratic vote in this country's history? Clearly we should have become a dictatorship instead.
Wasn't one of the promises of Brexit supposed to be that we'd be able to boost trade with non-EU countries by making our own trade deals with them? That clearly never happened, did it? Brexit just ended up being a drag on our trade with everybody.
Seems to be in a decades-long upswing, minus covid:
Why is she referred to as Kemi as if she is some long lost friend. Badenoch is the name is it not?.
Is this really an important issue ?
Keir or Starmer Ange or Rayner Rishi or Sunak
And so on
I remember some people getting similarly irritated by Boris being called Boris, which I inferred was on the grounds that it might encourage people not to hate him as much as they did.
Actually it's relatively simple. If you have an unusual first name (Kemi, Boris, Gordon, Rishi) it gets used - if you don't (Tony, John) the surname gets used. I think Kier and Theresa fall into a vague grey area because they're uncommon but people aren't 100% confident in how to spell them.
I'm interested n how much longer GB News has to run.
One of the comments Lee Anderson has been making at the Reform UK Ltd regional Knees-Ups has been "We have GB News". Add in the various Ref UK politicos who have jobs there, and the lack of any real attempt at balance even by a cross-partisan policy, and it doesn't look good with Ofcom.
Ah the voice of British liberal democracy. Ban the news you don’t like. Only nice people with approved left wing BBC opinions should be allowed on screen
Fuck off
Got out of bed the wrong side, this morning? I haven't suggested banning anything.
There's a regulatory setup around balance of reporting. If they follow that they have no problems. If you listen to it you'll know it's an opinion channel not a news channel.
It's like speeding in you motor - it's dead easy not to get speeding fines.
Actually they have a formula of always having a token leftie. With one right wing commentator, one left wing commentator, and the presenter (usually a rightie) the debates are interesting. Lloyd Russel Moyle is actually a pretty good left wing commentator on Jacob Rees Mogg's programme.
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
I am not sure where the confirmation has come from that the deal has been signed as Starmer, apparently, is to discuss it with cabinet tomorrow and the Mauritius Government hope it will be signed before next Monday
It's worth noting that the talks had apparently been going on for some time, mostly under the previous goverment. The UK had been under international pressure to hand back the Chagos Islands after expelling their occupants in the 1960s. I don't know if this deal is right or not, but it's probably better than waiting for them to be taken from us by force in the future.
Who do you think would take them by force?
The US, or possibly China or India in the future. It's not as though we could do anything to stop them. Another couple of hundred years and they'll be underwater anyway.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
It was negotiated by the previous government, wasn't it?
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
I am not sure where the confirmation has come from that the deal has been signed as Starmer, apparently, is to discuss it with cabinet tomorrow and the Mauritius Government hope it will be signed before next Monday
It's worth noting that the talks had apparently been going on for some time, mostly under the previous goverment. The UK had been under international pressure to hand back the Chagos Islands after expelling their occupants in the 1960s. I don't know if this deal is right or not, but it's probably better than waiting for them to be taken from us by force in the future.
I doubt it would register if Trump wasn't about to become POTUS as, apparently, he is against the deal
Ceteris paribus, that suggests it's a good deal and we should be signing it. Trump's track record on deals is abysmal.
I have no idea how good it is, but it seems to be in a rush to beat Trump
The "sign before Trump becomes President" line doesn't make sense to me except as a negotiation/hurry up tactic. Trump is President in a week and the UK is otherwise trying hard not to antagonise him. I think it's more likely the US actually wants this deal to go through.
I may be wrong but I think what the article means when put into English is that the government should give itself room to borrow hundreds of billions more, and that the bogus fiscal rule (the rolling 5 years ahead one) should be replaced by an even more bogus one.
I think a crisis is on the way.
BTW the Spectator TV interview with Gideon Rachman on the possibilities awaiting the world under Trumpism, especially the last 20 minutes, is outstandingly clear and interesting, and manages, I think, to see through the fog very effectively.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
It was negotiated by the previous government, wasn't it?
Holyrood numbers tomorrow, I'm sure the valiant struggle of Anas to prove he's been standing up to Sir Keir will bear fruit. Also SLab's genius updated slogan of 'A New Direction' from 'Change' will be a game changer.
In the world beating stakes, I see that Sizewell C will now be the second most expensive nuclear power plant on the planet, at around £40bn. (Beaten only by Hinckley Point C.)
S Korea would build between five and six for that price.
I may be wrong but I think what the article means when put into English is that the government should give itself room to borrow hundreds of billions more, and that the bogus fiscal rule (the rolling 5 years ahead one) should be replaced by an even more bogus one.
I think a crisis is on the way.
BTW the Spectator TV interview with Gideon Rachman on the possibilities awaiting the world under Trumpism, especially the last 20 minutes, is outstandingly clear and interesting, and manages, I think, to see through the fog very effectively.
It reminds me of articles in the run up to the Greek crisis, in places like the Guardian - “nations have a moral right to borrow other peoples money cheaply” is essence.
Holyrood numbers tomorrow, I'm sure the valiant struggle of Anas to prove he's been standing up to Sir Keir will bear fruit. Also SLab's genius updated slogan of 'A New Direction' from 'Change' will be a game changer.
That's the one. Interesting that Reform are doing better in the devolved countries.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
It was negotiated by the previous government, wasn't it?
It's that bad?
Apparently so. We don't own Chagos now. All we have is an airbase. It's terrible.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
I am not sure where the confirmation has come from that the deal has been signed as Starmer, apparently, is to discuss it with cabinet tomorrow and the Mauritius Government hope it will be signed before next Monday
It's worth noting that the talks had apparently been going on for some time, mostly under the previous goverment. The UK had been under international pressure to hand back the Chagos Islands after expelling their occupants in the 1960s. I don't know if this deal is right or not, but it's probably better than waiting for them to be taken from us by force in the future.
I doubt it would register if Trump wasn't about to become POTUS as, apparently, he is against the deal
Ceteris paribus, that suggests it's a good deal and we should be signing it. Trump's track record on deals is abysmal.
I have no idea how good it is, but it seems to be in a rush to beat Trump
That would seem to be a wise move, Trump getting involved would seem highly likely to result in considerable additional negotiation and a worse deal for the UK and all other parties.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
It was negotiated by the previous government, wasn't it?
It's that bad?
Apparently so. We don't own Chagos now. All we have is an airbase. It's terrible.
An airbase no doubt we pay the Americans so they can use it or something.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
I am not sure where the confirmation has come from that the deal has been signed as Starmer, apparently, is to discuss it with cabinet tomorrow and the Mauritius Government hope it will be signed before next Monday
It's worth noting that the talks had apparently been going on for some time, mostly under the previous goverment. The UK had been under international pressure to hand back the Chagos Islands after expelling their occupants in the 1960s. I don't know if this deal is right or not, but it's probably better than waiting for them to be taken from us by force in the future.
I doubt it would register if Trump wasn't about to become POTUS as, apparently, he is against the deal
Ceteris paribus, that suggests it's a good deal and we should be signing it. Trump's track record on deals is abysmal.
I have no idea how good it is, but it seems to be in a rush to beat Trump
That would seem to be a wise move, Trump getting involved would seem highly likely to result in considerable additional negotiation and a worse deal for the UK and all other parties.
I think Trump would have just dumped the deal personally.
In the world beating stakes, I see that Sizewell C will now be the second most expensive nuclear power plant on the planet, at around £40bn. (Beaten only by Hinckley Point C.)
S Korea would build between five and six for that price.
Why is she referred to as Kemi as if she is some long lost friend. Badenoch is the name is it not?.
Is this really an important issue ?
Keir or Starmer Ange or Rayner Rishi or Sunak
And so on
I remember some people getting similarly irritated by Boris being called Boris, which I inferred was on the grounds that it might encourage people not to hate him as much as they did.
Actually it's relatively simple. If you have an unusual first name (Kemi, Boris, Gordon, Rishi) it gets used - if you don't (Tony, John) the surname gets used. I think Kier and Theresa fall into a vague grey area because they're uncommon but people aren't 100% confident in how to spell them.
Largely right. But not for "Boris". That was (is) a brand not just a name. He benefited greatly from it.
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
I wonder if the writer thought about going to the police ombudsman about this. Perhaps narrating the story in the Spectator was more likely to have an effect. This is not what the public want from the police. It is not an acceptable service. Perhaps the writer should have hinted that his account had been used to send a message involving a racial aggravation. That would have been a blue light job.
Holyrood numbers tomorrow, I'm sure the valiant struggle of Anas to prove he's been standing up to Sir Keir will bear fruit. Also SLab's genius updated slogan of 'A New Direction' from 'Change' will be a game changer.
A quick Baxter shows SNP taking 19 seats off Lab and 2 seats off Con.
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
1) See, this is one of the many reasons not to have things on your phone. 2) How was his phone unlocked? My phone locks itself at the drop of a hat. It's mildly irritating and I would change it if I could be bothered. There's presumably a setting. 3) I hear stories like this a lot. And yet, on the few times I have interactions with the police, they have had a puppyish eagerness to get on with the job of taking down baddies. It seems unlikely that GMP are uniquely good. Maybe the Met are uniquely bad?
Holyrood numbers tomorrow, I'm sure the valiant struggle of Anas to prove he's been standing up to Sir Keir will bear fruit. Also SLab's genius updated slogan of 'A New Direction' from 'Change' will be a game changer.
That's the one. Interesting that Reform are doing better in the devolved countries.
I think they're mainly munching on the Tory/Unionist ultra vote. The SCon high point in 2017 under the great white hope of Unionism Ruth D (remember her?!) was 28.6, in that poll SCon + Reform = 28. Unless the SCons implode I'd still be surprised if Reform won an mp in Scotland.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
It was negotiated by the previous government, wasn't it?
I may be wrong but I think what the article means when put into English is that the government should give itself room to borrow hundreds of billions more, and that the bogus fiscal rule (the rolling 5 years ahead one) should be replaced by an even more bogus one.
I think a crisis is on the way.
BTW the Spectator TV interview with Gideon Rachman on the possibilities awaiting the world under Trumpism, especially the last 20 minutes, is outstandingly clear and interesting, and manages, I think, to see through the fog very effectively.
It reminds me of articles in the run up to the Greek crisis, in places like the Guardian - “nations have a moral right to borrow other peoples money cheaply” is essence.
Almost any government can borrow money for projects where they can demonstrate a clear positive return. Borrowing for the general slush fund is a different matter.
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
I wonder if the writer thought about going to the police ombudsman about this. Perhaps narrating the story in the Spectator was more likely to have an effect. This is not what the public want from the police. It is not an acceptable service. Perhaps the writer should have hinted that his account had been used to send a message involving a racial aggravation. That would have been a blue light job.
The Police across the country are a fucking joke when it comes to this.
So many of my friends and colleagues have had their phones nabbed and they’ve gone to the police to say find my iPhone says this phone is at this property and the police say we’re not investigating this and here’s a crime reference number for you to claim on your insurance.
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
1) See, this is one of the many reasons not to have things on your phone. 2) How was his phone unlocked? My phone locks itself at the drop of a hat. It's mildly irritating and I would change it if I could be bothered. There's presumably a setting. 3) I hear stories like this a lot. And yet, on the few times I have interactions with the police, they have had a puppyish eagerness to get on with the job of taking down baddies. It seems unlikely that GMP are uniquely good. Maybe the Met are uniquely bad?
A Daily Telegraph reader with no student debt and earning £130,000 a year is salary sacrificing so much into their pension that they take home only £2,100 a month. So it is lucky they have free meals and coffee at work!
But once we've dried our tears, consider what this means. The increasingly common combination of salary sacrifice and high pension contributions mean that high-earners cut their income tax bills, remain eligible for benefits, especially around childcare, and on top of that get higher rate tax relief on those pension contributions.
It is absurd.
That’s silly behaviour, he’s obviously trying to get his income under the 40% tax rate, but if he can live on £2k a month in London then fair play I suppose.
There’s a growing number of people living like this though, especially in the US, who aim to retire at 40 with a couple of million in investments and live off the interest.
The FIRE mob are quite out there.
I even saw one making lasagne and "cooking" it in the dishwasher (wrapped in clingfilm but they did not use dishwasher tabs) to use the residual heat to save on cooking in the oven.
A Daily Telegraph reader with no student debt and earning £130,000 a year is salary sacrificing so much into their pension that they take home only £2,100 a month. So it is lucky they have free meals and coffee at work!
But once we've dried our tears, consider what this means. The increasingly common combination of salary sacrifice and high pension contributions mean that high-earners cut their income tax bills, remain eligible for benefits, especially around childcare, and on top of that get higher rate tax relief on those pension contributions.
It is absurd.
That’s silly behaviour, he’s obviously trying to get his income under the 40% tax rate, but if he can live on £2k a month in London then fair play I suppose.
There’s a growing number of people living like this though, especially in the US, who aim to retire at 40 with a couple of million in investments and live off the interest.
It beats me why anyone thinks that doing nothing is a life aspiration - unless one is ill that is. Sorry all you retired folk on here who convince yourselves you do useful things with your time
I think it is not so much the "doing nothing" as the autonomy that is the draw for many people -- not having an obligation to go into work and do what your boss says regardless of how you feel on any particular day. But, yes, I suspect many people do go into it without having really thought through what they want in a post-work world.
It's like two sides of the same coin: modern society can seem very focused around work, which takes up a massive amount of your time, and can become a big part of your identity and source of social interactions. But there isn't a wide range of alternative models of living so in pushing back on "work is everything" you can end up at the extreme of "no work at all".
I'd quite like to shift towards "I work about half the year" at some point as a halfway house between full time work and full retirement, but it's really unclear to me whether any employer would be interested in that proposition
I may be wrong but I think what the article means when put into English is that the government should give itself room to borrow hundreds of billions more, and that the bogus fiscal rule (the rolling 5 years ahead one) should be replaced by an even more bogus one.
I think a crisis is on the way.
BTW the Spectator TV interview with Gideon Rachman on the possibilities awaiting the world under Trumpism, especially the last 20 minutes, is outstandingly clear and interesting, and manages, I think, to see through the fog very effectively.
It reminds me of articles in the run up to the Greek crisis, in places like the Guardian - “nations have a moral right to borrow other peoples money cheaply” is essence.
Almost any government can borrow money for projects where they can demonstrate a clear positive return. Borrowing for the general slush fund is a different matter.
Why is she referred to as Kemi as if she is some long lost friend. Badenoch is the name is it not?.
Is this really an important issue ?
Keir or Starmer Ange or Rayner Rishi or Sunak
And so on
I remember some people getting similarly irritated by Boris being called Boris, which I inferred was on the grounds that it might encourage people not to hate him as much as they did.
Actually it's relatively simple. If you have an unusual first name (Kemi, Boris, Gordon, Rishi) it gets used - if you don't (Tony, John) the surname gets used. I think Kier and Theresa fall into a vague grey area because they're uncommon but people aren't 100% confident in how to spell them.
Largely right. But not for "Boris". That was (is) a brand not just a name. He benefited greatly from it.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
There is an English word for it.
Look up Brexit as a deal of national self harm and we ended up with a trading bloc smaller than the UK.
EU trade as percentage of total UK trade in 2013:
Goods: 52% Services: 42%
EU trade as percentage of total UK trade in 2023:
Goods: 52% Services: 41%
God what a disaster. How have we survived implementing the biggest democratic vote in this country's history? Clearly we should have become a dictatorship instead.
Wasn't one of the promises of Brexit supposed to be that we'd be able to boost trade with non-EU countries by making our own trade deals with them? That clearly never happened, did it? Brexit just ended up being a drag on our trade with everybody.
Seems to be in a decades-long upswing, minus covid:
Yes, she's biased, but it's a fairly complete demolition.
The article in the Critic is a take-down of a paper by Aston business school, it is not a take-down of any analysis by the Resolution Foundation, it just attempts to draw them in. The Resolution Foundation analysis could be wrong, but nothing in that article addresses their analysis.
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
1) See, this is one of the many reasons not to have things on your phone. 2) How was his phone unlocked? My phone locks itself at the drop of a hat. It's mildly irritating and I would change it if I could be bothered. There's presumably a setting. 3) I hear stories like this a lot. And yet, on the few times I have interactions with the police, they have had a puppyish eagerness to get on with the job of taking down baddies. It seems unlikely that GMP are uniquely good. Maybe the Met are uniquely bad?
A story on social media stating the police did what they were supposed to do may get shared amongst family and friends of the poster and perhaps of the local police at best.
A story on social media stating the police were rubbish will get shared widely and can go viral.
Always remember social media is designed to make us angry, as that drives advertising and profits.
In the world beating stakes, I see that Sizewell C will now be the second most expensive nuclear power plant on the planet, at around £40bn. (Beaten only by Hinckley Point C.)
S Korea would build between five and six for that price.
(Someone upthread asked how much our planning system costs...)
Only going to go up too isn't it ?
What's the sunk/committed cost on it to date...
Nuclear isn't a particularly good fit for wind/solar, gas is much better (Nuclear can't be rapidly turned on and off). Mind you we do need some baseload, but christ it's expensive.
There is probably a perfectly reasonable justification, for example nut allergies. Small children dying from anaphylactic shock is more joyless than missing out on a birthday cake.
That is not the reason
It is their campaign against obesity
That again seems laudable.
Banning things is almost never laudable. Personal responsibility matters, as does an understanding of moderation.
I have noticed recently that supermarkets appear to be phasing out glass beer and cider bottles and replacing them with cans
At home, none of our family like cans and prefer to drink out of the bottle but apparently all such glass bottles are under threat due to a new green tax
And why are the left so joyless and controlling ?
That's my industry !
One of our customers did can postpone indefinitely a big glass project in Wales recently.
Why do these brewers use labels that are so ruddy difficult to remove, even after soaking or the plastic ones where the plastic peels off and it leaves an adhesive residue. I have saved plenty for my home brewing as bottled beer and wine is far better in a glass than plastic where the alcohol and the fizz leaks over time.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
It was negotiated by the previous government, wasn't it?
It's that bad?
Apparently so. We don't own Chagos now. All we have is an airbase. It's terrible.
An airbase no doubt we pay the Americans so they can use it or something.
I don't know. But what are we doing over there? We seem to be half in half out. Why not a clean break? I suppose there are reasons but it's in the Indian Ocean.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
It was negotiated by the previous government, wasn't it?
Not exactly. AIUI Truss started it, Cameron scrapped it when he cane in as Foreign Secretary. The choice of the incumbents to revive the negotiations was an active one.
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
1) See, this is one of the many reasons not to have things on your phone. 2) How was his phone unlocked? My phone locks itself at the drop of a hat. It's mildly irritating and I would change it if I could be bothered. There's presumably a setting. 3) I hear stories like this a lot. And yet, on the few times I have interactions with the police, they have had a puppyish eagerness to get on with the job of taking down baddies. It seems unlikely that GMP are uniquely good. Maybe the Met are uniquely bad?
On point 2, using it for navigation by the sounds of it.
No talk about the new YouGov? RefUK now 3 points clear of the Tories and only a point behind Labour?
The trend, the trend…
There's some fairly innumerate analysis of it elsewhere. Headlines, 25% 18-24, 36% 24-49, 53% 50-64 and 65% >65 support Conservative or Reform. 20% <50 support Reform 30% >50 support Reform
Conclusions, 1 overwhelming majority <50 don't support Conservative or Reform policies 2 above doesn't matter when they turn out to vote
There is probably a perfectly reasonable justification, for example nut allergies. Small children dying from anaphylactic shock is more joyless than missing out on a birthday cake.
That is not the reason
It is their campaign against obesity
That again seems laudable.
Banning things is almost never laudable. Personal responsibility matters, as does an understanding of moderation.
I have noticed recently that supermarkets appear to be phasing out glass beer and cider bottles and replacing them with cans
At home, none of our family like cans and prefer to drink out of the bottle but apparently all such glass bottles are under threat due to a new green tax
And why are the left so joyless and controlling ?
That's my industry !
One of our customers did can postpone indefinitely a big glass project in Wales recently.
Why do these brewers use labels that are so ruddy difficult to remove, even after soaking or the plastic ones where the plastic peels off and it leaves an adhesive residue. I have saved plenty for my home brewing as bottled beer and wine is far better in a glass than plastic where the alcohol and the fizz leaks over time.
I have a supply of pharmaceutical grade* isopropanol in the shed for just this job, also disinfection, acrylic paint thinning, and so on. Most labels can't cope with that or (depending on the type), old style paint thinners (ie turps), though I find hobby shop thinners such as Humbrol are much less smelly.
*to avoid contamination of anything to do with food or messing up paint
I may be wrong but I think what the article means when put into English is that the government should give itself room to borrow hundreds of billions more, and that the bogus fiscal rule (the rolling 5 years ahead one) should be replaced by an even more bogus one.
I think a crisis is on the way.
BTW the Spectator TV interview with Gideon Rachman on the possibilities awaiting the world under Trumpism, especially the last 20 minutes, is outstandingly clear and interesting, and manages, I think, to see through the fog very effectively.
It reminds me of articles in the run up to the Greek crisis, in places like the Guardian - “nations have a moral right to borrow other peoples money cheaply” is essence.
Weren’t they the ones that said that because Euro membership, Greek borrowing rates should be the same as German borrowing rates?
Why is she referred to as Kemi as if she is some long lost friend. Badenoch is the name is it not?.
Is this really an important issue ?
Keir or Starmer Ange or Rayner Rishi or Sunak
And so on
I remember some people getting similarly irritated by Boris being called Boris, which I inferred was on the grounds that it might encourage people not to hate him as much as they did.
Actually it's relatively simple. If you have an unusual first name (Kemi, Boris, Gordon, Rishi) it gets used - if you don't (Tony, John) the surname gets used. I think Kier and Theresa fall into a vague grey area because they're uncommon but people aren't 100% confident in how to spell them.
Largely right. But not for "Boris". That was (is) a brand not just a name. He benefited greatly from it.
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
I wonder if the writer thought about going to the police ombudsman about this. Perhaps narrating the story in the Spectator was more likely to have an effect. This is not what the public want from the police. It is not an acceptable service. Perhaps the writer should have hinted that his account had been used to send a message involving a racial aggravation. That would have been a blue light job.
The Police across the country are a fucking joke when it comes to this.
So many of my friends and colleagues have had their phones nabbed and they’ve gone to the police to say find my iPhone says this phone is at this property and the police say we’re not investigating this and here’s a crime reference number for you to claim on your insurance.
Have these people never learned about the broken window theory of policing?
20 years ago now we had our car nicked from outside the Metrocentre with some Christmas presents hidden in the boot. "Oh, we'll never catch these people sir, they are very sophisticated criminals." I went to the shops where I had bought my wife's presents and told them that within a day or so people would come in with the items I had bought and want to a refund. When this happened they should call the police. To their credit they did and the police turned up. They were ultimately convicted of the theft of both the car and the presents. Took about 20 minutes.
A Daily Telegraph reader with no student debt and earning £130,000 a year is salary sacrificing so much into their pension that they take home only £2,100 a month. So it is lucky they have free meals and coffee at work!
But once we've dried our tears, consider what this means. The increasingly common combination of salary sacrifice and high pension contributions mean that high-earners cut their income tax bills, remain eligible for benefits, especially around childcare, and on top of that get higher rate tax relief on those pension contributions.
It is absurd.
That’s silly behaviour, he’s obviously trying to get his income under the 40% tax rate, but if he can live on £2k a month in London then fair play I suppose.
There’s a growing number of people living like this though, especially in the US, who aim to retire at 40 with a couple of million in investments and live off the interest.
It beats me why anyone thinks that doing nothing is a life aspiration - unless one is ill that is. Sorry all you retired folk on here who convince yourselves you do useful things with your time
I think it is not so much the "doing nothing" as the autonomy that is the draw for many people -- not having an obligation to go into work and do what your boss says regardless of how you feel on any particular day. But, yes, I suspect many people do go into it without having really thought through what they want in a post-work world.
It's like two sides of the same coin: modern society can seem very focused around work, which takes up a massive amount of your time, and can become a big part of your identity and source of social interactions. But there isn't a wide range of alternative models of living so in pushing back on "work is everything" you can end up at the extreme of "no work at all".
I'd quite like to shift towards "I work about half the year" at some point as a halfway house between full time work and full retirement, but it's really unclear to me whether any employer would be interested in that proposition
Yes, it's becoming increasingly clear to me that I will most likely be able to retire before I reach the official retirement age (I am currently 49). As this realization takes hold though I find myself less motivated to go to work. It's not that i don't like my job, it's just that I have various hobbies and interests that I would gladly devote a lot more time to. I would ideally like to still earn a bit of money in the next couple of decades, either by continuing in my current line of work in a consultancy kind of capacity, or ideally by turning one of my hobbies into something that pays a bit of money. Both are a challenge though. More likely I will continue working another 5-10 years then just stop. I am certainly in the work to live not live to work camp, and increasingly so with time.
There is probably a perfectly reasonable justification, for example nut allergies. Small children dying from anaphylactic shock is more joyless than missing out on a birthday cake.
That is not the reason
It is their campaign against obesity
That again seems laudable.
Banning things is almost never laudable. Personal responsibility matters, as does an understanding of moderation.
I have noticed recently that supermarkets appear to be phasing out glass beer and cider bottles and replacing them with cans
At home, none of our family like cans and prefer to drink out of the bottle but apparently all such glass bottles are under threat due to a new green tax
And why are the left so joyless and controlling ?
That's my industry !
One of our customers did can postpone indefinitely a big glass project in Wales recently.
Why do these brewers use labels that are so ruddy difficult to remove, even after soaking or the plastic ones where the plastic peels off and it leaves an adhesive residue. I have saved plenty for my home brewing as bottled beer and wine is far better in a glass than plastic where the alcohol and the fizz leaks over time.
There is probably a perfectly reasonable justification, for example nut allergies. Small children dying from anaphylactic shock is more joyless than missing out on a birthday cake.
That is not the reason
It is their campaign against obesity
That again seems laudable.
Banning things is almost never laudable. Personal responsibility matters, as does an understanding of moderation.
I have noticed recently that supermarkets appear to be phasing out glass beer and cider bottles and replacing them with cans
At home, none of our family like cans and prefer to drink out of the bottle but apparently all such glass bottles are under threat due to a new green tax
And why are the left so joyless and controlling ?
That's my industry !
One of our customers did can postpone indefinitely a big glass project in Wales recently.
Why do these brewers use labels that are so ruddy difficult to remove, even after soaking or the plastic ones where the plastic peels off and it leaves an adhesive residue. I have saved plenty for my home brewing as bottled beer and wine is far better in a glass than plastic where the alcohol and the fizz leaks over time.
Pop into your local tobacconist and buy a tin of lighter fuel. It's the best thing for removing adhesive residue.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
It was negotiated by the previous government, wasn't it?
That does not inspire confidence.
Ha no. But I mean, the idea it shows SKS is a naive traitorous pussycat of a man, this doesn't scan really.
I may be wrong but I think what the article means when put into English is that the government should give itself room to borrow hundreds of billions more, and that the bogus fiscal rule (the rolling 5 years ahead one) should be replaced by an even more bogus one.
I think a crisis is on the way.
BTW the Spectator TV interview with Gideon Rachman on the possibilities awaiting the world under Trumpism, especially the last 20 minutes, is outstandingly clear and interesting, and manages, I think, to see through the fog very effectively.
It reminds me of articles in the run up to the Greek crisis, in places like the Guardian - “nations have a moral right to borrow other peoples money cheaply” is essence.
Weren’t they the ones that said that because Euro membership, Greek borrowing rates should be the same as German borrowing rates?
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
I wonder if the writer thought about going to the police ombudsman about this. Perhaps narrating the story in the Spectator was more likely to have an effect. This is not what the public want from the police. It is not an acceptable service. Perhaps the writer should have hinted that his account had been used to send a message involving a racial aggravation. That would have been a blue light job.
The Police across the country are a fucking joke when it comes to this.
So many of my friends and colleagues have had their phones nabbed and they’ve gone to the police to say find my iPhone says this phone is at this property and the police say we’re not investigating this and here’s a crime reference number for you to claim on your insurance.
Have these people never learned about the broken window theory of policing?
20 years ago now we had our car nicked from outside the Metrocentre with some Christmas presents hidden in the boot. "Oh, we'll never catch these people sir, they are very sophisticated criminals." I went to the shops where I had bought my wife's presents and told them that within a day or so people would come in with the items I had bought and want to a refund. When this happened they should call the police. To their credit they did and the police turned up. They were ultimately convicted of the theft of both the car and the presents. Took about 20 minutes.
Do you know how many tweets someone can read in 20 minutes?
Why is she referred to as Kemi as if she is some long lost friend. Badenoch is the name is it not?.
Is this really an important issue ?
Keir or Starmer Ange or Rayner Rishi or Sunak
And so on
I remember some people getting similarly irritated by Boris being called Boris, which I inferred was on the grounds that it might encourage people not to hate him as much as they did.
Actually it's relatively simple. If you have an unusual first name (Kemi, Boris, Gordon, Rishi) it gets used - if you don't (Tony, John) the surname gets used. I think Kier and Theresa fall into a vague grey area because they're uncommon but people aren't 100% confident in how to spell them.
Largely right. But not for "Boris". That was (is) a brand not just a name. He benefited greatly from it.
Also not even his name!
Only if Gordon Brown's name wasn't Gordon.
No because Gordon Brown adopted his middle name as his first name. "Boris" is more akin to a stage name - his friends and family call him Alexander.
Posting it without comment shows a distinct lack of ambition OLB, you could have written “posted for only the 59th time in the last few days since the publicity stunt hit the media.”
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
It was negotiated by the previous government, wasn't it?
Not exactly. AIUI Truss started it, Cameron scrapped it when he cane in as Foreign Secretary. The choice of the incumbents to revive the negotiations was an active one.
There is probably a perfectly reasonable justification, for example nut allergies. Small children dying from anaphylactic shock is more joyless than missing out on a birthday cake.
That is not the reason
It is their campaign against obesity
That again seems laudable.
Banning things is almost never laudable. Personal responsibility matters, as does an understanding of moderation.
I have noticed recently that supermarkets appear to be phasing out glass beer and cider bottles and replacing them with cans
At home, none of our family like cans and prefer to drink out of the bottle but apparently all such glass bottles are under threat due to a new green tax
And why are the left so joyless and controlling ?
That's my industry !
One of our customers did can postpone indefinitely a big glass project in Wales recently.
Why do these brewers use labels that are so ruddy difficult to remove, even after soaking or the plastic ones where the plastic peels off and it leaves an adhesive residue. I have saved plenty for my home brewing as bottled beer and wine is far better in a glass than plastic where the alcohol and the fizz leaks over time.
I have a supply of pharmaceutical grade* isopropanol in the shed for just this job, also disinfection, acrylic paint thinning, and so on. Most labels can't cope with that or (depending on the type), old style paint thinners (ie turps), though I find hobby shop thinners such as Humbrol are much less smelly.
*to avoid contamination of anything to do with food or messing up paint
I deal in Pharma grade Isopropanol in my daily work too !!!!
I found hot soaking and washing up liquid and one of those metal scourers do the job with a bit of elbow grease.
For disinfection I use Chemsan no rinse cleaner. It's revolutionary. Although I have found domestic bleach pretty useful.
I think I will take your words of wisdom and take a bottle before I leave. We have the 1Litre bottles of Klercide 70/30 around.
My neighbours like yellow tail chardonnay, chug several bottles a week. Their labels come off a treat.
There is probably a perfectly reasonable justification, for example nut allergies. Small children dying from anaphylactic shock is more joyless than missing out on a birthday cake.
That is not the reason
It is their campaign against obesity
That again seems laudable.
Banning things is almost never laudable. Personal responsibility matters, as does an understanding of moderation.
I have noticed recently that supermarkets appear to be phasing out glass beer and cider bottles and replacing them with cans
At home, none of our family like cans and prefer to drink out of the bottle but apparently all such glass bottles are under threat due to a new green tax
And why are the left so joyless and controlling ?
That's my industry !
One of our customers did can postpone indefinitely a big glass project in Wales recently.
Why do these brewers use labels that are so ruddy difficult to remove, even after soaking or the plastic ones where the plastic peels off and it leaves an adhesive residue. I have saved plenty for my home brewing as bottled beer and wine is far better in a glass than plastic where the alcohol and the fizz leaks over time.
Pop into your local tobacconist and buy a tin of lighter fuel. It's the best thing for removing adhesive residue.
This is where this site is a godsend. Fountain of knowledge. Thanks all for the tips.
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
I wonder if the writer thought about going to the police ombudsman about this. Perhaps narrating the story in the Spectator was more likely to have an effect. This is not what the public want from the police. It is not an acceptable service. Perhaps the writer should have hinted that his account had been used to send a message involving a racial aggravation. That would have been a blue light job.
The Police across the country are a fucking joke when it comes to this.
So many of my friends and colleagues have had their phones nabbed and they’ve gone to the police to say find my iPhone says this phone is at this property and the police say we’re not investigating this and here’s a crime reference number for you to claim on your insurance.
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
I wonder if the writer thought about going to the police ombudsman about this. Perhaps narrating the story in the Spectator was more likely to have an effect. This is not what the public want from the police. It is not an acceptable service. Perhaps the writer should have hinted that his account had been used to send a message involving a racial aggravation. That would have been a blue light job.
The Police across the country are a fucking joke when it comes to this.
So many of my friends and colleagues have had their phones nabbed and they’ve gone to the police to say find my iPhone says this phone is at this property and the police say we’re not investigating this and here’s a crime reference number for you to claim on your insurance.
Stuff like this is why Reform will likely win in 2028. When Farage did his first “I’m going for it” speech at Clacton, he didn’t waffle about purpose and seriousness and being grown up while wearing grifted designer spectacles, he went straight for: shoplifting, bike theft, phone stealing - and sorting them out
And he did it in a forthright plain speaking way, the way normal people talk
The British public are desperate for a government that understands their anger and despair at this low level attrition of life-quality. And they despair that either the Tories or Labour can fix it or even properly comprehend it
Reform will promise to fix it and fuck the woke and the feeble police
Will they actually deliver? That’s a different matter. But it’s probably enough to get them elected into power
Spain has a tax you pay when you buy a property, based on the amount you are paying (or a higher amount if they think you are buying at a discount). The proposal is to raise this to up to 100% for non-EU residents. If you buy a half a million euro house, you pay an extra half a million euro in tax.
It's a transaction tax, not an ownership tax. We should implement something similar, 100% transaction tax for non-residents.
100% not necessary but in the UK the non resident surcharge is just 2%. Bump it up to 10%-15% asap.
In a country starved of houses, it does feel that second homes and vacant investment lock up and leave properties are luxuries the nation cannot afford.
The occupancy rate in the U.K. is extremely high, in general. It’s one of the indicators of the scale of the shortage of housing
UK has c.30m housing units for a population of c.67m people France has c.38m housing units for a population of c.66m people
The UK is around EIGHT MILLION houses short of France, for the same population to within a margin of error.
That’s the scale of the housing shortage. You can easily build a couple of million new houses without much happening to prices either, because there’s so much pent-up demand and overcrowding in the market. How many 30-year-olds used to live with their parents before 2000, for example? For the vast majority of those in that situation, it isn’t by choice.
Yet France's overcrowding rate is 10x higher than the UK.
Abandoned houses are common in rural France. It's hard to think of any house being abandoned in this country, although I remember once visiting Toxteth in the 1990's, and it resembled descriptions of West Belfast in the 1970's.
Seems incredible now but central London was full of empty/abandoned properties in the early-mid 1980s. Hence my ability - with my friends - to squat in various beautiful Georgian houses/weird eye hospitals in and around Bloomsbury/holborn/fitzrovia for at least two years
We squatted one house on gower street for 6 months - with a room each - which must be worth £5m now
As a student - a STUDENT - I rented on my own a small flat, quite a nice one, just off Ken High St (the posher end). Did that for 2 terms without breaking the bank and all I was on was the grant. You couldn't do that now. Then again, when you think about it, that you could it then was pretty absurd. Today's ridiculous situation probably makes more sense than that.
Yet, as a proportion of income, housing costs for the poorest quartile have been flat since 1990. (And have decreased somewhat for the other quartiles).
Is that right? I'd have thought it would have gone up for most. Anyway, the main problem imo is we have home ownership as our main vehicle for wealth accretion and at the same time home ownership is out of reach unless you have wealth to start with. This unfortunate combination of things is baking high levels of inequality into society. Sort it out, politicians. Fix it.
It is worse than that. Every pound spent on housing is a pound not spent in more productive parts of the economy. And because housing is scarce, two-earner couples can outbid singles for rented as well as bought homes.
Posting it without comment shows a distinct lack of ambition OLB, you could have written “posted for only the 59th time in the last few days since the publicity stunt hit the media.”
Reassuring, the fact I hadn't seen it suggests I don't spend as much time on here as I fear! FWIW, I used to work in a pizza restaurant and so consider myself an authority on this topic. Pineapple on pizza is fine.
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
1) See, this is one of the many reasons not to have things on your phone. 2) How was his phone unlocked? My phone locks itself at the drop of a hat. It's mildly irritating and I would change it if I could be bothered. There's presumably a setting. 3) I hear stories like this a lot. And yet, on the few times I have interactions with the police, they have had a puppyish eagerness to get on with the job of taking down baddies. It seems unlikely that GMP are uniquely good. Maybe the Met are uniquely bad?
A story on social media stating the police did what they were supposed to do may get shared amongst family and friends of the poster and perhaps of the local police at best.
A story on social media stating the police were rubbish will get shared widely and can go viral.
Always remember social media is designed to make us angry, as that drives advertising and profits.
No that’s bollocks. Every Londoner knows that the Met really are this pathetic and useless. When my phone was snatched I didn’t even bother going to them. It was insured. Vodafone didn’t ask for proof of the theft or any police report because Vodafone ALSO know that no one goes to the police - because they are useless
The YouGov figures are extraordinary and largely suggest the recent Find Out Now poll wasn't necessarily an outlier.
When you include the won't vote and DKs, 82% of those responding don't currently plan to vote for this government at the moment. And I don't think the tough political times have started yet.
This play isn't going to be dull, even if all the characters on the (UK) stage are.
Posting it without comment shows a distinct lack of ambition OLB, you could have written “posted for only the 59th time in the last few days since the publicity stunt hit the media.”
Reassuring, the fact I hadn't seen it suggests I don't spend as much time on here as I fear! FWIW, I used to work in a pizza restaurant and so consider myself an authority on this topic. Pineapple on pizza is fine.
Your “should I retire” discourse is inferesting. I echo those who warn you of having nothing at all to do. Many find it less fun than they expected
But of course it depends on those hobbies of yours. May I ask what they are? If they are truly absorbing then you’re sorted - go for it
My ideal life would be a life of travel and flint knapping. I am in the incredibly fortunate position of being well paid to do what I would ideally do anyway - if I had all the money in the world
I DREAD the concept of retirement. I might have to do something I DON’T like doing
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
1) See, this is one of the many reasons not to have things on your phone. 2) How was his phone unlocked? My phone locks itself at the drop of a hat. It's mildly irritating and I would change it if I could be bothered. There's presumably a setting. 3) I hear stories like this a lot. And yet, on the few times I have interactions with the police, they have had a puppyish eagerness to get on with the job of taking down baddies. It seems unlikely that GMP are uniquely good. Maybe the Met are uniquely bad?
On point 2, using it for navigation by the sounds of it.
Well that's just triggered me even more. Overreliance on satellite navigational aids is causing our ability to find our way around unaided. But that is a rant of a different sort.
In the world beating stakes, I see that Sizewell C will now be the second most expensive nuclear power plant on the planet, at around £40bn. (Beaten only by Hinckley Point C.)
S Korea would build between five and six for that price.
(Someone upthread asked how much our planning system costs...)
Only going to go up too isn't it ?
What's the sunk/committed cost on it to date...
Nuclear isn't a particularly good fit for wind/solar, gas is much better (Nuclear can't be rapidly turned on and off). Mind you we do need some baseload, but christ it's expensive.
100% not necessary but in the UK the non resident surcharge is just 2%. Bump it up to 10%-15% asap.
In a country starved of houses, it does feel that second homes and vacant investment lock up and leave properties are luxuries the nation cannot afford.
The occupancy rate in the U.K. is extremely high, in general. It’s one of the indicators of the scale of the shortage of housing
UK has c.30m housing units for a population of c.67m people France has c.38m housing units for a population of c.66m people
The UK is around EIGHT MILLION houses short of France, for the same population to within a margin of error.
That’s the scale of the housing shortage. You can easily build a couple of million new houses without much happening to prices either, because there’s so much pent-up demand and overcrowding in the market. How many 30-year-olds used to live with their parents before 2000, for example? For the vast majority of those in that situation, it isn’t by choice.
Yet France's overcrowding rate is 10x higher than the UK.
Abandoned houses are common in rural France. It's hard to think of any house being abandoned in this country, although I remember once visiting Toxteth in the 1990's, and it resembled descriptions of West Belfast in the 1970's.
Seems incredible now but central London was full of empty/abandoned properties in the early-mid 1980s. Hence my ability - with my friends - to squat in various beautiful Georgian houses/weird eye hospitals in and around Bloomsbury/holborn/fitzrovia for at least two years
We squatted one house on gower street for 6 months - with a room each - which must be worth £5m now
As a student - a STUDENT - I rented on my own a small flat, quite a nice one, just off Ken High St (the posher end). Did that for 2 terms without breaking the bank and all I was on was the grant. You couldn't do that now. Then again, when you think about it, that you could it then was pretty absurd. Today's ridiculous situation probably makes more sense than that.
Yet, as a proportion of income, housing costs for the poorest quartile have been flat since 1990. (And have decreased somewhat for the other quartiles).
Is that right? I'd have thought it would have gone up for most. Anyway, the main problem imo is we have home ownership as our main vehicle for wealth accretion and at the same time home ownership is out of reach unless you have wealth to start with. This unfortunate combination of things is baking high levels of inequality into society. Sort it out, politicians. Fix it.
It is worse than that. Every pound spent on housing is a pound not spent in more productive parts of the economy. And because housing is scarce, two-earner couples can outbid singles for rented as well as bought homes.
Property dominates people's asset and income/expenditure position. It's so unhealthy. Stunts growth and fosters class and generational inequality. The government is more focused on this than previous ones tbf but it's a tough one to crack because it's been decades in the making.
I'm interested n how much longer GB News has to run.
One of the comments Lee Anderson has been making at the Reform UK Ltd regional Knees-Ups has been "We have GB News". Add in the various Ref UK politicos who have jobs there, and the lack of any real attempt at balance even by a cross-partisan policy, and it doesn't look good with Ofcom.
Ah the voice of British liberal democracy. Ban the news you don’t like. Only nice people with approved left wing BBC opinions should be allowed on screen
Fuck off
Got out of bed the wrong side, this morning? I haven't suggested banning anything.
There's a regulatory setup around balance of reporting. If they follow that they have no problems. If you listen to it you'll know it's an opinion channel not a news channel.
It's like speeding in you motor - it's dead easy not to get speeding fines.
Actually they have a formula of always having a token leftie. With one right wing commentator, one left wing commentator, and the presenter (usually a rightie) the debates are interesting. Lloyd Russel Moyle is actually a pretty good left wing commentator on Jacob Rees Mogg's programme.
Sounds like you watch it. Odd use of time.
I also read your posts, so I must be a glutton for punishment.
Posting it without comment shows a distinct lack of ambition OLB, you could have written “posted for only the 59th time in the last few days since the publicity stunt hit the media.”
Reassuring, the fact I hadn't seen it suggests I don't spend as much time on here as I fear! FWIW, I used to work in a pizza restaurant and so consider myself an authority on this topic. Pineapple on pizza is fine.
Your “should I retire” discourse is inferesting. I echo those who warn you of having nothing at all to do. Many find it less fun than they expected
But of course it depends on those hobbies of yours. May I ask what they are? If they are truly absorbing then you’re sorted - go for it
My ideal life would be a life of travel and flint knapping. I am in the incredibly fortunate position of being well paid to do what I would ideally do anyway - if I had all the money in the world
I DREAD the concept of retirement. I might have to do something I DON’T like doing
My main hobby is writing. I keep plugging away at that, have just finished a first draft of my second novel (first not published). If I could become a published author with the prospect of even some meagre earnings I would retire soon. I am also involved in various local community groups and activities and would like to be able to do more there. And parents and parents in law are reaching ages where they might need more of my time too. We have no mortgage, no school fees, some property income, my wife has a well paid job and I will get a little bit of pension income when I turn 50 so I could stop soon, depending on how comfy a retirement we are after and how much we want to help the kids through Uni and early adulthood.
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
It was negotiated by the previous government, wasn't it?
Not exactly. AIUI Truss started it, Cameron scrapped it when he cane in as Foreign Secretary. The choice of the incumbents to revive the negotiations was an active one.
No she didn't. The negotiations started under Sunak. Truss met with the Mauritian PM. We don't know what was said. All we have is the fact that negotiations begun officially when she had left office, so her feelings either way on the matter are not material.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
It was negotiated by the previous government, wasn't it?
Not exactly. AIUI Truss started it, Cameron scrapped it when he cane in as Foreign Secretary. The choice of the incumbents to revive the negotiations was an active one.
No she didn't. The negotiations started under Sunak. Truss met with the Mauritian PM. We don't know what was said. All we have is the fact that negotiations begun officially when she had left office, so her feelings either way on the matter are not material.
Actually the pre-talk negotiations started under PM Boris Johnson whilst Truss was Foreign Secretary.
100% not necessary but in the UK the non resident surcharge is just 2%. Bump it up to 10%-15% asap.
In a country starved of houses, it does feel that second homes and vacant investment lock up and leave properties are luxuries the nation cannot afford.
The occupancy rate in the U.K. is extremely high, in general. It’s one of the indicators of the scale of the shortage of housing
UK has c.30m housing units for a population of c.67m people France has c.38m housing units for a population of c.66m people
The UK is around EIGHT MILLION houses short of France, for the same population to within a margin of error.
That’s the scale of the housing shortage. You can easily build a couple of million new houses without much happening to prices either, because there’s so much pent-up demand and overcrowding in the market. How many 30-year-olds used to live with their parents before 2000, for example? For the vast majority of those in that situation, it isn’t by choice.
Yet France's overcrowding rate is 10x higher than the UK.
Abandoned houses are common in rural France. It's hard to think of any house being abandoned in this country, although I remember once visiting Toxteth in the 1990's, and it resembled descriptions of West Belfast in the 1970's.
Seems incredible now but central London was full of empty/abandoned properties in the early-mid 1980s. Hence my ability - with my friends - to squat in various beautiful Georgian houses/weird eye hospitals in and around Bloomsbury/holborn/fitzrovia for at least two years
We squatted one house on gower street for 6 months - with a room each - which must be worth £5m now
As a student - a STUDENT - I rented on my own a small flat, quite a nice one, just off Ken High St (the posher end). Did that for 2 terms without breaking the bank and all I was on was the grant. You couldn't do that now. Then again, when you think about it, that you could it then was pretty absurd. Today's ridiculous situation probably makes more sense than that.
Yet, as a proportion of income, housing costs for the poorest quartile have been flat since 1990. (And have decreased somewhat for the other quartiles).
Is that right? I'd have thought it would have gone up for most. Anyway, the main problem imo is we have home ownership as our main vehicle for wealth accretion and at the same time home ownership is out of reach unless you have wealth to start with. This unfortunate combination of things is baking high levels of inequality into society. Sort it out, politicians. Fix it.
It is worse than that. Every pound spent on housing is a pound not spent in more productive parts of the economy. And because housing is scarce, two-earner couples can outbid singles for rented as well as bought homes.
Property dominates people's asset and income/expenditure position. It's so unhealthy. Stunts growth and fosters class and generational inequality. The government is more focused on this than previous ones tbf but it's a tough one to crack because it's been decades in the making.
I think one easy-ish thing we could do is making moving house much more attractive. It's a horrendous experience and very expensive at the moment, and therefore the housing stock is used inefficiently.
There were 150,000 house sales in Scotland in 2008. We're now down at 90,000. Astonishing, particularly given there are 10% more houses (260,000).
Posting it without comment shows a distinct lack of ambition OLB, you could have written “posted for only the 59th time in the last few days since the publicity stunt hit the media.”
Reassuring, the fact I hadn't seen it suggests I don't spend as much time on here as I fear! FWIW, I used to work in a pizza restaurant and so consider myself an authority on this topic. Pineapple on pizza is fine.
Your “should I retire” discourse is inferesting. I echo those who warn you of having nothing at all to do. Many find it less fun than they expected
But of course it depends on those hobbies of yours. May I ask what they are? If they are truly absorbing then you’re sorted - go for it
My ideal life would be a life of travel and flint knapping. I am in the incredibly fortunate position of being well paid to do what I would ideally do anyway - if I had all the money in the world
I DREAD the concept of retirement. I might have to do something I DON’T like doing
My main hobby is writing. I keep plugging away at that, have just finished a first draft of my second novel (first not published). If I could become a published author with the prospect of even some meagre earnings I would retire soon. I am also involved in various local community groups and activities and would like to be able to do more there. And parents and parents in law are reaching ages where they might need more of my time too. We have no mortgage, no school fees, some property income, my wife has a well paid job and I will get a little bit of pension income when I turn 50 so I could stop soon, depending on how comfy a retirement we are after and how much we want to help the kids through Uni and early adulthood.
100% not necessary but in the UK the non resident surcharge is just 2%. Bump it up to 10%-15% asap.
In a country starved of houses, it does feel that second homes and vacant investment lock up and leave properties are luxuries the nation cannot afford.
The occupancy rate in the U.K. is extremely high, in general. It’s one of the indicators of the scale of the shortage of housing
UK has c.30m housing units for a population of c.67m people France has c.38m housing units for a population of c.66m people
The UK is around EIGHT MILLION houses short of France, for the same population to within a margin of error.
That’s the scale of the housing shortage. You can easily build a couple of million new houses without much happening to prices either, because there’s so much pent-up demand and overcrowding in the market. How many 30-year-olds used to live with their parents before 2000, for example? For the vast majority of those in that situation, it isn’t by choice.
Yet France's overcrowding rate is 10x higher than the UK.
Abandoned houses are common in rural France. It's hard to think of any house being abandoned in this country, although I remember once visiting Toxteth in the 1990's, and it resembled descriptions of West Belfast in the 1970's.
Seems incredible now but central London was full of empty/abandoned properties in the early-mid 1980s. Hence my ability - with my friends - to squat in various beautiful Georgian houses/weird eye hospitals in and around Bloomsbury/holborn/fitzrovia for at least two years
We squatted one house on gower street for 6 months - with a room each - which must be worth £5m now
As a student - a STUDENT - I rented on my own a small flat, quite a nice one, just off Ken High St (the posher end). Did that for 2 terms without breaking the bank and all I was on was the grant. You couldn't do that now. Then again, when you think about it, that you could it then was pretty absurd. Today's ridiculous situation probably makes more sense than that.
And when you graduated income tax was what? 30% - swings and roundabouts.
Higher than now, I think, yes. Also London was quite grimy.
My tax rate including NI and student loan repayments is around 30%
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
It was negotiated by the previous government, wasn't it?
Not exactly. AIUI Truss started it, Cameron scrapped it when he cane in as Foreign Secretary. The choice of the incumbents to revive the negotiations was an active one.
No she didn't. The negotiations started under Sunak. Truss met with the Mauritian PM. We don't know what was said. All we have is the fact that negotiations begun officially when she had left office, so her feelings either way on the matter are not material.
Actually the pre-talk negotiations started under PM Boris Johnson whilst Truss was Foreign Secretary.
Something she has admitted to.
Many hands dipped in the blood of this "rank betrayal" then.
This is a deal so bad, so obviously stupid, craven, pitiful and self harming, there is no English word in the dictionary to describe it. Unless someone can think of a word which means “to pointlessly give away your property to someone who has no claim on it, while paying them heavily to take it from you”
I wish I could find people like Starmer to negotiate with, in my professional capacity.
It was negotiated by the previous government, wasn't it?
Not exactly. AIUI Truss started it, Cameron scrapped it when he cane in as Foreign Secretary. The choice of the incumbents to revive the negotiations was an active one.
No she didn't. The negotiations started under Sunak. Truss met with the Mauritian PM. We don't know what was said. All we have is the fact that negotiations begun officially when she had left office, so her feelings either way on the matter are not material.
Actually the pre-talk negotiations started under PM Boris Johnson whilst Truss was Foreign Secretary.
Something she has admitted to.
Many hands dipped in the blood of this "rank betrayal" then.
Not David Cameron’s, he stopped all this nonsense when he became Foreign Secretary.
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
1) See, this is one of the many reasons not to have things on your phone. 2) How was his phone unlocked? My phone locks itself at the drop of a hat. It's mildly irritating and I would change it if I could be bothered. There's presumably a setting. 3) I hear stories like this a lot. And yet, on the few times I have interactions with the police, they have had a puppyish eagerness to get on with the job of taking down baddies. It seems unlikely that GMP are uniquely good. Maybe the Met are uniquely bad?
On 3), firm next door had their premises broken into over a bank holiday. Engineering outfit, had £30kish in tools and gear knocked. Some of the stuff was quite distinctive and/or with known serial numbers.
One of their staff spotted what looked like some of it on Facebook marketplace. Bought an item, went to collect and was shown a garage full of tools for sale, quite a lot of which he recognised.
The difficultly of getting Notts plod to go and knock on the relevant door was incredible - in the end the Derbyshire lot went and did it (crime was on their patch, but the guy fencing the stuff was in Notts).
I think the lovely chap with the garage full of stuff, and (it turned out) an existing criminal record containing things like receiving stole goods got a whopping sentence of... a bit of community service.
I'm interested n how much longer GB News has to run.
One of the comments Lee Anderson has been making at the Reform UK Ltd regional Knees-Ups has been "We have GB News". Add in the various Ref UK politicos who have jobs there, and the lack of any real attempt at balance even by a cross-partisan policy, and it doesn't look good with Ofcom.
Ah the voice of British liberal democracy. Ban the news you don’t like. Only nice people with approved left wing BBC opinions should be allowed on screen
Fuck off
Got out of bed the wrong side, this morning? I haven't suggested banning anything.
There's a regulatory setup around balance of reporting. If they follow that they have no problems. If you listen to it you'll know it's an opinion channel not a news channel.
It's like speeding in you motor - it's dead easy not to get speeding fines.
Actually they have a formula of always having a token leftie. With one right wing commentator, one left wing commentator, and the presenter (usually a rightie) the debates are interesting. Lloyd Russel Moyle is actually a pretty good left wing commentator on Jacob Rees Mogg's programme.
Sounds like you watch it. Odd use of time.
I also read your posts, so I must be a glutton for punishment.
Ah, the ying of GB "News" counteracted by the yang of me. That's a good balanced diet.
Do we know why Oliver Newton, who seven years ago was a hotel receptionist, before an astonishing rise into the civil service and the Labour party to become Head of Business Engagement for the chancellor, has resigned?
He was only appointed in August, amongst much controversy, being a friend and colleague of Reeves. At least he secured all those freebies, so it was worth it, at least for him.
Maybe appointing these activists wasn't such a great idea after all.
Posting it without comment shows a distinct lack of ambition OLB, you could have written “posted for only the 59th time in the last few days since the publicity stunt hit the media.”
Reassuring, the fact I hadn't seen it suggests I don't spend as much time on here as I fear! FWIW, I used to work in a pizza restaurant and so consider myself an authority on this topic. Pineapple on pizza is fine.
Your “should I retire” discourse is inferesting. I echo those who warn you of having nothing at all to do. Many find it less fun than they expected
But of course it depends on those hobbies of yours. May I ask what they are? If they are truly absorbing then you’re sorted - go for it
My ideal life would be a life of travel and flint knapping. I am in the incredibly fortunate position of being well paid to do what I would ideally do anyway - if I had all the money in the world
I DREAD the concept of retirement. I might have to do something I DON’T like doing
My main hobby is writing. I keep plugging away at that, have just finished a first draft of my second novel (first not published). If I could become a published author with the prospect of even some meagre earnings I would retire soon. I am also involved in various local community groups and activities and would like to be able to do more there. And parents and parents in law are reaching ages where they might need more of my time too. We have no mortgage, no school fees, some property income, my wife has a well paid job and I will get a little bit of pension income when I turn 50 so I could stop soon, depending on how comfy a retirement we are after and how much we want to help the kids through Uni and early adulthood.
Do you want a DM on this theme?
Yes I'd be glad for your advice, as I have benefitted from your advice and encouragement in the past.
Posting it without comment shows a distinct lack of ambition OLB, you could have written “posted for only the 59th time in the last few days since the publicity stunt hit the media.”
Reassuring, the fact I hadn't seen it suggests I don't spend as much time on here as I fear! FWIW, I used to work in a pizza restaurant and so consider myself an authority on this topic. Pineapple on pizza is fine.
Your “should I retire” discourse is inferesting. I echo those who warn you of having nothing at all to do. Many find it less fun than they expected
But of course it depends on those hobbies of yours. May I ask what they are? If they are truly absorbing then you’re sorted - go for it
My ideal life would be a life of travel and flint knapping. I am in the incredibly fortunate position of being well paid to do what I would ideally do anyway - if I had all the money in the world
I DREAD the concept of retirement. I might have to do something I DON’T like doing
My main hobby is writing. I keep plugging away at that, have just finished a first draft of my second novel (first not published). If I could become a published author with the prospect of even some meagre earnings I would retire soon. I am also involved in various local community groups and activities and would like to be able to do more there. And parents and parents in law are reaching ages where they might need more of my time too. We have no mortgage, no school fees, some property income, my wife has a well paid job and I will get a little bit of pension income when I turn 50 so I could stop soon, depending on how comfy a retirement we are after and how much we want to help the kids through Uni and early adulthood.
Do you want a DM on this theme?
Yes I'd be glad for your advice, as I have benefitted from your advice and encouragement in the past.
I’m not sure I’ll be that encouraging - it’s absolutely nothing personal, at all, more the industry and context. But happy to impart what wisdom I have if you still want!
Posting it without comment shows a distinct lack of ambition OLB, you could have written “posted for only the 59th time in the last few days since the publicity stunt hit the media.”
Reassuring, the fact I hadn't seen it suggests I don't spend as much time on here as I fear! FWIW, I used to work in a pizza restaurant and so consider myself an authority on this topic. Pineapple on pizza is fine.
Your “should I retire” discourse is inferesting. I echo those who warn you of having nothing at all to do. Many find it less fun than they expected
But of course it depends on those hobbies of yours. May I ask what they are? If they are truly absorbing then you’re sorted - go for it
My ideal life would be a life of travel and flint knapping. I am in the incredibly fortunate position of being well paid to do what I would ideally do anyway - if I had all the money in the world
I DREAD the concept of retirement. I might have to do something I DON’T like doing
In principle, I'd love to retire. I have a job which isn't unpleasant. Interesting, with a good work-life balance. But if they didn't pay me to do it I wouldn't do it. What would I do instead? Lots of walking, I suspect. Lots of cycling. More time for parenting. More time for my parents in the future. More time for friendships. More time to watch sport. But perhaps the nice thing about paid employment is the feeling that someone values your contribution so much that they are willing to spend hefty sums just on having you around to join in with their projects? Perhaps that confirmation of your value is very good for you, even if you wouldn't necessarily choose to do what you're doing over 'having a nice time'?
Posting it without comment shows a distinct lack of ambition OLB, you could have written “posted for only the 59th time in the last few days since the publicity stunt hit the media.”
Reassuring, the fact I hadn't seen it suggests I don't spend as much time on here as I fear! FWIW, I used to work in a pizza restaurant and so consider myself an authority on this topic. Pineapple on pizza is fine.
Your “should I retire” discourse is inferesting. I echo those who warn you of having nothing at all to do. Many find it less fun than they expected
But of course it depends on those hobbies of yours. May I ask what they are? If they are truly absorbing then you’re sorted - go for it
My ideal life would be a life of travel and flint knapping. I am in the incredibly fortunate position of being well paid to do what I would ideally do anyway - if I had all the money in the world
I DREAD the concept of retirement. I might have to do something I DON’T like doing
In principle, I'd love to retire. I have a job which isn't unpleasant. Interesting, with a good work-life balance. But if they didn't pay me to do it I wouldn't do it. What would I do instead? Lots of walking, I suspect. Lots of cycling. More time for parenting. More time for my parents in the future. More time for friendships. More time to watch sport. But perhaps the nice thing about paid employment is the feeling that someone values your contribution so much that they are willing to spend hefty sums just on having you around to join in with their projects? Perhaps that confirmation of your value is very good for you, even if you wouldn't necessarily choose to do what you're doing over 'having a nice time'?
I'd love to be able to retire. Find something part time that does some active good, and it would be made much easier knowing that I didn't need to do it.
Posting it without comment shows a distinct lack of ambition OLB, you could have written “posted for only the 59th time in the last few days since the publicity stunt hit the media.”
Reassuring, the fact I hadn't seen it suggests I don't spend as much time on here as I fear! FWIW, I used to work in a pizza restaurant and so consider myself an authority on this topic. Pineapple on pizza is fine.
Your “should I retire” discourse is inferesting. I echo those who warn you of having nothing at all to do. Many find it less fun than they expected
But of course it depends on those hobbies of yours. May I ask what they are? If they are truly absorbing then you’re sorted - go for it
My ideal life would be a life of travel and flint knapping. I am in the incredibly fortunate position of being well paid to do what I would ideally do anyway - if I had all the money in the world
I DREAD the concept of retirement. I might have to do something I DON’T like doing
In principle, I'd love to retire. I have a job which isn't unpleasant. Interesting, with a good work-life balance. But if they didn't pay me to do it I wouldn't do it. What would I do instead? Lots of walking, I suspect. Lots of cycling. More time for parenting. More time for my parents in the future. More time for friendships. More time to watch sport. But perhaps the nice thing about paid employment is the feeling that someone values your contribution so much that they are willing to spend hefty sums just on having you around to join in with their projects? Perhaps that confirmation of your value is very good for you, even if you wouldn't necessarily choose to do what you're doing over 'having a nice time'?
Don’t you think that after a year or two of walking and cycling and seeing friends and fam you’d get bored?
I guess it depends how dull your job is and whether you think it benefits society etc
Some jobs are so boring and pointless I can absolutely believe that a life of tedious paid leisure, however tedious, would be vastly preferable. Production line factory work for instance, where you could obviously be replaced by a machine but it’s just cheaper to use a human - soul crushing stuff
Comments
I think they'd have survived without that.
https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/comment/britains-post-brexit-trade-patterns-are-finally-emerging-in-the-data/
And that's before we get to any humiliation fetish.
What do you think of it? (8 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy3XDDoqhXU
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-effects-of-brexit-are-still-being-misreported/
Yes, she's biased, but it's a fairly complete demolition.
Actually it's relatively simple. If you have an unusual first name (Kemi, Boris, Gordon, Rishi) it gets used - if you don't (Tony, John) the surname gets used.
I think Kier and Theresa fall into a vague grey area because they're uncommon but people aren't 100% confident in how to spell them.
"I do not want to dwell on the circumstances, except to say that my phone was stolen and that London is becoming a reeking cesspool of criminality. Perhaps, also, that anyone caught cycling a Lime Bike without a clean criminal record should have the book thrown at them.
The worst part was that at the time of snatching, my phone was unlocked, and therefore wide open for fraudulent activity. I disabled all online banking in time, but that didn’t stop the cretin from ordering himself a couple of Ubers and very nearly a PS5. In a brainwave that was pure Conan Doyle, I looked at the addresses these were ordered to, and they were all to the same flat – a clue.
I took this information to the police station to be added to my police report. I was duly informed this piece of evidence was not substantial enough to warrant an officers going to the address to ask questions, let alone arresting anyone. To me, this seemed like finding a murder weapon with fingerprints on at the scene of the crime, but discounting it because it wasn’t found in the murderer’s hand. Alas, what do I know?"
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/my-phone-was-snatched-and-im-in-crisis/
I think a crisis is on the way.
BTW the Spectator TV interview with Gideon Rachman on the possibilities awaiting the world under Trumpism, especially the last 20 minutes, is outstandingly clear and interesting, and manages, I think, to see through the fog very effectively.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8XJRKs_Zq8
https://x.com/HolyroodSources/status/1879127360387313799
Holyrood numbers tomorrow, I'm sure the valiant struggle of Anas to prove he's been standing up to Sir Keir will bear fruit. Also SLab's genius updated slogan of 'A New Direction' from 'Change' will be a game changer.
(Beaten only by Hinckley Point C.)
S Korea would build between five and six for that price.
In perhaps not unconnected news, they just overtook us in the global military strength rankings.
https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php
(Someone upthread asked how much our planning system costs...)
2) How was his phone unlocked? My phone locks itself at the drop of a hat. It's mildly irritating and I would change it if I could be bothered. There's presumably a setting.
3) I hear stories like this a lot. And yet, on the few times I have interactions with the police, they have had a puppyish eagerness to get on with the job of taking down baddies. It seems unlikely that GMP are uniquely good. Maybe the Met are uniquely bad?
Borrowing for the general slush fund is a different matter.
So many of my friends and colleagues have had their phones nabbed and they’ve gone to the police to say find my iPhone says this phone is at this property and the police say we’re not investigating this and here’s a crime reference number for you to claim on your insurance.
Posted without comment.
I even saw one making lasagne and "cooking" it in the dishwasher (wrapped in clingfilm but they did not use dishwasher tabs) to use the residual heat to save on cooking in the oven. Is that a kitchen job.
I am at work now. Should I google the term on my work computer ?
It's like two sides of the same coin: modern society can seem very focused around work, which takes up a massive amount of your time, and can become a big part of your identity and source of social interactions. But there isn't a wide range of alternative models of living so in pushing back on "work is everything" you can end up at the extreme of "no work at all".
I'd quite like to shift towards "I work about half the year" at some point as a halfway house between full time work and full retirement, but it's really unclear to me whether any employer would be interested in that proposition
Borrowing money to buy votes is Real Investment.
The trend, the trend…
The Resolution Foundation analysis could be wrong, but nothing in that article addresses their analysis.
Democrats’ hopes of derailing Trump nominees fading fast
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5083475-democrats-trump-nominees-derail/
An abysmal list, but they'll probably get confirmed.
A story on social media stating the police were rubbish will get shared widely and can go viral.
Always remember social media is designed to make us angry, as that drives advertising and profits.
What's the sunk/committed cost on it to date...
Nuclear isn't a particularly good fit for wind/solar, gas is much better (Nuclear can't be rapidly turned on and off). Mind you we do need some baseload, but christ it's expensive.
Headlines,
25% 18-24, 36% 24-49, 53% 50-64 and 65% >65 support Conservative or Reform.
20% <50 support Reform
30% >50 support Reform
Conclusions,
1 overwhelming majority <50 don't support Conservative or Reform policies
2 above doesn't matter when they turn out to vote
*to avoid contamination of anything to do with food or messing up paint
20 years ago now we had our car nicked from outside the Metrocentre with some Christmas presents hidden in the boot. "Oh, we'll never catch these people sir, they are very sophisticated criminals." I went to the shops where I had bought my wife's presents and told them that within a day or so people would come in with the items I had bought and want to a refund. When this happened they should call the police. To their credit they did and the police turned up. They were ultimately convicted of the theft of both the car and the presents. Took about 20 minutes.
I found hot soaking and washing up liquid and one of those metal scourers do the job with a bit of elbow grease.
For disinfection I use Chemsan no rinse cleaner. It's revolutionary. Although I have found domestic bleach pretty useful.
I think I will take your words of wisdom and take a bottle before I leave. We have the 1Litre bottles of Klercide 70/30 around.
My neighbours like yellow tail chardonnay, chug several bottles a week. Their labels come off a treat.
And he did it in a forthright plain speaking way, the way normal people talk
The British public are desperate for a government that understands their anger and despair at this low level attrition of life-quality. And they despair that either the Tories or Labour can fix it or even properly comprehend it
Reform will promise to fix it and fuck the woke and the feeble police
Will they actually deliver? That’s a different matter. But it’s probably enough to get them elected into power
FWIW, I used to work in a pizza restaurant and so consider myself an authority on this topic. Pineapple on pizza is fine.
The YouGov figures are extraordinary and largely suggest the recent Find Out Now poll wasn't necessarily an outlier.
When you include the won't vote and DKs, 82% of those responding don't currently plan to vote for this government at the moment. And I don't think the tough political times have started yet.
This play isn't going to be dull, even if all the characters on the (UK) stage are.
But of course it depends on those hobbies of yours. May I ask what they are? If they are truly absorbing then you’re sorted - go for it
My ideal life would be a life of travel and flint knapping. I am in the incredibly fortunate position of being well paid to do what I would ideally do anyway - if I had all the money in the world
I DREAD the concept of retirement. I might have to do something I DON’T like doing
Something she has admitted to.
(Ouch, think I've just gone and put my back out)
There were 150,000 house sales in Scotland in 2008. We're now down at 90,000. Astonishing, particularly given there are 10% more houses (260,000).
One of their staff spotted what looked like some of it on Facebook marketplace. Bought an item, went to collect and was shown a garage full of tools for sale, quite a lot of which he recognised.
The difficultly of getting Notts plod to go and knock on the relevant door was incredible - in the end the Derbyshire lot went and did it (crime was on their patch, but the guy fencing the stuff was in Notts).
I think the lovely chap with the garage full of stuff, and (it turned out) an existing criminal record containing things like receiving stole goods got a whopping sentence of... a bit of community service.
He was only appointed in August, amongst much controversy, being a friend and colleague of Reeves. At least he secured all those freebies, so it was worth it, at least for him.
Maybe appointing these activists wasn't such a great idea after all.
I have a job which isn't unpleasant. Interesting, with a good work-life balance. But if they didn't pay me to do it I wouldn't do it. What would I do instead? Lots of walking, I suspect. Lots of cycling. More time for parenting. More time for my parents in the future. More time for friendships. More time to watch sport.
But perhaps the nice thing about paid employment is the feeling that someone values your contribution so much that they are willing to spend hefty sums just on having you around to join in with their projects? Perhaps that confirmation of your value is very good for you, even if you wouldn't necessarily choose to do what you're doing over 'having a nice time'?
I guess it depends how dull your job is and whether you think it benefits society etc
Some jobs are so boring and pointless I can absolutely believe that a life of tedious paid leisure, however tedious, would be vastly preferable. Production line factory work for instance, where you could obviously be replaced by a machine but it’s just cheaper to use a human - soul crushing stuff