If Starmer could definitively decide between being Trump's simp or being a team player with the EU - that would provide some clarity and planning focus. I suspect Starmer wants to get the UK back to being the bridge across the atlantic .... that will require some politiking to land. Being europes lawyer in the states and americas enforcer in europe is no small ask.
It's an impossible situation. Eight years ago we could have picked a side and tried to make it work.
Now there are too many imponderables. In five years time it is possible that the US govt is led by mainstream democrats or old school conservatives again (unlikely), whilst Afd and Le Pen are in power in Germany and France. How can we realistically commit to anything? And people can't commit to us either because Farage.
All we can do is drift along, tactically avoid whatever mess we can and keep our fingers crossed.
Furthermore you cannot make a deal with Trump. He is totally untrustworthy. The moment you sign on the dotted line, he will start shaking you down and extorting you:
"for Trump, the agreement is not the thing. An agreement is there to be opportunistically repudiated, and not to be performed. An agreement offers an opportunity to gain leverage, for a new negotiation. for a new exertion of power."
Remember Mexico and Canada "taking advantage" of the US in the new NAFTA agreement - the agreement he just annulled with tarrifs - THAT IS TRUMPS OWN DEAL.... HE NEGOTIATED THAT.
If Starmer thinks he can somehow control or anticipate Trump.... well, that seems like a very very dangerous idea to me. If Trump sees britain benefitting from interaction with the US he will rip up any agreements....
Experience shows that the worst thing you can be is a close ally of the us - canada, mexico, denmark.... very very close friends of the us get savaged. They get the stick. To be treated right by Trump you need to be non-aligned and prefereable with a strongman in charge. Trump is like a diplomatic wife beater.... slaps you and tells you it will never happen again until it does.... he only respects other wife beaters.
Fuck you and your concern, Susan Collins. You voted for this shit.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5144026-trump-ukraine-peace-talks/ ...Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who occasionally bucks Trump’s positions and is strongly aligned with Kyiv, said she is concerned about Ukraine’s fate. “This was an unprovoked, unjustified invasion. I appreciate that the president is trying to achieve peace, but we have to make sure that Ukraine does not get the short end of a deal,” she said. ..
Wonder if the sudden liking for Russia is the Russian's relationship with Iran. Could the Russians put pressure on Iran to back off from a country e.g. Israel so the grand Casino plan can come into being?
Tenuous but Trump has certain predilections and perhaps wishes to be recognized as a 'righteous person' (tzaddik) and buried in Jerusalem with the same pomp as Robert Maxwell.
Obviously, Hamas and the Palestinians should drop all their weapons immediately and get taken over by Israel.
For 'peace'.
You beat me to it.
It seems bizarre that you would dispute Ukraine's right to defend herself, but support that of the Palestinians. Certainly, I'm struggling to understand how Ukraine provoked Russia, and forced her to start the war.
Once you remember Zelenskyy is Jewish the attitude starts to make more sense.
The chart at the top took me to the original post by Kieran Pedley, which had this chart too, which gives a longer perspective:
There are two obvious anomalies from the norm: the Trussocalypse* and the post election one which was optimistic from the change of government (a lesser degree seen with the two from Sunaks government). Now we have reverted to mean.
So under 4 different governments we have had no real improvement in economic optimism. Maybe there is no magic solution?
* I wonder if the forthcoming Farage chaos can top Truss? His unfunded tax cuts and spending plans are far more ambitious.
There are solutions but not magic ones. The electorate will go for the next magic pill, the Refukkers. And be disappointed again when it does not provide what they seek.
That’s the single hope that a taste of the incoherent corrupt loons in actual government destroys their credibility. Depressingly however US voters had 4 years of Trump lite then decided that they wanted 4 more years of the full fat version.
Care to explain your 'thinking' on that? Because your apparent hatred for Zelensky, and the joy you showed yesterday at Trump's betrayal of Ukraine, rather makes you appear like a Putinist shill.
And therefore a shill for imperialism and fascism,.
I think the logic is as follows:
1) Starmer is bad for dissing Jezza. 2) Starmer supports Zelensky and opposes Putin 3) therefore Zelensky is bad and Putin is good.
And the last step in BJO's decent into madness.
4) Trump sides with Putin therefore Trump is good.
Care to explain your 'thinking' on that? Because your apparent hatred for Zelensky, and the joy you showed yesterday at Trump's betrayal of Ukraine, rather makes you appear like a Putinist shill.
And therefore a shill for imperialism and fascism,.
Wanting peace and an end to the million plus death on both sides is not consistent with supporting Putin it's about stopping the pointless killing.
When would you have stopped the pointless killing of WW2? Just curious. Before or after the Red Army reached Berlin?
At the point Hitlers Nazis surrendered. One of only 2 wars I would have supported.
Unlike yourself and most PBers who supported Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and wants bloodshed at every conceivable opportunity.
Wars are generally totally pointless and cost a fortune when we claim to have no money and should be avoided in almost all circumstances.
Sometimes, sadly, the only alternative to war is capitulation. The Ukrainians have every right to resist occupation by the Russians, just as the Palestinians have the right to oppose occupation by the Israelis.
Edit: Likewise the Canadians and Greenlanders if Trump should follow though with his menaces.
Obviously, Hamas and the Palestinians should drop all their weapons immediately and get taken over by Israel.
For 'peace'.
You beat me to it.
It seems bizarre that you would dispute Ukraine's right to defend herself, but support that of the Palestinians. Certainly, I'm struggling to understand how Ukraine provoked Russia, and forced her to start the war.
Once you remember Zelenskyy is Jewish the attitude starts to make more sense.
Errrr... hello... he's a Nazi, and Russia is only invading Ukraine for their own good, and to deNazify them.
Care to explain your 'thinking' on that? Because your apparent hatred for Zelensky, and the joy you showed yesterday at Trump's betrayal of Ukraine, rather makes you appear like a Putinist shill.
And therefore a shill for imperialism and fascism,.
Wanting peace and an end to the million plus death on both sides is not consistent with supporting Putin it's about stopping the pointless killing.
If you think Putin wants to stop at just Ukraine, they you are a fool. Hos own words and rhetoric says exactly the opposite.
You are asking for more war, not less. You are an appeaser. And whilst most appeasers in the late 1930s did so for good, moral - even if mistaken - reasons; others had more malign motives.
You are in that latter category.
You are a bloodthirsty apologist for a genocide and generally in favour of killing of innocents who believes every bit of Zionist/ Western made up shit so I will take no notice of your opinions on me.
Are Ukrainians not innocents? Or are people only innocent when they're being killed by Jews.
Be consistent: I totally get it if you want to support the Palestinians. But to do so while denying the Ukrainian right to resist invasion is just sickening.
Of course they are hence why stopping the war is excellent
I am consistent I want the killing to stop in Ukraine and the middle East.
Fuck you and your concern, Susan Collins. You voted for this shit.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5144026-trump-ukraine-peace-talks/ ...Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who occasionally bucks Trump’s positions and is strongly aligned with Kyiv, said she is concerned about Ukraine’s fate. “This was an unprovoked, unjustified invasion. I appreciate that the president is trying to achieve peace, but we have to make sure that Ukraine does not get the short end of a deal,” she said. ..
Wonder if the sudden liking for Russia is the Russian's relationship with Iran. Could the Russians put pressure on Iran to back off from a country e.g. Israel so the grand Casino plan can come into being?
Tenuous but Trump has certain predilections and perhaps wishes to be recognized as a 'righteous person' (tzaddik) and buried in Jerusalem with the same pomp as Robert Maxwell.
There is nothing sudden about it. Trump has always been a Putin fan boi. And his other pin ups are mostly also evil dictators.
Care to explain your 'thinking' on that? Because your apparent hatred for Zelensky, and the joy you showed yesterday at Trump's betrayal of Ukraine, rather makes you appear like a Putinist shill.
And therefore a shill for imperialism and fascism,.
Wanting peace and an end to the million plus death on both sides is not consistent with supporting Putin it's about stopping the pointless killing.
If you think Putin wants to stop at just Ukraine, they you are a fool. Hos own words and rhetoric says exactly the opposite.
You are asking for more war, not less. You are an appeaser. And whilst most appeasers in the late 1930s did so for good, moral - even if mistaken - reasons; others had more malign motives.
You are in that latter category.
You are a bloodthirsty apologist for a genocide and generally in favour of killing of innocents who believes every bit of Zionist/ Western made up shit so I will take no notice of your opinions on me.
Are Ukrainians not innocents? Or are people only innocent when they're being killed by Jews.
Be consistent: I totally get it if you want to support the Palestinians. But to do so while denying the Ukrainian right to resist invasion is just sickening.
Of course they are hence why stopping the war is excellent
I am consistent I want the killing to stop in Ukraine and the middle East.
How can you think that is inconsistent?
You want to stop the killing in the Middle East by Israel ceasing to attack the Palestinians, and you wish to stop the killing in Ukraine by the Ukrainians ceasing to resist Russia.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Care to explain your 'thinking' on that? Because your apparent hatred for Zelensky, and the joy you showed yesterday at Trump's betrayal of Ukraine, rather makes you appear like a Putinist shill.
And therefore a shill for imperialism and fascism,.
Wanting peace and an end to the million plus death on both sides is not consistent with supporting Putin it's about stopping the pointless killing.
If you think Putin wants to stop at just Ukraine, they you are a fool. Hos own words and rhetoric says exactly the opposite.
You are asking for more war, not less. You are an appeaser. And whilst most appeasers in the late 1930s did so for good, moral - even if mistaken - reasons; others had more malign motives.
You are in that latter category.
You are a bloodthirsty apologist for a genocide and generally in favour of killing of innocents who believes every bit of Zionist/ Western made up shit so I will take no notice of your opinions on me.
Are Ukrainians not innocents? Or are people only innocent when they're being killed by Jews.
Be consistent: I totally get it if you want to support the Palestinians. But to do so while denying the Ukrainian right to resist invasion is just sickening.
Of course they are hence why stopping the war is excellent
I am consistent I want the killing to stop in Ukraine and the middle East.
How can you think that is inconsistent?
Everyone would like the killing to stop. The question is on what terms. If you are not willing to answer that then you are adding diddly squat.
Fcking hell, talk about MSM down the rabbit hole, Gabriel Gatehouse currently on R4 saying RFK jr isn’t a bad man and has his heart in the right place. Fck off you top knotted twat.
RFK Jr does come across as a nasty lying piece of shit. Though he is occasionally right:
The independent US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr called Donald Trump “a terrible human being”, the “worse [sic] president ever” and “barely human”.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign on Friday and endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump, has a long history of criticizing the man he now supports, including calling Trump a “threat to democracy,” and, as recently as July, a “terrible president.”
For years, Kennedy has repeatedly condemned Trump, referring to him as a “bully,” who appealed to “bigotry,” “hatred,” “xenophobia” and “prejudice.” Among the chief attacks Kennedy has leveled at Trump through the 2024 campaign is to accuse him of corruption for turning his administration over to corporate lobbyists and special interests and failing to “drain the swamp” as he’d promised.
“I think President Trump is purposefully and systematically encouraging tyrannical governments around the world.”
This is like giving him credit for recognising that the sun rises in the east: an expression of the bleeding obvious to everyone (except just under 50% of voting Americans, weirdly).
Care to explain your 'thinking' on that? Because your apparent hatred for Zelensky, and the joy you showed yesterday at Trump's betrayal of Ukraine, rather makes you appear like a Putinist shill.
And therefore a shill for imperialism and fascism,.
I think the logic is as follows:
1) Starmer is bad for dissing Jezza. 2) Starmer supports Zelensky and opposes Putin 3) therefore Zelensky is bad and Putin is good.
And the last step in BJO's decent into madness.
4) Trump sides with Putin therefore Trump is good.
Complete lunacy from a claimed socialist.
I must say though that I didn’t foresee the BJO-Leon Pact.
Obviously, Hamas and the Palestinians should drop all their weapons immediately and get taken over by Israel.
For 'peace'.
You beat me to it.
It seems bizarre that you would dispute Ukraine's right to defend herself, but support that of the Palestinians. Certainly, I'm struggling to understand how Ukraine provoked Russia, and forced her to start the war.
Well Trump said yesterday he thought Ukraines desire to join NATO was the main cause of the invasion.
Personally I think it's because Putin has a very small Penis but provakation was a factor.
I read the article, and either Varoufakis is confused or I am (very likely as I am not an economist) about the value of the dollar and Trump's masterplan. He mostly seems to be arguing that Trump rightly thinks the dollar is overvalued and his plan will lower it. But in the middle he says:
This is what his critics do not understand. They mistakenly think that he thinks that his tariffs will reduce America’s trade deficit on their own. He knows they will not. Their utility comes from their capacity to shock foreign central bankers into reducing domestic interest rates. Consequently, the euro, the yen and the renminbi will soften relative to the dollar. This will cancel out the price hikes of goods imported into the US, and leave the prices American consumers pay unaffected. The tariffed countries will be in effect paying for Trump’s tariffs.
Does this make any sense?
He is saying that tariffs will force country B to lower interest rates
This means that country B’s currency weakens relative to the US
This means that to earn 100 Thalers in profit a company from country B can lower its prices which offsets the impact of tariffs
What he forgets is that most companies tend not to adjust their prices in response to currency fluctuations but bank the gain. And I’m not sure about why tariffs would force a reduction in interest rates (risk of recession may be?)
Right. But the rest of Varoufakis's article seems to be saying Trump's masterplan is to lower the value of the dollar, not raise it. Seems to be an obvious contradiction, so either I'm missing something or Varoufakis is talking gibberish (or both).
Obviously, Hamas and the Palestinians should drop all their weapons immediately and get taken over by Israel.
For 'peace'.
You beat me to it.
It seems bizarre that you would dispute Ukraine's right to defend herself, but support that of the Palestinians. Certainly, I'm struggling to understand how Ukraine provoked Russia, and forced her to start the war.
The Corbynites on the Stop The War stall on my high street love to sell the idea Ukraine “just needs peace”
I tried the line “the Palestinians can’t beat the Israelis - they should give up land for peace.”
I'm sure that's totally a-okay to 'Green' @bigjohnowls ...
And to Trump? Something has emboldened Putin to do this.
FFS do you really believe Russia did that. Who has most to gain false flag 1000 time more likely
FFS do you give Putin a pass for EVERYTHING? You seem to have forgotten that Russian forces launched an attack on the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in the initial invason. They were distinctly cavalier in their attitude to the place. Their convoy of trucks went through radioactive areas throwing up clouds of dust.
Putin and his henchmen are far more likely to threaten to trash Chernobyl if it gives them some leverage in future "peace" talks.
Care to explain your 'thinking' on that? Because your apparent hatred for Zelensky, and the joy you showed yesterday at Trump's betrayal of Ukraine, rather makes you appear like a Putinist shill.
And therefore a shill for imperialism and fascism,.
Wanting peace and an end to the million plus death on both sides is not consistent with supporting Putin it's about stopping the pointless killing.
If you think Putin wants to stop at just Ukraine, they you are a fool. Hos own words and rhetoric says exactly the opposite.
You are asking for more war, not less. You are an appeaser. And whilst most appeasers in the late 1930s did so for good, moral - even if mistaken - reasons; others had more malign motives.
You are in that latter category.
You are a bloodthirsty apologist for a genocide and generally in favour of killing of innocents who believes every bit of Zionist/ Western made up shit so I will take no notice of your opinions on me.
Are Ukrainians not innocents? Or are people only innocent when they're being killed by Jews.
Be consistent: I totally get it if you want to support the Palestinians. But to do so while denying the Ukrainian right to resist invasion is just sickening.
Of course they are hence why stopping the war is excellent
I am consistent I want the killing to stop in Ukraine and the middle East.
How can you think that is inconsistent?
So the Palestinians should realise they can never beat the Israelis? And give up land for peace.
Obviously, Hamas and the Palestinians should drop all their weapons immediately and get taken over by Israel.
For 'peace'.
You beat me to it.
It seems bizarre that you would dispute Ukraine's right to defend herself, but support that of the Palestinians. Certainly, I'm struggling to understand how Ukraine provoked Russia, and forced her to start the war.
Of course Ukraine provoked Russia. By existing. It gave Russia no choice but to invade.
Obviously, Hamas and the Palestinians should drop all their weapons immediately and get taken over by Israel.
For 'peace'.
You beat me to it.
It seems bizarre that you would dispute Ukraine's right to defend herself, but support that of the Palestinians. Certainly, I'm struggling to understand how Ukraine provoked Russia, and forced her to start the war.
Once you remember Zelenskyy is Jewish the attitude starts to make more sense.
Errrr... hello... he's a Nazi, and Russia is only invading Ukraine for their own good, and to deNazify them.
(Said Russian shills.)
“Banderite” is a tell - when that gets introduced into the conversation….
Fuck you and your concern, Susan Collins. You voted for this shit.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5144026-trump-ukraine-peace-talks/ ...Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who occasionally bucks Trump’s positions and is strongly aligned with Kyiv, said she is concerned about Ukraine’s fate. “This was an unprovoked, unjustified invasion. I appreciate that the president is trying to achieve peace, but we have to make sure that Ukraine does not get the short end of a deal,” she said. ..
Senior senator from Maine since 1997, which has voted Democrat for president every single election since she's been in.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
That's the rub isn't it: governments promised the impossible, and voters believed them.
Fcking hell, talk about MSM down the rabbit hole, Gabriel Gatehouse currently on R4 saying RFK jr isn’t a bad man and has his heart in the right place. Fck off you top knotted twat.
RFK Jr does come across as a nasty lying piece of shit. Though he is occasionally right:
The independent US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr called Donald Trump “a terrible human being”, the “worse [sic] president ever” and “barely human”.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who suspended his campaign on Friday and endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump, has a long history of criticizing the man he now supports, including calling Trump a “threat to democracy,” and, as recently as July, a “terrible president.”
For years, Kennedy has repeatedly condemned Trump, referring to him as a “bully,” who appealed to “bigotry,” “hatred,” “xenophobia” and “prejudice.” Among the chief attacks Kennedy has leveled at Trump through the 2024 campaign is to accuse him of corruption for turning his administration over to corporate lobbyists and special interests and failing to “drain the swamp” as he’d promised.
“I think President Trump is purposefully and systematically encouraging tyrannical governments around the world.”
This is like giving him credit for recognising that the sun rises in the east: an expression of the bleeding obvious to everyone (except just under 50% of voting Americans, weirdly).
He no longer recognises that the sun rises in the east. Changed his mind on that right about the time he was offered a cabinet position, coincidentally.
Harris should have offered him a deal, the 2 percent of voters he brought to Trump would have won her the election. Then relied on the Senate refusing to confirm him.
Care to explain your 'thinking' on that? Because your apparent hatred for Zelensky, and the joy you showed yesterday at Trump's betrayal of Ukraine, rather makes you appear like a Putinist shill.
And therefore a shill for imperialism and fascism,.
Wanting peace and an end to the million plus death on both sides is not consistent with supporting Putin it's about stopping the pointless killing.
When would you have stopped the pointless killing of WW2? Just curious. Before or after the Red Army reached Berlin?
At the point Hitlers Nazis surrendered. One of only 2 wars I would have supported.
Unlike yourself and most PBers who supported Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and wants bloodshed at every conceivable opportunity.
Wars are generally totally pointless and cost a fortune when we claim to have no money and should be avoided in almost all circumstances.
Ukraine are literally fighting against an invading army. It is as close to a “just war” as you can find, you absolute imbecile.
Obviously, Hamas and the Palestinians should drop all their weapons immediately and get taken over by Israel.
For 'peace'.
You beat me to it.
It seems bizarre that you would dispute Ukraine's right to defend herself, but support that of the Palestinians. Certainly, I'm struggling to understand how Ukraine provoked Russia, and forced her to start the war.
Well Trump said yesterday he thought Ukraines desire to join NATO was the main cause of the invasion.
Personally I think it's because Putin has a very small Penis but provakation was a factor.
Ah, the old "Ukrainians shouldn't be allowed to decide their own future" line. Nice,
Obviously, Hamas and the Palestinians should drop all their weapons immediately and get taken over by Israel.
For 'peace'.
You beat me to it.
It seems bizarre that you would dispute Ukraine's right to defend herself, but support that of the Palestinians. Certainly, I'm struggling to understand how Ukraine provoked Russia, and forced her to start the war.
Well Trump said yesterday he thought Ukraines desire to join NATO was the main cause of the invasion.
Personally I think it's because Putin has a very small Penis but provakation was a factor.
Ah, the old "Ukrainians shouldn't be allowed to decide their own future" line. Nice,
What about the Canadians. They are actually members of NATO. No wonder that Trump is provoked by that.
And Mexico *isnt* a member of NATO. Which is also very provoking.
Fuck you and your concern, Susan Collins. You voted for this shit.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5144026-trump-ukraine-peace-talks/ ...Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who occasionally bucks Trump’s positions and is strongly aligned with Kyiv, said she is concerned about Ukraine’s fate. “This was an unprovoked, unjustified invasion. I appreciate that the president is trying to achieve peace, but we have to make sure that Ukraine does not get the short end of a deal,” she said. ..
Senior senator from Maine since 1997, which has voted Democrat for president every single election since she's been in.
Or more to the point the lack of confidence by voters in either the Labour or Conservatives economic plan is why either Reform or the LDs are projected to have the balance of power in a hung parliament
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Worth remembering as far as pensions go that when the National Assistance Act 1948 which established the modern State Pension was passed, average male life expectency was 64.8 years. It was no accident that the pension age was set at 65.
Care to explain your 'thinking' on that? Because your apparent hatred for Zelensky, and the joy you showed yesterday at Trump's betrayal of Ukraine, rather makes you appear like a Putinist shill.
And therefore a shill for imperialism and fascism,.
I think the logic is as follows:
1) Starmer is bad for dissing Jezza. 2) Starmer supports Zelensky and opposes Putin 3) therefore Zelensky is bad and Putin is good.
And the last step in BJO's decent into madness.
4) Trump sides with Putin therefore Trump is good.
Complete lunacy from a claimed socialist.
Tankies always end up siding with the authoritarian tyranny over the flawed but functioning democracy. It’s kind of their thing.
BJO and the revolutionary left/right/whatever tie themselves up in knots.
They want to undermine the status quo to achieve their revolutionary goals. Any defeat for the status quo is good news for them. So they end up with strange bedfellows like Putin. Against aggression today, but for it tomorrow, just so long as it weakens the status quo.
This not about peace, quite the opposite. I wish they were honest about it.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Or you raise the birthrate via increased child benefit, childcare and married couples tax allowance
Obviously, Hamas and the Palestinians should drop all their weapons immediately and get taken over by Israel.
For 'peace'.
You beat me to it.
It seems bizarre that you would dispute Ukraine's right to defend herself, but support that of the Palestinians. Certainly, I'm struggling to understand how Ukraine provoked Russia, and forced her to start the war.
Well Trump said yesterday he thought Ukraines desire to join NATO was the main cause of the invasion.
Personally I think it's because Putin has a very small Penis but provakation was a factor.
Ah, the old "Ukrainians shouldn't be allowed to decide their own future" line. Nice,
I'm sure BJO would love Trump to invade the UK because we're NATO members
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Or you raise the birthrate via increased child benefit, childcare and married couples tax allowance
Grow your own suckers. Takes longer and costs more. But worth considering.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Or you raise the birthrate via increased child benefit, childcare and married couples tax allowance
There’s nothing more romantic, and in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, than getting jiggly with it because of changes in marginal tax rates.
“Put on the Barry White Trevor, child benefit has gone up 30p this week. “
BJO and the revolutionary left/right/whatever tie themselves up in knots.
They want to undermine the status quo to achieve their revolutionary goals. Any defeat for the status quo is good news for them. So they end up with strange bedfellows like Putin. Against aggression today, but for it tomorrow, just so long as it weakens the status quo.
This not about peace, quite the opposite. I wish they were honest about it.
My own view is that pacifism, even when meant sincerely, is ethically bankrupt. It’s a cover for just looking the other way, when innocents suffer.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Make anyone currently under 50 work till 90 before getting a pension David, and no pensions for anyone who did not pay at least 50 years NI. Easy solution.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Or you raise the birthrate via increased child benefit, childcare and married couples tax allowance
Is it your view only married couples have children?
On topic, and I know this will be met with derision, I actually think that Labour has a reasonably good long-term economic plan, but it will take at least 10 years for it to come to fruition - on house-building, energy, new towns, etc. One of the consequences of this is that the government knows it will be unpopular in the short term but the prize will be worth it. For example, the NI increase was bound to go down like a bucket of sick, but the judgement is that it's worth it for longer-term plans. The interesting question is whether enough progress will have been made by GE 29 to reassure voters that the plan is working. Maybe, maybe not.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Worth remembering as far as pensions go that when the National Assistance Act 1948 which established the modern State Pension was passed, average male life expectency was 64.8 years. It was no accident that the pension age was set at 65.
Bismarck has entered the chat.
The state pension is effectively an asset worth £250k per person.
BJO and the revolutionary left/right/whatever tie themselves up in knots.
They want to undermine the status quo to achieve their revolutionary goals. Any defeat for the status quo is good news for them. So they end up with strange bedfellows like Putin. Against aggression today, but for it tomorrow, just so long as it weakens the status quo.
This not about peace, quite the opposite. I wish they were honest about it.
My own view is that pacifism, even when meant sincerely, is ethically bankrupt. It’s a cover for just looking the other way, when innocents suffer.
It’s a mixed bag. There are definitely halo polishers out there, but at the same time there are people who sincerely believe in “Thou shall not kill” who deserve respect. It’s hypocritical to ask others to plunge the knife when you wouldn’t.
The ones I have the problem with are those that talk peace to further their unpeaceful political aims.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Or you raise the birthrate via increased child benefit, childcare and married couples tax allowance
Is it your view only married couples have children?
According to a study by the University of Manchester:
"In 2021, more babies – 51% – were born to unmarried mothers in England and Wales than to those in a marriage or civil partnership for the first time since records began in 1845."
So born outside wedlock is the majority status for new babies these days.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Make anyone currently under 50 work till 90 before getting a pension David, and no pensions for anyone who did not pay at least 50 years NI. Easy solution.
God knows what the WASPI women would make of that.
"How were we supposed to know that electing governments promising us benefits well beyond our actual contributions wouldn't end well?"
CEO of the Ford Motor Company warns Mr Chump about the damage tariffs will do to them:
The CEO of the Ford Motor Company has warned that President Donald Trump’s tariffs threaten to “blow a hole” in the U.S. auto manufacturing industry.
Jim Farley spoke out this week about the 25 percent across-the-board trade tariffs looming for Mexican and Canadian imports to the U.S., including for steel and aluminum, and warned that it could trigger major job losses in Trump-voting states.
Canada is the biggest source of U.S. imported steel, which is key to the American auto industry, and the tariffs importers like Ford will have to pay will significantly hurt American consumer prices and competition with foreign vehicles.
Obviously, Hamas and the Palestinians should drop all their weapons immediately and get taken over by Israel.
For 'peace'.
You beat me to it.
It seems bizarre that you would dispute Ukraine's right to defend herself, but support that of the Palestinians. Certainly, I'm struggling to understand how Ukraine provoked Russia, and forced her to start the war.
Well Trump said yesterday he thought Ukraines desire to join NATO was the main cause of the invasion.
Personally I think it's because Putin has a very small Penis but provakation was a factor.
Ah, the old "Ukrainians shouldn't be allowed to decide their own future" line. Nice,
What about the Canadians. They are actually members of NATO. No wonder that Trump is provoked by that.
And Mexico *isnt* a member of NATO. Which is also very provoking.
I am very provoked about France in NATO….
And Ireland isn't a proper country, was British for centuries, they all speak English. And is now a member of the EU - an organisation that is Britain's enemy and has Britain pretty much surrounded. Also Ireland hosted terrorists who attacked Britain for decades, Sinn Fein is the second biggest party in the Irish parliament. I assume @bigjohnowls will be a strong supporter of PM Tommy Robinson 'de-nazifying' Ireland with a bloody invasion.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
I think we probably need a new 'old age working' framework. My thinking is: - Our society becomes more sustainable if we reduce the proportion of people's lives that they are living off savings or the tax or others - Many people 67+ are capable of continuing to work, but may find it increasingly difficult to manage full time or at the intensity of 20 years prior - We don't necessarily want (as a society) lots of younger people switching to part time hours unless necessary (childcare etc, better than not working)
So how about a new 'right-to-reduced-hours' aimed specifically at people ages [67] to [75]? Combined with a much reduced or means tested (for people unable to work) pension over that period.
On topic, and I know this will be met with derision, I actually think that Labour has a reasonably good long-term economic plan, but it will take at least 10 years for it to come to fruition - on house-building, energy, new towns, etc. One of the consequences of this is that the government knows it will be unpopular in the short term but the prize will be worth it. For example, the NI increase was bound to go down like a bucket of sick, but the judgement is that it's worth it for longer-term plans. The interesting question is whether enough progress will have been made by GE 29 to reassure voters that the plan is working. Maybe, maybe not.
I pretty much agree.
But how will they win the intermediate election?
At present they are trying to play on the foreign wicket, and you can't out-Farage Farage. He can just generate the next, larger, item of BS.
Drax falsifying the figures again. Reported a few days ago. We since ageeed another multiyear "green' subsidy deal.
When we build sufficient replacement capacity it, we should scrap it.
Key power station didn't properly disclose burning forest wood https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxnpzzjed1o A UK power station that has received billions of pounds in government subsidies has failed more than once to report it burned wood from primary forests, BBC News has found. Drax Power Station, which burns wood pellets, is required to report where it sources its wood and whether it is from natural, previously untouched forests. The company paid a £25m penalty last year for misreporting this data following an investigation by the energy regulator Ofgem and now the BBC has discovered a further year of misreporting that has not been looked at by the regulator. The company did not deny misreporting its sustainability data but said it is "focused on implementing the lessons learned"...
On topic, and I know this will be met with derision, I actually think that Labour has a reasonably good long-term economic plan, but it will take at least 10 years for it to come to fruition - on house-building, energy, new towns, etc. One of the consequences of this is that the government knows it will be unpopular in the short term but the prize will be worth it. For example, the NI increase was bound to go down like a bucket of sick, but the judgement is that it's worth it for longer-term plans. The interesting question is whether enough progress will have been made by GE 29 to reassure voters that the plan is working. Maybe, maybe not.
It is impossible to predict anything, not least since Trump has thrown a grenade into the world order with the most unpredictable consequences for most everyone on this planet, and certainly if we see a US - Russia alliance
The more dangerous period for Labour is the next 18 months or so with loses in local elections, possible by elections, and then losing Wales and the SNP dominant in Scotland once again
Both labour and the conservatives are looking at long term decline and I am not sure how either can do anything about it
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Or you raise the birthrate via increased child benefit, childcare and married couples tax allowance
That would all be sensible. But we still need to either keep increasing the state pension age or substantially increase taxes.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Or you raise the birthrate via increased child benefit, childcare and married couples tax allowance
Is it your view only married couples have children?
Yeah, forget the 'married' bit, but a transferable allowance between partners with children (or, indeed, just increased tax allowances for children) would help.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Worth remembering as far as pensions go that when the National Assistance Act 1948 which established the modern State Pension was passed, average male life expectency was 64.8 years. It was no accident that the pension age was set at 65.
Bismarck has entered the chat.
The state pension is effectively an asset worth £250k per person.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Or you raise the birthrate via increased child benefit, childcare and married couples tax allowance
Is it your view only married couples have children?
According to a study by the University of Manchester:
"In 2021, more babies – 51% – were born to unmarried mothers in England and Wales than to those in a marriage or civil partnership for the first time since records began in 1845."
So born outside wedlock is the majority status for new babies these days.
Though quite a few of those will get married after the child is born, which actually makes a lot of sense.
On topic, and I know this will be met with derision, I actually think that Labour has a reasonably good long-term economic plan, but it will take at least 10 years for it to come to fruition - on house-building, energy, new towns, etc. One of the consequences of this is that the government knows it will be unpopular in the short term but the prize will be worth it. For example, the NI increase was bound to go down like a bucket of sick, but the judgement is that it's worth it for longer-term plans. The interesting question is whether enough progress will have been made by GE 29 to reassure voters that the plan is working. Maybe, maybe not.
It is impossible to predict anything, not least since Trump has thrown a grenade into the world order with the most unpredictable consequences for most everyone on this planet, and certainly if we see a US - Russia alliance
The more dangerous period for Labour is the next 18 months or so with loses in local elections, possible by elections, and then losing Wales and the SNP dominant in Scotland once again
Both labour and the conservatives are looking at long term decline and I am not sure how either can do anything about it
The SNP are also projected to lose MSPs next year, the biggest gainers in Scotland and Wales Reform too on current Holyrood and Senedd polls
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Or you raise the birthrate via increased child benefit, childcare and married couples tax allowance
Is it your view only married couples have children?
The simple one for that is that if two people are the legal parents of a child, then they can transfer their tax allowances.
Obviously, Hamas and the Palestinians should drop all their weapons immediately and get taken over by Israel.
For 'peace'.
You beat me to it.
It seems bizarre that you would dispute Ukraine's right to defend herself, but support that of the Palestinians. Certainly, I'm struggling to understand how Ukraine provoked Russia, and forced her to start the war.
Well Trump said yesterday he thought Ukraines desire to join NATO was the main cause of the invasion.
Personally I think it's because Putin has a very small Penis but provakation was a factor.
Ah, the old "Ukrainians shouldn't be allowed to decide their own future" line. Nice,
What about the Canadians. They are actually members of NATO. No wonder that Trump is provoked by that.
And Mexico *isnt* a member of NATO. Which is also very provoking.
I am very provoked about France in NATO….
And Ireland isn't a proper country, was British for centuries, they all speak English. And is now a member of the EU - an organisation that is Britain's enemy and has Britain pretty much surrounded. Also Ireland hosted terrorists who attacked Britain for decades, Sinn Fein is the second biggest party in the Irish parliament. I assume @bigjohnowls will be a strong supporter of PM Tommy Robinson 'de-nazifying' Ireland with a bloody invasion.
Obviously, Hamas and the Palestinians should drop all their weapons immediately and get taken over by Israel.
For 'peace'.
You beat me to it.
It seems bizarre that you would dispute Ukraine's right to defend herself, but support that of the Palestinians. Certainly, I'm struggling to understand how Ukraine provoked Russia, and forced her to start the war.
Well Trump said yesterday he thought Ukraines desire to join NATO was the main cause of the invasion.
Personally I think it's because Putin has a very small Penis but provakation was a factor.
Ah, the old "Ukrainians shouldn't be allowed to decide their own future" line. Nice,
What about the Canadians. They are actually members of NATO. No wonder that Trump is provoked by that.
And Mexico *isnt* a member of NATO. Which is also very provoking.
I am very provoked about France in NATO….
And Ireland isn't a proper country, was British for centuries, they all speak English. And is now a member of the EU - an organisation that is Britain's enemy and has Britain pretty much surrounded. Also Ireland hosted terrorists who attacked Britain for decades, Sinn Fein is the second biggest party in the Irish parliament. I assume @bigjohnowls will be a strong supporter of PM Tommy Robinson 'de-nazifying' Ireland with a bloody invasion.
Drax falsifying the figures again. Reported a few days ago. We since ageeed another multiyear "green' subsidy deal.
When we build sufficient replacement capacity it, we should scrap it.
Key power station didn't properly disclose burning forest wood https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxnpzzjed1o A UK power station that has received billions of pounds in government subsidies has failed more than once to report it burned wood from primary forests, BBC News has found. Drax Power Station, which burns wood pellets, is required to report where it sources its wood and whether it is from natural, previously untouched forests. The company paid a £25m penalty last year for misreporting this data following an investigation by the energy regulator Ofgem and now the BBC has discovered a further year of misreporting that has not been looked at by the regulator. The company did not deny misreporting its sustainability data but said it is "focused on implementing the lessons learned"...
We should indeed. Drax's environmental credentials are highly questionable, even when not burning ancient forests.
It would be painful locally though, Drax are a good employer, with high wages in skilled jobs (including via apprenticeships).
Care to explain your 'thinking' on that? Because your apparent hatred for Zelensky, and the joy you showed yesterday at Trump's betrayal of Ukraine, rather makes you appear like a Putinist shill.
And therefore a shill for imperialism and fascism,.
I think the logic is as follows:
1) Starmer is bad for dissing Jezza. 2) Starmer supports Zelensky and opposes Putin 3) therefore Zelensky is bad and Putin is good.
And the last step in BJO's decent into madness.
4) Trump sides with Putin therefore Trump is good.
Complete lunacy from a claimed socialist.
I must say though that I didn’t foresee the BJO-Leon Pact.
I’ve barely commented on Putin/Ukraine/Trump
Merely noted that it is likely ending as I predicted. In a sad Korean style armistice
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Or you raise the birthrate via increased child benefit, childcare and married couples tax allowance
Is it your view only married couples have children?
According to a study by the University of Manchester:
"In 2021, more babies – 51% – were born to unmarried mothers in England and Wales than to those in a marriage or civil partnership for the first time since records began in 1845."
So born outside wedlock is the majority status for new babies these days.
Of course you can get married after having a child too as some do in our Essex churches.
All the evidence is having married parents is best for raising children
BJO and the revolutionary left/right/whatever tie themselves up in knots.
They want to undermine the status quo to achieve their revolutionary goals. Any defeat for the status quo is good news for them. So they end up with strange bedfellows like Putin. Against aggression today, but for it tomorrow, just so long as it weakens the status quo.
This not about peace, quite the opposite. I wish they were honest about it.
My own view is that pacifism, even when meant sincerely, is ethically bankrupt. It’s a cover for just looking the other way, when innocents suffer.
Tell that to Jesus.
There is a very long tradition of ethical pacifism, with as many dilemmas and problems as just war theory (which seems to find cause very readily).
But BJO is no pacifist. He takes sides, rather than oppose all violence.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Worth remembering as far as pensions go that when the National Assistance Act 1948 which established the modern State Pension was passed, average male life expectency was 64.8 years. It was no accident that the pension age was set at 65.
It's also worth remembering that employers are reluctant to employ applicants over the age of 50 or so. Once an older person loses a job, it's much more likely they will for all practical purposes be viewed as unemployable. So it may boil down to a choice between paying benefits as pension or as unemployment.
The US is now keen to disincentivize electric vehicles:
If this was genuinely about a concern about vehicle weight, they could actually, you know, charge according to vehicle weight.
The collapsing state of US infra is down to various things - one because they don't believe in investing, like here but a lot worse.
Another is that they don't do resource efficiency - so they will throw hundreds of millions or billions at nothingburger schemes to build more roads or an extra lane rather than sort out their network or provide alternatives, and demolish swathes of everything to create space. Said space which will be full before they know it. "Just one more lane" has been known as a self-defeating waste of resources for nearly a century.
It's like the Trump "drill baby drill" strategy - they go for "cheap energy", but they use 2-3x as much of it as they really need.
On the vehicle weight - they could just make them about 1/3 to 1/2 lighter, but no thought or interest.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Or you raise the birthrate via increased child benefit, childcare and married couples tax allowance
That would all be sensible. But we still need to either keep increasing the state pension age or substantially increase taxes.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Or you raise the birthrate via increased child benefit, childcare and married couples tax allowance
Is it your view only married couples have children?
Yeah, forget the 'married' bit, but a transferable allowance between partners with children (or, indeed, just increased tax allowances for children) would help.
Life expectancy has stalled though or even declined after Covid
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Worth remembering as far as pensions go that when the National Assistance Act 1948 which established the modern State Pension was passed, average male life expectency was 64.8 years. It was no accident that the pension age was set at 65.
Bismarck has entered the chat.
The state pension is effectively an asset worth £250k per person.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth does not rule out providing nuclear weapons to Ukraine, but such a decision will ultimately depend on U.S. President Donald Trump, he said in an interview with Breitbart News. https://x.com/Hromadske/status/1890332656002351223
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
There is an obvious answer to the state pension crisis that does not involve ever more immigrants or even home-produced babies.
End the Ponzi scheme and actually invest NI payments, just like private pensions, and pay state pensions from this fund. There'd be a long period where existing pensions have to be paid out of current spending but the proportion would decline each year.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Or you raise the birthrate via increased child benefit, childcare and married couples tax allowance
Is it your view only married couples have children?
According to a study by the University of Manchester:
"In 2021, more babies – 51% – were born to unmarried mothers in England and Wales than to those in a marriage or civil partnership for the first time since records began in 1845."
So born outside wedlock is the majority status for new babies these days.
Of course you can get married after having a child too as some do in our Essex churches.
All the evidence is having married parents is best for raising children
Probably essential in Essex that you can get married after having a baby - I imagine sometimes it’s even to the father.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Or you raise the birthrate via increased child benefit, childcare and married couples tax allowance
Is it your view only married couples have children?
According to a study by the University of Manchester:
"In 2021, more babies – 51% – were born to unmarried mothers in England and Wales than to those in a marriage or civil partnership for the first time since records began in 1845."
So born outside wedlock is the majority status for new babies these days.
Of course you can get married after having a child too as some do in our Essex churches.
All the evidence is having married parents is best for raising children
The key is a loving relationship devoted to the children irrespective of marital status
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Worth remembering as far as pensions go that when the National Assistance Act 1948 which established the modern State Pension was passed, average male life expectency was 64.8 years. It was no accident that the pension age was set at 65.
Though what was the actuarial life expectancy at age 65? Mean life expectancy is heavily impacted by deaths at a young age.
That said, my dad did take early retirement on a company final salary scheme at the age of 54*, and has his 90th birthday this year. My folks did very well out of the house prices boom since the Seventies too.
To be fair, I haven't heard them complain about losing their WFP, but it's all clearly unsustainable.
* he did set up his own business after that for another 15 years or so, and still trades on eBay too.
People squeezing food to test its freshness ought to be a capital offence, or at least frowned upon. It leaves bruised fruit and dented baked goods, as in this Japanese lady's case, and I am not wholly convinced everyone washes their hands first.
What is especially stupid is that with sliced bread, they are testing not freshness but how tightly it is packed, and that with fruit, removal of best before dates is to blame. (Often labels do have lightly coded dates on them btw.)
The judges in this country are a bloody joke, so out of touch with reality.
Jones Day pulled up on 'excessive' £1,089/hour rates
A judge has queried the rates charged by Jones Day, calling them “excessive”.
The US firm’s London office was acting for the owner of a block of student flats in a dispute with the project’s builders, supplier, developer, architect and installer over alleged fire safety deficiencies in its construction.
Jones Day was squaring off against each of the six defendants’ firms: RPC, Keoghs, Walker Morris, Eversheds Sutherland, and Howes Percival - but has trounced them with ease on the billing front.
At a costs management hearing in January, Mr Justice Constable noted that the costs sought by Jones Day came to £11m while the overall amount sought for remediation of the building was £30m.
But, he said, “it is not helpful in an over generalised way to take broad comparisons with other cases between the amount at stake and the overall costs”.
However, he continued, the fact that Jones Day’s costs almost exceeded the costs of all the other firms put together “is a preliminary indicator that the costs claimed by the Claimants may potentially be disproportionate and/or unreasonable”.
He noted that Jones Day was charging £1,089 an hour for its Grade A solicitors, which was “substantially in excess of the guideline rates” for Band 1 London of £566.
The uplift was also present when it came to the firm's Grade B fee-earners (£450 against a guideline of £385), its Grade Cs (£421 and £446 against £299), and its trainee and paralegals (£248 against £205).
The judge said “the only justification” advanced for the rates “is that the other Defendants have claimed in excess of the guideline rates. But that is no justification”.
I read the article, and either Varoufakis is confused or I am (very likely as I am not an economist) about the value of the dollar and Trump's masterplan. He mostly seems to be arguing that Trump rightly thinks the dollar is overvalued and his plan will lower it. But in the middle he says:
This is what his critics do not understand. They mistakenly think that he thinks that his tariffs will reduce America’s trade deficit on their own. He knows they will not. Their utility comes from their capacity to shock foreign central bankers into reducing domestic interest rates. Consequently, the euro, the yen and the renminbi will soften relative to the dollar. This will cancel out the price hikes of goods imported into the US, and leave the prices American consumers pay unaffected. The tariffed countries will be in effect paying for Trump’s tariffs.
Have we noted that today is the 50th anniversary of the death of P G Wodehouse? A day to drag out the old but ever truer quote from Evelyn Waugh:
Mr. Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in.
Care to explain your 'thinking' on that? Because your apparent hatred for Zelensky, and the joy you showed yesterday at Trump's betrayal of Ukraine, rather makes you appear like a Putinist shill.
And therefore a shill for imperialism and fascism,.
I think the logic is as follows:
1) Starmer is bad for dissing Jezza. 2) Starmer supports Zelensky and opposes Putin 3) therefore Zelensky is bad and Putin is good.
And the last step in BJO's decent into madness.
4) Trump sides with Putin therefore Trump is good.
Complete lunacy from a claimed socialist.
I must say though that I didn’t foresee the BJO-Leon Pact.
I’ve barely commented on Putin/Ukraine/Trump
Merely noted that it is likely ending as I predicted. In a sad Korean style armistice
I imagine putting a polish on the turd of the Trumpian sell out of Ukraine might defeat even your rhetorical dexterity.
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Worth remembering as far as pensions go that when the National Assistance Act 1948 which established the modern State Pension was passed, average male life expectency was 64.8 years. It was no accident that the pension age was set at 65.
Bismarck has entered the chat.
The state pension is effectively an asset worth £250k per person.
Or effectively, a liability of £250k per person.
Yes.
But as a society we would not choose to have people starving in the streets or without health coverage or social care. So we have made a political choice to accept a liability - the pension is merely a cheaper way of funding it (prevention not treatment)
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Worth remembering as far as pensions go that when the National Assistance Act 1948 which established the modern State Pension was passed, average male life expectency was 64.8 years. It was no accident that the pension age was set at 65.
It's also worth remembering that employers are reluctant to employ applicants over the age of 50 or so. Once an older person loses a job, it's much more likely they will for all practical purposes be viewed as unemployable. So it may boil down to a choice between paying benefits as pension or as unemployment.
Good morning, everybody.
We treat age as far too decisive, since it varies so much between individuals. This gloomy thread partly overlooks the improvements in health over time, to the point that the average 65-year-old is perfectly capable of working longer. I got another job without too much trouble after losing my seat at age 60, and have only just more or less definitely retired at 75. Certainly maintaining pensions at 65 (or even younger) makes little sense in general - rather, we should encourage people to look at their own individual conditions, with an incentive to carry on working to age 70 or so if there's little physical reason not to.
The big question for Tories flirting with Trumpian chaos and pacts with Reform, is whether they fundamentally believe in the system they (largely) created or not.
Free Trade Rule of Law and fair contracts Separation of power/ limited executive International institutions and law
Or are they revolutionaries and if they are, what do they want instead.
Closed borders and Tariffs Corruption Powerful executive above the law Big state power
I think we should not be too parochial about this. Pretty much the whole western world is suffering from low growth right now, it is not just our inept politicians that are struggling for the answers.
The reasons for this are complicated but clearly the overwhelming debt arising from long periods of overspending is catching up with us. We are struggling to keep demand up. We can't afford to invest for our own future, we are dependent upon the generosity of others. In addition we face a lot of challenges like a need to do something radical about our defence systems and a public sector, as we were discussing last night, that absorbs ever more funds with no additional results.
This is not just happening here. The particular problems may vary from country to country but the overall gloom is the same. I fear that our economic model, based on ever greater boosts of public spending funded by debt to get short term demand in the hope that that sparks wider growth may have run out of road.
Indeed. And we’ve also run out of road in terms of mass immigration- which has been our “go-to” for two decades
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Mass immigration is another, largely futile attempt to keep the Ponzi scheme going. When old age pensions were introduced most recipients would live a relatively brief time, certainly in comparison with their working history. That is no longer true.
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Worth remembering as far as pensions go that when the National Assistance Act 1948 which established the modern State Pension was passed, average male life expectency was 64.8 years. It was no accident that the pension age was set at 65.
Bismarck has entered the chat.
The state pension is effectively an asset worth £250k per person.
Or effectively, a liability of £250k per person.
It would be good if people could be informed of how much tax they had paid during their lives compared with how much benefits and pensions they had received.
It might reduce some of the 'I paid my stamp' whining of people who clearly paid in less than they received.
Comments
"for Trump, the agreement is not the thing. An agreement is there to be opportunistically repudiated, and not to be performed. An agreement offers an opportunity to gain leverage, for a new negotiation. for a new exertion of power."
https://davidallengreen.com/2025/02/why-donald-trump-is-not-really-transactional-but-anti-transactional/
Remember Mexico and Canada "taking advantage" of the US in the new NAFTA agreement - the agreement he just annulled with tarrifs - THAT IS TRUMPS OWN DEAL.... HE NEGOTIATED THAT.
If Starmer thinks he can somehow control or anticipate Trump.... well, that seems like a very very dangerous idea to me. If Trump sees britain benefitting from interaction with the US he will rip up any agreements....
Experience shows that the worst thing you can be is a close ally of the us - canada, mexico, denmark.... very very close friends of the us get savaged. They get the stick. To be treated right by Trump you need to be non-aligned and prefereable with a strongman in charge. Trump is like a diplomatic wife beater.... slaps you and tells you it will never happen again until it does.... he only respects other wife beaters.
Tenuous but Trump has certain predilections and perhaps wishes to be recognized as a 'righteous person' (tzaddik) and buried in Jerusalem with the same pomp as Robert Maxwell.
4) Trump sides with Putin therefore Trump is good.
Complete lunacy from a claimed socialist.
It's hard to keep up.
Edit: Likewise the Canadians and Greenlanders if Trump should follow though with his menaces.
(Said Russian shills.)
I am consistent I want the killing to stop in Ukraine and the middle East.
How can you think that is inconsistent?
Public won’t take any more. Britain is mutinous
Personally I think it's because Putin has a very small Penis but provakation was a factor.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/13/world/video/trump-nato-ukraine-russia-war-ac360-paton-walsh-digvid
But why are you so eager to sacrifice the common working folk of Eastern Ukraine to abuse, rape and pillage under a dictatorial regime?
I tried the line “the Palestinians can’t beat the Israelis - they should give up land for peace.”
For pacifists they seem quite aggressive
Putin and his henchmen are far more likely to threaten to trash Chernobyl if it gives them some leverage in future "peace" talks.
The PA announcer asked everyone to respect the anthems.
It went quiet for a moment and some dude yelled "F**k that!" and the rink proceeded to boo the American anthem.
https://x.com/Hockey_Robinson/status/1890209141240787398
Astonishing local result in Torfaen for Reform
If this continues for another 12 months Labour is looking at extinction in Wales
But what on earth would a Reform Welsh government represent ?
https://x.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1890189234428133851?t=jELbCkB2bmuYRLZNXrK1uw&s=19
My recently departed mother in law worked at a modest level until her late 50s when she retired because her husband had already retired at 55. She lived to 89. Given the breaks when raising her children she received pension for nearly as long as she worked. Her husband left school at 14 and started work. He retired 41 years later as an electrical and mechanical engineer and then lived another 26 years before dying of Alzheimer's.
Neither of these is even remotely sustainable unless you import a lot more young worker (or marks I believe they are called) to buy into the scheme. Many in the UK may not like the other consequences of mass immigration but they may not like the alternatives either.
Harris should have offered him a deal, the 2 percent of voters he brought to Trump would have won her the election. Then relied on the Senate refusing to confirm him.
GRN: 34.9% (+22.1)
REF: 21.8% (+21.8)
LAB: 19.4% (-24.7)
CON: 18.6% (-15.7)
LDEM: 5.3% (-3.5)
+/- 2023
And Mexico *isnt* a member of NATO. Which is also very provoking.
I am very provoked about France in NATO….
They want to undermine the status quo to achieve their revolutionary goals. Any defeat for the status quo is good news for them. So they end up with strange bedfellows like Putin. Against aggression today, but for it tomorrow, just so long as it weakens the status quo.
This not about peace, quite the opposite. I wish they were honest about it.
“Put on the Barry White Trevor, child benefit has gone up 30p this week. “
The interesting question is whether enough progress will have been made by GE 29 to reassure voters that the plan is working. Maybe, maybe not.
The state pension is effectively an asset worth £250k per person.
The ones I have the problem with are those that talk peace to further their unpeaceful political aims.
"In 2021, more babies – 51% – were born to unmarried mothers in England and Wales than to those in a marriage or civil partnership for the first time since records began in 1845."
So born outside wedlock is the majority status for new babies these days.
"How were we supposed to know that electing governments promising us benefits well beyond our actual contributions wouldn't end well?"
The CEO of the Ford Motor Company has warned that President Donald Trump’s tariffs threaten to “blow a hole” in the U.S. auto manufacturing industry.
Jim Farley spoke out this week about the 25 percent across-the-board trade tariffs looming for Mexican and Canadian imports to the U.S., including for steel and aluminum, and warned that it could trigger major job losses in Trump-voting states.
Canada is the biggest source of U.S. imported steel, which is key to the American auto industry, and the tariffs importers like Ford will have to pay will significantly hurt American consumer prices and competition with foreign vehicles.
“Let’s be real honest: Long term, a 25 percent tariff across the Mexico and Canada borders would blow a hole in the U.S. industry that we’ve never seen,” Farley warned at a conference in New York on Tuesday.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-tariffs-us-auto-industry-b2698003.html
- Our society becomes more sustainable if we reduce the proportion of people's lives that they are living off savings or the tax or others
- Many people 67+ are capable of continuing to work, but may find it increasingly difficult to manage full time or at the intensity of 20 years prior
- We don't necessarily want (as a society) lots of younger people switching to part time hours unless necessary (childcare etc, better than not working)
So how about a new 'right-to-reduced-hours' aimed specifically at people ages [67] to [75]? Combined with a much reduced or means tested (for people unable to work) pension over that period.
I'm sure it's a vote winner...
But how will they win the intermediate election?
At present they are trying to play on the foreign wicket, and you can't out-Farage Farage. He can just generate the next, larger, item of BS.
Reported a few days ago.
We since ageeed another multiyear "green' subsidy deal.
When we build sufficient replacement capacity it, we should scrap it.
Key power station didn't properly disclose burning forest wood
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxnpzzjed1o
A UK power station that has received billions of pounds in government subsidies has failed more than once to report it burned wood from primary forests, BBC News has found.
Drax Power Station, which burns wood pellets, is required to report where it sources its wood and whether it is from natural, previously untouched forests.
The company paid a £25m penalty last year for misreporting this data following an investigation by the energy regulator Ofgem and now the BBC has discovered a further year of misreporting that has not been looked at by the regulator.
The company did not deny misreporting its sustainability data but said it is "focused on implementing the lessons learned"...
The more dangerous period for Labour is the next 18 months or so with loses in local elections, possible by elections, and then losing Wales and the SNP dominant in Scotland once again
Both labour and the conservatives are looking at long term decline and I am not sure how either can do anything about it
lose MSPs next year, the
biggest gainers in Scotland
and Wales Reform too on current Holyrood and Senedd
polls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvP6fhxyNHs
You probably knew this but it was new to me.
Looking at the crowd, Wembley looked more full than I expected for armoured egg chasing, more than 86,000 apparently.
https://ministryofsport.com/nfl-sets-record-at-wembley-boosting-global-expansion-in-2024/
That is a higher attendance than the Superbowl for more than a decade.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1362951/super-bowl-attendance/
Japanese woman arrested for squashing bun in shop.
Nor is it a euphemism. Sadly.
We may be out of the EU but it is not an enemy
We are Making U.K. Great Again
It would be painful locally though, Drax are a good employer, with high wages in skilled jobs (including via apprenticeships).
Merely noted that it is likely ending as I predicted. In a sad Korean style armistice
All the evidence is having married parents is best for raising children
There is a very long tradition of ethical pacifism, with as many dilemmas and problems as just war theory (which seems to find cause very readily).
But BJO is no pacifist. He takes sides, rather than oppose all violence.
Good morning, everybody.
Another is that they don't do resource efficiency - so they will throw hundreds of millions or billions at nothingburger schemes to build more roads or an extra lane rather than sort out their network or provide alternatives, and demolish swathes of everything to create space. Said space which will be full before they know it. "Just one more lane" has been known as a self-defeating waste of resources for nearly a century.
It's like the Trump "drill baby drill" strategy - they go for "cheap energy", but they use 2-3x as much of it as they really need.
On the vehicle weight - they could just make them about 1/3 to 1/2 lighter, but no thought or interest.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth does not rule out providing nuclear weapons to Ukraine, but such a decision will ultimately depend on U.S. President Donald Trump, he said in an interview with Breitbart News.
https://x.com/Hromadske/status/1890332656002351223
End the Ponzi scheme and actually invest NI payments, just like private pensions, and pay state pensions from this fund. There'd be a long period where existing pensions have to be paid out of current spending but the proportion would decline each year.
Sorry H, a mean dig at Essex.
That said, my dad did take early retirement on a company final salary scheme at the age of 54*, and has his 90th birthday this year. My folks did very well out of the house prices boom since the Seventies too.
To be fair, I haven't heard them complain about losing their WFP, but it's all clearly unsustainable.
* he did set up his own business after that for another 15 years or so, and still trades on eBay too.
What is especially stupid is that with sliced bread, they are testing not freshness but how tightly it is packed, and that with fruit, removal of best before dates is to blame. (Often labels do have lightly coded dates on them btw.)
I expect tactical voting in Wales between Reform and Conservative voters to keep Labour out of government in Wales
And Labour lost 49% of their own vote
Jones Day pulled up on 'excessive' £1,089/hour rates
A judge has queried the rates charged by Jones Day, calling them “excessive”.
The US firm’s London office was acting for the owner of a block of student flats in a dispute with the project’s builders, supplier, developer, architect and installer over alleged fire safety deficiencies in its construction.
Jones Day was squaring off against each of the six defendants’ firms: RPC, Keoghs, Walker Morris, Eversheds Sutherland, and Howes Percival - but has trounced them with ease on the billing front.
At a costs management hearing in January, Mr Justice Constable noted that the costs sought by Jones Day came to £11m while the overall amount sought for remediation of the building was £30m.
But, he said, “it is not helpful in an over generalised way to take broad comparisons with other cases between the amount at stake and the overall costs”.
However, he continued, the fact that Jones Day’s costs almost exceeded the costs of all the other firms put together “is a preliminary indicator that the costs claimed by the Claimants may potentially be disproportionate and/or unreasonable”.
He noted that Jones Day was charging £1,089 an hour for its Grade A solicitors, which was “substantially in excess of the guideline rates” for Band 1 London of £566.
The uplift was also present when it came to the firm's Grade B fee-earners (£450 against a guideline of £385), its Grade Cs (£421 and £446 against £299), and its trainee and paralegals (£248 against £205).
The judge said “the only justification” advanced for the rates “is that the other Defendants have claimed in excess of the guideline rates. But that is no justification”.
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/jones-day-pulled-excessive-ps1089hour-rates
Mr. Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in.
But as a society we would not choose to have people starving in the streets or without health coverage or social care. So we have made a political choice to accept a liability - the pension is merely a cheaper way of funding it (prevention not treatment)
Free Trade
Rule of Law and fair contracts
Separation of power/ limited executive
International institutions and law
Or are they revolutionaries and if they are, what do they want instead.
Closed borders and Tariffs
Corruption
Powerful executive above the law
Big state power
Is that it? You can’t have both.
It might reduce some of the 'I paid my stamp' whining of people who clearly paid in less than they received.