Sky News getting excited about the idea of a wealth tax.
"What is a wealth tax, how would it work in the UK and where else has one? The idea of a wealth tax has been raised before in the UK but has never been implemented."
IMO it's a fairly naive, silly article from Sky (as you say, "excited") - afaics they only focus on the "2% above £10m worth" option. Our moronic media will go up the gum tree as they always do, yammering on about extreme options - exactly as the "Labour will tax you until your pips squeak" bollocks we had from the papers and the opposition politicians in the run up to the election.
At least Sky mention the Swiss option which is at much lower levels and is applied more widely and less regressively, and which afaik is about the only one that works in raising a decent amount of money.
Labour would be better saying "nothing like this in the current term - Kemi and Nigel are a couple of BS merchants", and close all the other loopholes of which lists have been published.
Then pivot Council Tax to a % of property value, or at least with no upper bands and make it linear, which is a type of wealth tax on our most featherbedded type of wealth. That would then begin to slay the house price inflation demon and make property more affordable, a superb contrast to the morally-bankrupt Conservative never-ending feeding of the demand side with subsidies, which makes the house price inflation worse.
Pivoting council tax to property value is going to drive renters out of better area's. Who renting is going to pay a council tax based on property value in london
It's a local tax not national, you don't pay 10x the council tax for a studio flat in London as you would for a 2up2down terrace in Grimsby.
I think you have said this before as I think I replied then. It doesn't make sense keeping in local because then it it not a wealth tax and the ability the pay the top band is going to be a lot different to a place will top band is 300k upwards and a place when the top band starts at 2 mill
Those are 2 different things, council tax to pay for local council services and wealth tax based on asset value. Renters wouldn't pay a wealth tax based on the value of the property they are renting because they don't own it, do they. Whether renters should pay for local council services rather than the property owner is an argument that was lost in the late 80s/early 90s.
Don't be naive, if my landlord has to pay 10k property tax it will added to rent just like mortgage rate rises
It's a bit more complex than that, surely.
For a start: there are plenty of properties which are already bumping up against the maximums for housing benefit.
Sending back in the region of 6% of arrivals doesn't strike me as likely to have much more of a deterant effect than the handful who actually made it to Rwanda.
I suppose if our government was halfway canny it could make it the first 50 to arrive this week, no exceptions, which would at least turn it all into a game of "beggar thy neighbour" between the various gangs not to be the ones to send the first boat... Although presumably a few weeks later the gangs would be paying bunches of likely lads to go on a boat trip for their 10th deportation in as many weeks, and leave the way clear for the rest of them...
There is absolutely no way the American government would allow this in reverse.
If you've ever wondered why Britain has fallen behind America and China in the tech world, this shows why. No investment in homegrown facilities or talent, over decades.
This is stupid on national security grounds, and equally stupid on development grounds.
The Ministers involved are simply corrupt, and this is a meal ticket for them. No more, no less.
No, this goes back to Mrs Thatcher at least. There is a childlike innocence to our belief in free market capitalism that blinds us to others having their thumbs on the scale.
There is absolutely no way the American government would allow this in reverse.
If you've ever wondered why Britain has fallen behind America and China in the tech world, this shows why. No investment in homegrown facilities or talent, over decades.
This is stupid on national security grounds, and equally stupid on development grounds.
I am very shocked about the data aspect, even local government is told not to do that.
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
Sending back in the region of 6% of arrivals doesn't strike me as likely to have much more of a deterant effect than the handful who actually made it to Rwanda.
I suppose if our government was halfway canny it could make it the first 50 to arrive this week, no exceptions, which would at least turn it all into a game of "beggar thy neighbour" between the various gangs not to be the ones to send the first boat... Although presumably a few weeks later the gangs would be paying bunches of likely lads to go on a boat trip for their 10th deportation in as many weeks, and leave the way clear for the rest of them...
'I suppose if our government was halfway canny it could make it the first 50 to arrive this week, no exceptions'
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
Other way around, no? Lots of talk in the late 90s / early 2000s about how joining the euro would make it easier to go on holiday - no more changing money. Now we use cards it's easy anyway.
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
The next generation of politicians may not be quite so keen to lose their control of the currency.
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
The next generation of politicians may not be quite so keen to lose their control of the currency.
With the debt issuance they already made, that control has been lost for quite a while now.
What a chump Redwood is. No awareness at all that the period of Norman subjugation, as he would put it, was the furnace from which English would emerge as the language that would go on to conquer the world. Prior to the Conquest, 'we' spoke Old English, with all the complexity of other European languages - three genders, a complex set of inflections and endings, a whole stack of now unfamiliar letters.
While the Normans were running everything and churning out their documents in Latin and Norman french, our ancestors were turning Old English into Middle English - one of the most dramatic linguistic transformations of history. Spoken by ordinary folk and rarely written down, out went the genders and most of the inflections and endings, with propositions and a more rigid word order used to convey tense and subject/object. The dialect in the linguistic driving seat shifted from Wessex to the more populous and prosperous East Midlands, enabling a synthesis of English and Norse syntax. Through some process not fully understood, the most straightforward elements of English and Norse were melded a new language, which also took in a batch of Latin derived words from French. After a few hundred years, when writing stuff down in the way that ordinary folk spoke, our proto-super-language was born.
Had we not invented printing at just the time when, for reasons not fully understood, we changed the pronunciation of all of our vowels, such that the pronunciation of English became separated from its spelling, English would have been so obviously superior that no-one would ever have bothered to invent Esperanto.
I think the Norman Conquest was beneficial in the long run, for this country, but pretty awful for the people (those North of the Humber at any rate), that had to live through it. In that respect, it resembles the downfall of the Western Roman empire.
There is absolutely no way the American government would allow this in reverse.
If you've ever wondered why Britain has fallen behind America and China in the tech world, this shows why. No investment in homegrown facilities or talent, over decades.
This is stupid on national security grounds, and equally stupid on development grounds.
The Ministers involved are simply corrupt, and this is a meal ticket for them. No more, no less.
No, this goes back to Mrs Thatcher at least. There is a childlike innocence to our belief in free market capitalism that blinds us to others having their thumbs on the scale.
Bollocks. The free market capitalism in question lies with the Ministers and possibly civil servants making these decisions.
Tony Blair made decisions that massively benefitted Oracle, and Larry Ellison has bankrolled Blair's foundation. This Government is seizing its chance to do the same while it retains what is quite clearly a very fleeting grip on the levers of power.
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
Yeah, imagine joining a currency bloc with 2% interest rates and 2% inflation. Sounds awful.
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have r had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
Nostalgic for the EU is the same
It is not going to happen
Never is a long time.
We already found out that our "great friend" Trump is rather indifferent to our national interests, so a closer relationship with the EU is inevitable, and the usefulness of closer economic ties to our largest trading partners can not be denied.
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have r had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
Nostalgic for the EU is the same
It is not going to happen
Never is a long time.
We already found out that our "great friend" Trump is rather indifferent to our national interests, so a closer relationship with the EU is inevitable, and the usefulness of closer economic ties to our largest trading partners can not be denied.
Happily for those who favour our continued independence, Sir Tosspiece is on the case trying to reverse it. Given every cause he touches withers and dies, that bodes extremely well.
What a chump Redwood is. No awareness at all that the period of Norman subjugation, as he would put it, was the furnace from which English would emerge as the language that would go on to conquer the world. Prior to the Conquest, 'we' spoke Old English, with all the complexity of other European languages - three genders, a complex set of inflections and endings, a whole stack of now unfamiliar letters.
While the Normans were running everything and churning out their documents in Latin and Norman french, our ancestors were turning Old English into Middle English - one of the most dramatic linguistic transformations of history. Spoken by ordinary folk and rarely written down, out went the genders and most of the inflections and endings, with propositions and a more rigid word order used to convey tense and subject/object. The dialect in the linguistic driving seat shifted from Wessex to the more populous and prosperous East Midlands, enabling a synthesis of English and Norse syntax. Through some process not fully understood, the most straightforward elements of English and Norse were melded a new language, which also took in a batch of Latin derived words from French. After a few hundred years, when writing stuff down in the way that ordinary folk spoke, our proto-super-language was born.
Had we not invented printing at just the time when, for reasons not fully understood, we changed the pronunciation of all of our vowels, such that the pronunciation of English became separated from its spelling, English would have been so obviously superior that no-one would ever have bothered to invent Esperanto.
I think the Norman Conquest was beneficial in the long run, for this country, but pretty awful for the people (those North of the Humber at any rate), that had to live through it. In that respect, it resembles the downfall of the Western Roman empire.
Those south of the Humber, too. Most of the indigenous population were reduced to serfdom. That's not to say that the pre-conquest society was a land of freedom and fairness, and slavery was rife. But in general yer average Anglo Saxon was considerably worse off after the invasion. Invasions are usually not beneficial.
"Britain "cannot afford the array of promises it has made to the public", the budget watchdog has concluded in a stark warning that the country has been living beyond its means".
That's true of all developed world countries.
The combination of rising life expectancy, promised pensions, increasingly expensive healthcare, and low birthrates is absolutely toxic for the sustainability of developed world government finances.
Not looking likely for the penny to drop any time soon when we look at today's polling on the Triple Lock.
Well I am over 65 and in the 1% group who would certainly abolish the triple lock. I wonder what % of PB posters and readers are over 65 and also believe the triple lock should certainly go. I guess it is well over 1% of them. Are we too altruistic, or just too well off? Or both.
Neither. Just very untypical of real people.
I post from Alpha Centauri, so, asking for a friend, what is the difference between 'people' and 'real people'. And which sort is Leon?
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have r had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
Nostalgic for the EU is the same
It is not going to happen
Never is a long time.
We already found out that our "great friend" Trump is rather indifferent to our national interests, so a closer relationship with the EU is inevitable, and the usefulness of closer economic ties to our largest trading partners can not be denied.
I don't deny that, but re-joining is simply years away if ever
Trump is certainly not good for the EU, but seems to be less malevolent to the UK
These are uncertain times, but the future lies with a wider trading block than the EU including Canada and the TPPA all coming together
What a chump Redwood is. No awareness at all that the period of Norman subjugation, as he would put it, was the furnace from which English would emerge as the language that would go on to conquer the world. Prior to the Conquest, 'we' spoke Old English, with all the complexity of other European languages - three genders, a complex set of inflections and endings, a whole stack of now unfamiliar letters.
While the Normans were running everything and churning out their documents in Latin and Norman french, our ancestors were turning Old English into Middle English - one of the most dramatic linguistic transformations of history. Spoken by ordinary folk and rarely written down, out went the genders and most of the inflections and endings, with propositions and a more rigid word order used to convey tense and subject/object. The dialect in the linguistic driving seat shifted from Wessex to the more populous and prosperous East Midlands, enabling a synthesis of English and Norse syntax. Through some process not fully understood, the most straightforward elements of English and Norse were melded a new language, which also took in a batch of Latin derived words from French. After a few hundred years, when writing stuff down in the way that ordinary folk spoke, our proto-super-language was born.
Had we not invented printing at just the time when, for reasons not fully understood, we changed the pronunciation of all of our vowels, such that the pronunciation of English became separated from its spelling, English would have been so obviously superior that no-one would ever have bothered to invent Esperanto.
I think the Norman Conquest was beneficial in the long run, for this country, but pretty awful for the people (those North of the Humber at any rate), that had to live through it. In that respect, it resembles the downfall of the Western Roman empire.
Surely the point about the Norman Conquest is that rather a large percentage of those north of the Humber failed to live through it?
William made Netanyahu look like a pussycat, and that takes some doing.
There is absolutely no way the American government would allow this in reverse.
If you've ever wondered why Britain has fallen behind America and China in the tech world, this shows why. No investment in homegrown facilities or talent, over decades.
This is stupid on national security grounds, and equally stupid on development grounds.
The Ministers involved are simply corrupt, and this is a meal ticket for them. No more, no less.
Don't forget this is also the Government that seemingly inexplicably cancelled a UK AI scheme based in Scotland. Wonder why.
Same reason they let Grangemouth sink with barely a whimper while making every effort to ‘save’ Prax. Best that Scotland should have as few of the appurtenances of an independent country as possible.
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
Yeah, imagine joining a currency bloc with 2% interest rates and 2% inflation. Sounds awful.
Only Slovenia has the same inflation rate (1.9%) as the Eurozone as a whole.
Inflation is above 4% in 3 Eurozone countries (Estonia, Croatia and Slovakia), and 3+% in another 4 (Lithuania, Latvia, Greece and Austria). Inflation is below 1% in 2 Eurozone countries (France and Cyprus). The remaining 11 Eurozone countries are in the Goldilocks zone, 1-3%.
What a chump Redwood is. No awareness at all that the period of Norman subjugation, as he would put it, was the furnace from which English would emerge as the language that would go on to conquer the world. Prior to the Conquest, 'we' spoke Old English, with all the complexity of other European languages - three genders, a complex set of inflections and endings, a whole stack of now unfamiliar letters.
While the Normans were running everything and churning out their documents in Latin and Norman french, our ancestors were turning Old English into Middle English - one of the most dramatic linguistic transformations of history. Spoken by ordinary folk and rarely written down, out went the genders and most of the inflections and endings, with propositions and a more rigid word order used to convey tense and subject/object. The dialect in the linguistic driving seat shifted from Wessex to the more populous and prosperous East Midlands, enabling a synthesis of English and Norse syntax. Through some process not fully understood, the most straightforward elements of English and Norse were melded a new language, which also took in a batch of Latin derived words from French. After a few hundred years, when writing stuff down in the way that ordinary folk spoke, our proto-super-language was born.
Had we not invented printing at just the time when, for reasons not fully understood, we changed the pronunciation of all of our vowels, such that the pronunciation of English became separated from its spelling, English would have been so obviously superior that no-one would ever have bothered to invent Esperanto.
I think the Norman Conquest was beneficial in the long run, for this country, but pretty awful for the people (those North of the Humber at any rate), that had to live through it. In that respect, it resembles the downfall of the Western Roman empire.
Those south of the Humber, too. Most of the indigenous population were reduced to serfdom. That's not to say that the pre-conquest society was a land of freedom and fairness, and slavery was rife. But in general yer average Anglo Saxon was considerably worse off after the invasion. Invasions are usually not beneficial.
I do wonder if the legal status of serfdom would have made much difference to the typical inhabitant, compared to the pre-1066 period.
Obviously, having your village burned to the ground, your livestock slaughtered, your womenfolk raped, by the Norman army, and then left to starve, would have made an immense difference. We can tell how bad the Harrying of the North was through Orderic Vitalis commenting that he had frequently praised William in his Chronicle, "but I have nothing good to say about this. God will punish him." And, this, at a time when those last four words would have been meant literally.
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
The next generation of politicians may not be quite so keen to lose their control of the currency.
The way the bond markets have controlled politicians over the last few years suggests that our politicians are not in control of the money either.
"Britain "cannot afford the array of promises it has made to the public", the budget watchdog has concluded in a stark warning that the country has been living beyond its means".
That's true of all developed world countries.
The combination of rising life expectancy, promised pensions, increasingly expensive healthcare, and low birthrates is absolutely toxic for the sustainability of developed world government finances.
It's more toxic for the model of finance, politics and governance which has been in place since 1918.
The model needs to evolve to match the demographics and that means looking at different ways of funding including looking at accumulated wealth taxation.
An afternoon at Lingfield Park, a lunch time at Toby Carvery and any cruise will tell you there's a lot of money in this country and that money is among the older demographic. That's not an argument against triple locks or pensions per se but perhaps a recognition that wealth accumulated via paying off mortgages in times of low interest rates and the resulting asset appreciation realised via downsizing are other areas for HM Treasury to consider.
I’d echo this at Premiership Rugby at Bath. The crowd seems significantly older than say 10 years ago. Prices are high £800 for a season ticket to about 12 games.
My mate took me to watch the playoff semi-final between Bath and Bristol, I nearly choked on my pint when he said regular games are £100 a ticket, sitting in what is basically a temporary open air stand with no facilities, the one big screen being hardly visible and massive queues for the bar because there isn't enough space.
There is absolutely no way the American government would allow this in reverse.
If you've ever wondered why Britain has fallen behind America and China in the tech world, this shows why. No investment in homegrown facilities or talent, over decades.
This is stupid on national security grounds, and equally stupid on development grounds.
The Ministers involved are simply corrupt, and this is a meal ticket for them. No more, no less.
Don't forget this is also the Government that seemingly inexplicably cancelled a UK AI scheme based in Scotland. Wonder why.
Same reason they let Grangemouth sink with barely a whimper while making every effort to ‘save’ Prax. Best that Scotland should have as few of the appurtenances of an independent country as possible.
I'm sure there are some that do take that view - don't make England dependent strategically on Scotland, but I don't see that being the major reason. And if it is the case, the SNP have certainly been very willing helpers.
Is it not far likelier that the big boys knew from a mile off that Labour were walking into power, and had words with the people they needed to have words with? Nobody noticed in the kerfuffle of a new Government coming in, and those that did rather quaintly put it down to 'naivete'.
"Britain "cannot afford the array of promises it has made to the public", the budget watchdog has concluded in a stark warning that the country has been living beyond its means".
That's true of all developed world countries.
The combination of rising life expectancy, promised pensions, increasingly expensive healthcare, and low birthrates is absolutely toxic for the sustainability of developed world government finances.
Not looking likely for the penny to drop any time soon when we look at today's polling on the Triple Lock.
Well I am over 65 and in the 1% group who would certainly abolish the triple lock. I wonder what % of PB posters and readers are over 65 and also believe the triple lock should certainly go. I guess it is well over 1% of them. Are we too altruistic, or just too well off? Or both.
Neither. Just very untypical of real people.
I post from Alpha Centauri, so, asking for a friend, what is the difference between 'people' and 'real people'. And which sort is Leon?
Fun fact: from Alpha Centauri, our sun would appear as a first magnitude star in Cassiopeia, extending the distinctive "W" pattern into a "W plus a bit more".
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
All the more reason NOT to have the Euro.
None of the advantages, but all of the downsides like not having control over the Central Bank, or the Central Bank not setting rates based on our currency, and being our own lender of last resort etc
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
All the more reason NOT to have the Euro.
None of the advantages, but all of the downsides like not having control over the Central Bank, or the Central Bank not setting rates based on our currency, and being our own lender of last resort etc
There is very little point in deploying either logic or facts with a remainer on a rant.
Sky News getting excited about the idea of a wealth tax.
"What is a wealth tax, how would it work in the UK and where else has one? The idea of a wealth tax has been raised before in the UK but has never been implemented."
IMO it's a fairly naive, silly article from Sky (as you say, "excited") - afaics they only focus on the "2% above £10m worth" option. Our moronic media will go up the gum tree as they always do, yammering on about extreme options - exactly as the "Labour will tax you until your pips squeak" bollocks we had from the papers and the opposition politicians in the run up to the election.
At least Sky mention the Swiss option which is at much lower levels and is applied more widely and less regressively, and which afaik is about the only one that works in raising a decent amount of money.
Labour would be better saying "nothing like this in the current term - Kemi and Nigel are a couple of BS merchants", and close all the other loopholes of which lists have been published.
Then pivot Council Tax to a % of property value, or at least with no upper bands and make it linear, which is a type of wealth tax on our most featherbedded type of wealth. That would then begin to slay the house price inflation demon and make property more affordable, a superb contrast to the morally-bankrupt Conservative never-ending feeding of the demand side with subsidies, which makes the house price inflation worse.
Pivoting council tax to property value is going to drive renters out of better area's. Who renting is going to pay a council tax based on property value in london
It's a local tax not national, you don't pay 10x the council tax for a studio flat in London as you would for a 2up2down terrace in Grimsby.
I think you have said this before as I think I replied then. It doesn't make sense keeping in local because then it it not a wealth tax and the ability the pay the top band is going to be a lot different to a place will top band is 300k upwards and a place when the top band starts at 2 mill
Those are 2 different things, council tax to pay for local council services and wealth tax based on asset value. Renters wouldn't pay a wealth tax based on the value of the property they are renting because they don't own it, do they. Whether renters should pay for local council services rather than the property owner is an argument that was lost in the late 80s/early 90s.
Don't be naive, if my landlord has to pay 10k property tax it will added to rent just like mortgage rate rises
Errr, no.Your rent is a function of supply and demand for rental properties, not costs to the landlord. That's why I make a healthy profit on mine, and why I couldn't if it was in Greenock rather than Edinburgh.
Does a gigantic property tax affect supply of rental properties? Absolutely. But I'd immediately sell mine to a first time buyer, reducing the demand for them too. The total number of flats available is exactly the same as before, but the proportions of housing tenure would change dramatically - you'd only own a property to live in it, otherwise it's stupid investment.
There is a socially optimal number of rental properties - perhaps 15%, in a UK context, to take account of contract workers, students and so on. In other countries it's higher. But it's certainly the case that there are more people renting than want to be at the moment.
"Britain "cannot afford the array of promises it has made to the public", the budget watchdog has concluded in a stark warning that the country has been living beyond its means".
That's true of all developed world countries.
The combination of rising life expectancy, promised pensions, increasingly expensive healthcare, and low birthrates is absolutely toxic for the sustainability of developed world government finances.
It's more toxic for the model of finance, politics and governance which has been in place since 1918.
The model needs to evolve to match the demographics and that means looking at different ways of funding including looking at accumulated wealth taxation.
An afternoon at Lingfield Park, a lunch time at Toby Carvery and any cruise will tell you there's a lot of money in this country and that money is among the older demographic. That's not an argument against triple locks or pensions per se but perhaps a recognition that wealth accumulated via paying off mortgages in times of low interest rates and the resulting asset appreciation realised via downsizing are other areas for HM Treasury to consider.
I’d echo this at Premiership Rugby at Bath. The crowd seems significantly older than say 10 years ago. Prices are high £800 for a season ticket to about 12 games.
Blimey. Supply and demand I guess. Reckon my £1,400 for 23 Arsenal games is a bargain.
Yes. They could get another 10000 in with a bigger ground, but why bother when there are enough paying to whack. Worth it this year with a treble to celebrate.
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
You do understand the difference between cash and currency right?
There is absolutely no way the American government would allow this in reverse.
If you've ever wondered why Britain has fallen behind America and China in the tech world, this shows why. No investment in homegrown facilities or talent, over decades.
This is stupid on national security grounds, and equally stupid on development grounds.
The Ministers involved are simply corrupt, and this is a meal ticket for them. No more, no less.
Never attribute to malice, that which night be adequately explained by incompetence.
Must find the hilarious article on Putin’s attempt to get Russian tractor production going. Before the Ukraine thing.
Short version - it resulted in a small plant building tractors from major assemblies manufactured in the Czech Republic. Most of the tractors were actually completely assembled in CR.
This was because each stage of in sourcing is hard. And requires knowledge and money. So much easier to just buy it in.
Britain is nicer than Bulgaria. You really notice it when you come back from Bulgaria to Britain. It’s nicer here
I might offer that to Visit Britain as a slogan for their next campaign
“Nicer than Bulgaria”
Bulgaria has lost about 25% of its population in the past 20 years.
That was very careless of them.
Of course, an increasing number of countries are seeing populations decline, even without the effects of emigration.
China's population has declined for three years in a row now. South Korean, Japan and Russia are seeing similar.
There are lurid rumours that China's true population is actually considerably smaller - 1.1bn? 900m? 700m? Lower? I don't know how much credibility to give these, but we know the Chinese a) lie, b) are given incentives to lie, and c) aren't great at keeping stats. It would be odd if their claimed population figures are correct.
"Gregg Wallace’s autism means he can’t wear underwear, say friends
Sources close to ex-MasterChef presenter claim he has ‘hypersensitivity’ to tight clothing and his condition is partly to blame for his inappropriate behaviour" (£)
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
I suspect that they would care when Eurozone fiscal rules start being applied to the U.K. Government tax and budget.
Britain is nicer than Bulgaria. You really notice it when you come back from Bulgaria to Britain. It’s nicer here
I might offer that to Visit Britain as a slogan for their next campaign
“Nicer than Bulgaria”
Bulgaria has lost about 25% of its population in the past 20 years.
That was very careless of them.
Of course, an increasing number of countries are seeing populations decline, even without the effects of emigration.
China's population has declined for three years in a row now. South Korean, Japan and Russia are seeing similar.
There are lurid rumours that China's true population is actually considerably smaller - 1.1bn? 900m? 700m? Lower? I don't know how much credibility to give these, but we know the Chinese a) lie, b) are given incentives to lie, and c) aren't great at keeping stats. It would be odd if their claimed population figures are correct.
There are also rumours the actual population is bigger (because the provinces gave artificially low stats to Beijing during the One Child era)
Suffice to say there are a LOT of people in China. I was struck by this little known fact when I did a Gazette Travel Assignment in Chengdu. I confess I had never heard of the city until I got there
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
I suspect that they would care when Eurozone fiscal rules start being applied to the U.K. Government tax and budget.
Thats the sort of fiscal discipline that our government needs.
Britain is nicer than Bulgaria. You really notice it when you come back from Bulgaria to Britain. It’s nicer here
I might offer that to Visit Britain as a slogan for their next campaign
“Nicer than Bulgaria”
Bulgaria has lost about 25% of its population in the past 20 years.
That was very careless of them.
Of course, an increasing number of countries are seeing populations decline, even without the effects of emigration.
China's population has declined for three years in a row now. South Korean, Japan and Russia are seeing similar.
There are lurid rumours that China's true population is actually considerably smaller - 1.1bn? 900m? 700m? Lower? I don't know how much credibility to give these, but we know the Chinese a) lie, b) are given incentives to lie, and c) aren't great at keeping stats. It would be odd if their claimed population figures are correct.
There are also rumours the actual population is bigger (because the provinces gave artificially low stats to Beijing during the One Child era)
Suffice to say there are a LOT of people in China. I was struck by this little known fact when I did a Gazette Travel Assignment in Chengdu. I confess I had never heard of the city until I got there
But it's interesting how relatively little it's increased since 1982 when it hit a billion for the first time. Now 1.4 billion according to official figures.
What a chump Redwood is. No awareness at all that the period of Norman subjugation, as he would put it, was the furnace from which English would emerge as the language that would go on to conquer the world. Prior to the Conquest, 'we' spoke Old English, with all the complexity of other European languages - three genders, a complex set of inflections and endings, a whole stack of now unfamiliar letters.
While the Normans were running everything and churning out their documents in Latin and Norman french, our ancestors were turning Old English into Middle English - one of the most dramatic linguistic transformations of history. Spoken by ordinary folk and rarely written down, out went the genders and most of the inflections and endings, with propositions and a more rigid word order used to convey tense and subject/object. The dialect in the linguistic driving seat shifted from Wessex to the more populous and prosperous East Midlands, enabling a synthesis of English and Norse syntax. Through some process not fully understood, the most straightforward elements of English and Norse were melded a new language, which also took in a batch of Latin derived words from French. After a few hundred years, when writing stuff down in the way that ordinary folk spoke, our proto-super-language was born.
Had we not invented printing at just the time when, for reasons not fully understood, we changed the pronunciation of all of our vowels, such that the pronunciation of English became separated from its spelling, English would have been so obviously superior that no-one would ever have bothered to invent Esperanto.
I think the Norman Conquest was beneficial in the long run, for this country, but pretty awful for the people (those North of the Humber at any rate), that had to live through it. In that respect, it resembles the downfall of the Western Roman empire.
It was clearly terrible for the Anglo Saxon elites although they made it far worse for themselves by constant abortive plotting. I think that William would have much preferred to work through the existing aristocracy if he could have been confident of their loyalty. For the ordinary peasant toiling in the fields I doubt it made much difference. It's also worth remembering that England was being drawn into the Norman orbit anyway by royal marriage and culture in the same way it had existed in the Scandinavian orbit a generation previously
"Gregg Wallace’s autism means he can’t wear underwear, say friends
Sources close to ex-MasterChef presenter claim he has ‘hypersensitivity’ to tight clothing and his condition is partly to blame for his inappropriate behaviour" (£)
Britain is nicer than Bulgaria. You really notice it when you come back from Bulgaria to Britain. It’s nicer here
I might offer that to Visit Britain as a slogan for their next campaign
“Nicer than Bulgaria”
Bulgaria has lost about 25% of its population in the past 20 years.
That was very careless of them.
Of course, an increasing number of countries are seeing populations decline, even without the effects of emigration.
China's population has declined for three years in a row now. South Korean, Japan and Russia are seeing similar.
There are lurid rumours that China's true population is actually considerably smaller - 1.1bn? 900m? 700m? Lower? I don't know how much credibility to give these, but we know the Chinese a) lie, b) are given incentives to lie, and c) aren't great at keeping stats. It would be odd if their claimed population figures are correct.
There are also rumours the actual population is bigger (because the provinces gave artificially low stats to Beijing during the One Child era)
Suffice to say there are a LOT of people in China. I was struck by this little known fact when I did a Gazette Travel Assignment in Chengdu. I confess I had never heard of the city until I got there
But it's interesting how relatively little it's increased since 1982 when it hit a billion for the first time. Now 1.4 billion according to official figures.
Indeed
There are other ways of estimating population. Electricity consumption is one
My entirely amateur guess is that, actually, China's official stated population is likely close to reality - or as close as any developed nation can get (cf the UK which has a hazy grasp of its own numbers)
Britain is nicer than Bulgaria. You really notice it when you come back from Bulgaria to Britain. It’s nicer here
I might offer that to Visit Britain as a slogan for their next campaign
“Nicer than Bulgaria”
Bulgaria has lost about 25% of its population in the past 20 years.
That was very careless of them.
Of course, an increasing number of countries are seeing populations decline, even without the effects of emigration.
China's population has declined for three years in a row now. South Korean, Japan and Russia are seeing similar.
There are lurid rumours that China's true population is actually considerably smaller - 1.1bn? 900m? 700m? Lower? I don't know how much credibility to give these, but we know the Chinese a) lie, b) are given incentives to lie, and c) aren't great at keeping stats. It would be odd if their claimed population figures are correct.
"Gregg Wallace’s autism means he can’t wear underwear, say friends
Sources close to ex-MasterChef presenter claim he has ‘hypersensitivity’ to tight clothing and his condition is partly to blame for his inappropriate behaviour" (£)
Britain is nicer than Bulgaria. You really notice it when you come back from Bulgaria to Britain. It’s nicer here
I might offer that to Visit Britain as a slogan for their next campaign
“Nicer than Bulgaria”
Bulgaria has lost about 25% of its population in the past 20 years.
That was very careless of them.
Of course, an increasing number of countries are seeing populations decline, even without the effects of emigration.
China's population has declined for three years in a row now. South Korean, Japan and Russia are seeing similar.
There are lurid rumours that China's true population is actually considerably smaller - 1.1bn? 900m? 700m? Lower? I don't know how much credibility to give these, but we know the Chinese a) lie, b) are given incentives to lie, and c) aren't great at keeping stats. It would be odd if their claimed population figures are correct.
There are also rumours the actual population is bigger (because the provinces gave artificially low stats to Beijing during the One Child era)
Suffice to say there are a LOT of people in China. I was struck by this little known fact when I did a Gazette Travel Assignment in Chengdu. I confess I had never heard of the city until I got there
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
Yeah, imagine joining a currency bloc with 2% interest rates and 2% inflation. Sounds awful.
"Gregg Wallace’s autism means he can’t wear underwear, say friends
Sources close to ex-MasterChef presenter claim he has ‘hypersensitivity’ to tight clothing and his condition is partly to blame for his inappropriate behaviour" (£)
Britain is nicer than Bulgaria. You really notice it when you come back from Bulgaria to Britain. It’s nicer here
I might offer that to Visit Britain as a slogan for their next campaign
“Nicer than Bulgaria”
Bulgaria has lost about 25% of its population in the past 20 years.
That was very careless of them.
Of course, an increasing number of countries are seeing populations decline, even without the effects of emigration.
China's population has declined for three years in a row now. South Korean, Japan and Russia are seeing similar.
There are lurid rumours that China's true population is actually considerably smaller - 1.1bn? 900m? 700m? Lower? I don't know how much credibility to give these, but we know the Chinese a) lie, b) are given incentives to lie, and c) aren't great at keeping stats. It would be odd if their claimed population figures are correct.
There are also rumours the actual population is bigger (because the provinces gave artificially low stats to Beijing during the One Child era)
Suffice to say there are a LOT of people in China. I was struck by this little known fact when I did a Gazette Travel Assignment in Chengdu. I confess I had never heard of the city until I got there
Britain is nicer than Bulgaria. You really notice it when you come back from Bulgaria to Britain. It’s nicer here
I might offer that to Visit Britain as a slogan for their next campaign
“Nicer than Bulgaria”
Bulgaria has lost about 25% of its population in the past 20 years.
That was very careless of them.
Of course, an increasing number of countries are seeing populations decline, even without the effects of emigration.
China's population has declined for three years in a row now. South Korean, Japan and Russia are seeing similar.
There are lurid rumours that China's true population is actually considerably smaller - 1.1bn? 900m? 700m? Lower? I don't know how much credibility to give these, but we know the Chinese a) lie, b) are given incentives to lie, and c) aren't great at keeping stats. It would be odd if their claimed population figures are correct.
There are also rumours the actual population is bigger (because the provinces gave artificially low stats to Beijing during the One Child era)
Suffice to say there are a LOT of people in China. I was struck by this little known fact when I did a Gazette Travel Assignment in Chengdu. I confess I had never heard of the city until I got there
I imagine far more people have tried their namesake sauce than heard of the city.
There are about 150 cities in China with pop. > 1m. That blows my mind. Not mathematically, but just think about visiting them all. One a day for five months!
What a chump Redwood is. No awareness at all that the period of Norman subjugation, as he would put it, was the furnace from which English would emerge as the language that would go on to conquer the world. Prior to the Conquest, 'we' spoke Old English, with all the complexity of other European languages - three genders, a complex set of inflections and endings, a whole stack of now unfamiliar letters.
While the Normans were running everything and churning out their documents in Latin and Norman french, our ancestors were turning Old English into Middle English - one of the most dramatic linguistic transformations of history. Spoken by ordinary folk and rarely written down, out went the genders and most of the inflections and endings, with propositions and a more rigid word order used to convey tense and subject/object. The dialect in the linguistic driving seat shifted from Wessex to the more populous and prosperous East Midlands, enabling a synthesis of English and Norse syntax. Through some process not fully understood, the most straightforward elements of English and Norse were melded a new language, which also took in a batch of Latin derived words from French. After a few hundred years, when writing stuff down in the way that ordinary folk spoke, our proto-super-language was born.
Had we not invented printing at just the time when, for reasons not fully understood, we changed the pronunciation of all of our vowels, such that the pronunciation of English became separated from its spelling, English would have been so obviously superior that no-one would ever have bothered to invent Esperanto.
I think the Norman Conquest was beneficial in the long run, for this country, but pretty awful for the people (those North of the Humber at any rate), that had to live through it. In that respect, it resembles the downfall of the Western Roman empire.
It was clearly terrible for the Anglo Saxon elites although they made it far worse for themselves by constant abortive plotting. I think that William would have much preferred to work through the existing aristocracy if he could have been confident of their loyalty. For the ordinary peasant toiling in the fields I doubt it made much difference. It's also worth remembering that England was being drawn into the Norman orbit anyway by royal marriage and culture in the same way it had existed in the Scandinavian orbit a generation previously
I could imagine some monk, born a peasant, criticising some knight, thirty years after the Harrying.
"You came to our village, burned it, slaughtered half the inhabitants, raped the women, and left the survivors to starve."
"I'm sorry, I don't remember any of it."
"You don't remember?"
"The day I came to your village, it must have been the worst day of your life ... to me, it would have been Tuesday."
– The CEO of X resigned – The Head of Infrastructure at xAI left for OpenAI – The VP of Software Engineering at Tesla left for OpenAI
Musk's businesses are falling apart just as he faces increasingly dire political headwinds.
Admittedly the lead engineer of 'Claude Code' left for Cursor this week and one of the co-founders of Safe Superintelligence jumped ship to Meta (along with quite a few Anthropic and OpenAI people).
Though - as far as I've seen - no-one has left (or been poached - ymmv) from xAI.
If I was offered ballpark US$10mil to change job, I'd certainly consider it.
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
Other way around, no? Lots of talk in the late 90s / early 2000s about how joining the euro would make it easier to go on holiday - no more changing money. Now we use cards it's easy anyway.
Stupid things in the news number 704: considering having trials without a jury to speed things up. But only for the complex and obvious ones.
I have a better idea. Remember when we fast tracked justice for the rioters? Let’s do that. How do we clear the backlog? Find the courts to stay open longer hours and more days.
“But how do we pay for that”. As if the crime epidemic caused by our inability to schedule simple trials until (reportedly) 2029 is zero cost.
Pay more up front to clear the trial backlog to make criminal justice a weapon against crime to save money lost in having parts of the country crime-ridden hell holes.
I feel sorry for Kier Sunak. Head of the continuity LabCon government making no progress at all getting any of the problems fixed. Let the swamp consume itself, get people round the table and ask how do we get things moving.
Too much crime. Costing money. Can’t nick and prosecute due to backlog caused by lack of money. FFS do I have to draw you a picture in crayon?
"Gregg Wallace’s autism means he can’t wear underwear, say friends
Sources close to ex-MasterChef presenter claim he has ‘hypersensitivity’ to tight clothing and his condition is partly to blame for his inappropriate behaviour" (£)
Let’s say I’m sir kier traitor. Everyone hates me. Turns out I am shit at being PM. I’m quite miserable as well. I don’t like the scrutiny. My wife hasn’t been seen in public for a year. My mps laugh at me and rebel openly. I have no ideas and no agenda and I am a void. I never dream. I can barely talk. I am behind a hard right party in the polls and heading for a historically pathetic single term
How to turn it around with one astonishing move?
Call a referendum on rejoining the EU. Say the country is in such a bad way I have no choice
Immediately I will have the ardent support of 30% of the people. They will love me. My party will stare at me in awe. I will go down in history. Polls say I will probably win. Thus securing my legacy forever. Even if I do nothing else
It is also one of the few things I genuinely believe
I hope kier is not reading as he might get ideas
The voters might be enthusiastic, but can the country afford it? Cost of referendum; cost of negotiations; massive costs to persuade them to take us; massive costs to convert sterling to euro; massive annual payments into the EU coffers from then on in.
Again. And again. And again. How often do some of us have to remind people?
Rejoining the EU involves joining the Euro unless there is the mother of all opt outs in recent world history.
WE DO NOT WANT TO JOIN THE EURO.
I think you really are fighting the last century´s battles. The next generation will barely notice that the GBP is a separate unit of account compare to the EUR, and the amount of transactions in cash are a blip compared to everything else already. I have had a €5 note in my wallet for over a month and still haven´t spent it, not even as a tip.
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
The next generation of politicians may not be quite so keen to lose their control of the currency.
The way the bond markets have controlled politicians over the last few years suggests that our politicians are not in control of the money either.
Thankfully, they're well in control of that ... other thing. The one over there. NO! Don't look. Just trust me - it's well under control.
"Gregg Wallace’s autism means he can’t wear underwear, say friends
Sources close to ex-MasterChef presenter claim he has ‘hypersensitivity’ to tight clothing and his condition is partly to blame for his inappropriate behaviour" (£)
Britain is nicer than Bulgaria. You really notice it when you come back from Bulgaria to Britain. It’s nicer here
I might offer that to Visit Britain as a slogan for their next campaign
“Nicer than Bulgaria”
Bulgaria has lost about 25% of its population in the past 20 years.
That was very careless of them.
Of course, an increasing number of countries are seeing populations decline, even without the effects of emigration.
China's population has declined for three years in a row now. South Korean, Japan and Russia are seeing similar.
There are lurid rumours that China's true population is actually considerably smaller - 1.1bn? 900m? 700m? Lower? I don't know how much credibility to give these, but we know the Chinese a) lie, b) are given incentives to lie, and c) aren't great at keeping stats. It would be odd if their claimed population figures are correct.
There are also rumours the actual population is bigger (because the provinces gave artificially low stats to Beijing during the One Child era)
Suffice to say there are a LOT of people in China. I was struck by this little known fact when I did a Gazette Travel Assignment in Chengdu. I confess I had never heard of the city until I got there
There is absolutely no way the American government would allow this in reverse.
If you've ever wondered why Britain has fallen behind America and China in the tech world, this shows why. No investment in homegrown facilities or talent, over decades.
This is stupid on national security grounds, and equally stupid on development grounds.
The Ministers involved are simply corrupt, and this is a meal ticket for them. No more, no less.
Don't forget this is also the Government that seemingly inexplicably cancelled a UK AI scheme based in Scotland. Wonder why.
Same reason they let Grangemouth sink with barely a whimper while making every effort to ‘save’ Prax. Best that Scotland should have as few of the appurtenances of an independent country as possible.
Haven't they reversed on the Scottish AI/Supercomputer project? Now that all the leading researchers have moved on after being told it was cancelled ~12months ago in a stroke of genius. Leading to a massive 'piss years of effort down the drain' effect?
Maybe I'm just assuming it based on everything else they do.
A few months later I think Keir decided we were going to be an "AI Superpower". So maybe that's why he cancelled it. Or restarted it? Or... whatever.
"Gregg Wallace’s autism means he can’t wear underwear, say friends
Sources close to ex-MasterChef presenter claim he has ‘hypersensitivity’ to tight clothing and his condition is partly to blame for his inappropriate behaviour" (£)
Bollocks. Loose fitting cotton boxers are older than him. Disgusting that his "friends" and the Times would try that on.
Actually, an aversion to kinds and types of clothing IS a feature of autism. It's not ludicrous
This does not mean Wallace is innocent, but the claim is not intrinsically ridiculous. He is obviously autistic. Recall his "day in the life" article
But loose fitting underwear does exist, as do photos of him showing off his "gym bod" in tight t-shirts. So the excuse doesn't seem credible in his case.
What a chump Redwood is. No awareness at all that the period of Norman subjugation, as he would put it, was the furnace from which English would emerge as the language that would go on to conquer the world. Prior to the Conquest, 'we' spoke Old English, with all the complexity of other European languages - three genders, a complex set of inflections and endings, a whole stack of now unfamiliar letters.
While the Normans were running everything and churning out their documents in Latin and Norman french, our ancestors were turning Old English into Middle English - one of the most dramatic linguistic transformations of history. Spoken by ordinary folk and rarely written down, out went the genders and most of the inflections and endings, with propositions and a more rigid word order used to convey tense and subject/object. The dialect in the linguistic driving seat shifted from Wessex to the more populous and prosperous East Midlands, enabling a synthesis of English and Norse syntax. Through some process not fully understood, the most straightforward elements of English and Norse were melded a new language, which also took in a batch of Latin derived words from French. After a few hundred years, when writing stuff down in the way that ordinary folk spoke, our proto-super-language was born.
Had we not invented printing at just the time when, for reasons not fully understood, we changed the pronunciation of all of our vowels, such that the pronunciation of English became separated from its spelling, English would have been so obviously superior that no-one would ever have bothered to invent Esperanto.
I think the Norman Conquest was beneficial in the long run, for this country, but pretty awful for the people (those North of the Humber at any rate), that had to live through it. In that respect, it resembles the downfall of the Western Roman empire.
1066 and all that was definitive. The Norman conquest was a good thing because it helped England become top dog.
Though it does seem to be contiguous with others, so not sure it really counts.
I’ve been to Foshan. Not far from Hong Kong. Not remarkable.
Xi’an for me. Never heard of it.
Ancient capital I think. And very useful if you play the game where a place has to start with the last letter of the previous answer and some smart Alec comes up with Essex.
What a chump Redwood is. No awareness at all that the period of Norman subjugation, as he would put it, was the furnace from which English would emerge as the language that would go on to conquer the world. Prior to the Conquest, 'we' spoke Old English, with all the complexity of other European languages - three genders, a complex set of inflections and endings, a whole stack of now unfamiliar letters.
While the Normans were running everything and churning out their documents in Latin and Norman french, our ancestors were turning Old English into Middle English - one of the most dramatic linguistic transformations of history. Spoken by ordinary folk and rarely written down, out went the genders and most of the inflections and endings, with propositions and a more rigid word order used to convey tense and subject/object. The dialect in the linguistic driving seat shifted from Wessex to the more populous and prosperous East Midlands, enabling a synthesis of English and Norse syntax. Through some process not fully understood, the most straightforward elements of English and Norse were melded a new language, which also took in a batch of Latin derived words from French. After a few hundred years, when writing stuff down in the way that ordinary folk spoke, our proto-super-language was born.
Had we not invented printing at just the time when, for reasons not fully understood, we changed the pronunciation of all of our vowels, such that the pronunciation of English became separated from its spelling, English would have been so obviously superior that no-one would ever have bothered to invent Esperanto.
I think the Norman Conquest was beneficial in the long run, for this country, but pretty awful for the people (those North of the Humber at any rate), that had to live through it. In that respect, it resembles the downfall of the Western Roman empire.
1066 and all that was definitive. The Norman conquest was a good thing because it helped England become top dog.
Top French Dog in sheep's clothing though David. Only the sheep are left.
Stupid things in the news number 704: considering having trials without a jury to speed things up. But only for the complex and obvious ones.
I have a better idea. Remember when we fast tracked justice for the rioters? Let’s do that. How do we clear the backlog? Find the courts to stay open longer hours and more days.
“But how do we pay for that”. As if the crime epidemic caused by our inability to schedule simple trials until (reportedly) 2029 is zero cost.
Pay more up front to clear the trial backlog to make criminal justice a weapon against crime to save money lost in having parts of the country crime-ridden hell holes.
I feel sorry for Kier Sunak. Head of the continuity LabCon government making no progress at all getting any of the problems fixed. Let the swamp consume itself, get people round the table and ask how do we get things moving.
Too much crime. Costing money. Can’t nick and prosecute due to backlog caused by lack of money. FFS do I have to draw you a picture in crayon?
One interesting point Leveson made in his interview on Today was that in the past lawyers would often do two cases in a day and sometimes start a third however today it very rarely happens.
This, he said, was down to the vastly increased levels of evidence, PACE, new technology for harvesting evidence, new technology that was introduced as evidence, effectively loads of new things that have come into play and effectively increased the chances of getting justice done have also contributed to slowing down the pursuit of justice. His point being that this isn’t purely a problem relating to money for the system.
"Gregg Wallace’s autism means he can’t wear underwear, say friends
Sources close to ex-MasterChef presenter claim he has ‘hypersensitivity’ to tight clothing and his condition is partly to blame for his inappropriate behaviour" (£)
Britain is nicer than Bulgaria. You really notice it when you come back from Bulgaria to Britain. It’s nicer here
I might offer that to Visit Britain as a slogan for their next campaign
“Nicer than Bulgaria”
Bulgaria has lost about 25% of its population in the past 20 years.
That was very careless of them.
Of course, an increasing number of countries are seeing populations decline, even without the effects of emigration.
China's population has declined for three years in a row now. South Korean, Japan and Russia are seeing similar.
There are lurid rumours that China's true population is actually considerably smaller - 1.1bn? 900m? 700m? Lower? I don't know how much credibility to give these, but we know the Chinese a) lie, b) are given incentives to lie, and c) aren't great at keeping stats. It would be odd if their claimed population figures are correct.
The same is said of Nigeria.
I think quite a few African populations are derived via the guessing stick. Nigerias is still huge, albeit likely to peak much lower than was forecast.
Britain is nicer than Bulgaria. You really notice it when you come back from Bulgaria to Britain. It’s nicer here
I might offer that to Visit Britain as a slogan for their next campaign
“Nicer than Bulgaria”
Bulgaria has lost about 25% of its population in the past 20 years.
That was very careless of them.
Of course, an increasing number of countries are seeing populations decline, even without the effects of emigration.
China's population has declined for three years in a row now. South Korean, Japan and Russia are seeing similar.
There are lurid rumours that China's true population is actually considerably smaller - 1.1bn? 900m? 700m? Lower? I don't know how much credibility to give these, but we know the Chinese a) lie, b) are given incentives to lie, and c) aren't great at keeping stats. It would be odd if their claimed population figures are correct.
There are also rumours the actual population is bigger (because the provinces gave artificially low stats to Beijing during the One Child era)
Suffice to say there are a LOT of people in China. I was struck by this little known fact when I did a Gazette Travel Assignment in Chengdu. I confess I had never heard of the city until I got there
Remembering the bands that didnt make it past the Judges houses this year
... What is that video? "Working together to deliver for working people."? If he'd (or 'his team') had posted "Great to meet President Macron and discuss smashing the people smuggling gangs!"... really... anything human sounding. "Great to share a delightful cheese board with President Macron!". Anything. Please. "Watched a bit of telly with Macron."
What a chump Redwood is. No awareness at all that the period of Norman subjugation, as he would put it, was the furnace from which English would emerge as the language that would go on to conquer the world. Prior to the Conquest, 'we' spoke Old English, with all the complexity of other European languages - three genders, a complex set of inflections and endings, a whole stack of now unfamiliar letters.
While the Normans were running everything and churning out their documents in Latin and Norman french, our ancestors were turning Old English into Middle English - one of the most dramatic linguistic transformations of history. Spoken by ordinary folk and rarely written down, out went the genders and most of the inflections and endings, with propositions and a more rigid word order used to convey tense and subject/object. The dialect in the linguistic driving seat shifted from Wessex to the more populous and prosperous East Midlands, enabling a synthesis of English and Norse syntax. Through some process not fully understood, the most straightforward elements of English and Norse were melded a new language, which also took in a batch of Latin derived words from French. After a few hundred years, when writing stuff down in the way that ordinary folk spoke, our proto-super-language was born.
Had we not invented printing at just the time when, for reasons not fully understood, we changed the pronunciation of all of our vowels, such that the pronunciation of English became separated from its spelling, English would have been so obviously superior that no-one would ever have bothered to invent Esperanto.
I think the Norman Conquest was beneficial in the long run, for this country, but pretty awful for the people (those North of the Humber at any rate), that had to live through it. In that respect, it resembles the downfall of the Western Roman empire.
It was clearly terrible for the Anglo Saxon elites although they made it far worse for themselves by constant abortive plotting. I think that William would have much preferred to work through the existing aristocracy if he could have been confident of their loyalty. For the ordinary peasant toiling in the fields I doubt it made much difference. It's also worth remembering that England was being drawn into the Norman orbit anyway by royal marriage and culture in the same way it had existed in the Scandinavian orbit a generation previously
I could imagine some monk, born a peasant, criticising some knight, thirty years after the Harrying.
"You came to our village, burned it, slaughtered half the inhabitants, raped the women, and left the survivors to starve."
"I'm sorry, I don't remember any of it."
"You don't remember?"
"The day I came to your village, it must have been the worst day of your life ... to me, it would have been Tuesday."
And all humanity shall bow to me in humble gratitude
Stupid things in the news number 704: considering having trials without a jury to speed things up. But only for the complex and obvious ones.
I have a better idea. Remember when we fast tracked justice for the rioters? Let’s do that. How do we clear the backlog? Find the courts to stay open longer hours and more days.
“But how do we pay for that”. As if the crime epidemic caused by our inability to schedule simple trials until (reportedly) 2029 is zero cost.
Pay more up front to clear the trial backlog to make criminal justice a weapon against crime to save money lost in having parts of the country crime-ridden hell holes.
I feel sorry for Kier Sunak. Head of the continuity LabCon government making no progress at all getting any of the problems fixed. Let the swamp consume itself, get people round the table and ask how do we get things moving.
Too much crime. Costing money. Can’t nick and prosecute due to backlog caused by lack of money. FFS do I have to draw you a picture in crayon?
One interesting point Leveson made in his interview on Today was that in the past lawyers would often do two cases in a day and sometimes start a third however today it very rarely happens.
This, he said, was down to the vastly increased levels of evidence, PACE, new technology for harvesting evidence, new technology that was introduced as evidence, effectively loads of new things that have come into play and effectively increased the chances of getting justice done have also contributed to slowing down the pursuit of justice. His point being that this isn’t purely a problem relating to money for the system.
In Georgian times criminal trials, including capital ones, were often over in less than an hour.
SpaceX I assume is ok. With Twitter I know he talked a big game on it (after trying to pull out of buying it), but I'm not convinced it was ever intended to make masses of money.
What a chump Redwood is. No awareness at all that the period of Norman subjugation, as he would put it, was the furnace from which English would emerge as the language that would go on to conquer the world. Prior to the Conquest, 'we' spoke Old English, with all the complexity of other European languages - three genders, a complex set of inflections and endings, a whole stack of now unfamiliar letters.
While the Normans were running everything and churning out their documents in Latin and Norman french, our ancestors were turning Old English into Middle English - one of the most dramatic linguistic transformations of history. Spoken by ordinary folk and rarely written down, out went the genders and most of the inflections and endings, with propositions and a more rigid word order used to convey tense and subject/object. The dialect in the linguistic driving seat shifted from Wessex to the more populous and prosperous East Midlands, enabling a synthesis of English and Norse syntax. Through some process not fully understood, the most straightforward elements of English and Norse were melded a new language, which also took in a batch of Latin derived words from French. After a few hundred years, when writing stuff down in the way that ordinary folk spoke, our proto-super-language was born.
Had we not invented printing at just the time when, for reasons not fully understood, we changed the pronunciation of all of our vowels, such that the pronunciation of English became separated from its spelling, English would have been so obviously superior that no-one would ever have bothered to invent Esperanto.
I think the Norman Conquest was beneficial in the long run, for this country, but pretty awful for the people (those North of the Humber at any rate), that had to live through it. In that respect, it resembles the downfall of the Western Roman empire.
1066 and all that was definitive. The Norman conquest was a good thing because it helped England become top dog.
Top French Dog in sheep's clothing though David. Only the sheep are left.
Britain is nicer than Bulgaria. You really notice it when you come back from Bulgaria to Britain. It’s nicer here
I might offer that to Visit Britain as a slogan for their next campaign
“Nicer than Bulgaria”
Bulgaria has lost about 25% of its population in the past 20 years.
That was very careless of them.
Of course, an increasing number of countries are seeing populations decline, even without the effects of emigration.
China's population has declined for three years in a row now. South Korean, Japan and Russia are seeing similar.
There are lurid rumours that China's true population is actually considerably smaller - 1.1bn? 900m? 700m? Lower? I don't know how much credibility to give these, but we know the Chinese a) lie, b) are given incentives to lie, and c) aren't great at keeping stats. It would be odd if their claimed population figures are correct.
The same is said of Nigeria.
I think quite a few African populations are derived via the guessing stick. Nigerias is still huge, albeit likely to peak much lower than was forecast.
Yes but that could as easily mean under rather than over counting?
Former Conservative Party chairman Sir Jake Berry has defected to Reform warning they “our last chance to pull Britain back from terminal decline”
Hammer blow to Badenoch as former CCHQ says party doomed
I don't think they are doomed, but no one seems passionate about them, and unless Reform face a sudden drop the calls for a merger or pact which gives Farage the biggest influence (despite many fewer MPs) will become insistent.
Stupid things in the news number 704: considering having trials without a jury to speed things up. But only for the complex and obvious ones.
I have a better idea. Remember when we fast tracked justice for the rioters? Let’s do that. How do we clear the backlog? Find the courts to stay open longer hours and more days.
“But how do we pay for that”. As if the crime epidemic caused by our inability to schedule simple trials until (reportedly) 2029 is zero cost.
Pay more up front to clear the trial backlog to make criminal justice a weapon against crime to save money lost in having parts of the country crime-ridden hell holes.
I feel sorry for Kier Sunak. Head of the continuity LabCon government making no progress at all getting any of the problems fixed. Let the swamp consume itself, get people round the table and ask how do we get things moving.
Too much crime. Costing money. Can’t nick and prosecute due to backlog caused by lack of money. FFS do I have to draw you a picture in crayon?
One interesting point Leveson made in his interview on Today was that in the past lawyers would often do two cases in a day and sometimes start a third however today it very rarely happens.
This, he said, was down to the vastly increased levels of evidence, PACE, new technology for harvesting evidence, new technology that was introduced as evidence, effectively loads of new things that have come into play and effectively increased the chances of getting justice done have also contributed to slowing down the pursuit of justice. His point being that this isn’t purely a problem relating to money for the system.
In Georgian times criminal trials, including capital ones, were often over in less than an hour.
Then that must be our new target. I don’t think anyone could argue that it wouldn’t be more efficient and good for victims and perpetrators alongside those called for jury service. Verdicts delivered in one hour or your money back.
"Gregg Wallace’s autism means he can’t wear underwear, say friends
Sources close to ex-MasterChef presenter claim he has ‘hypersensitivity’ to tight clothing and his condition is partly to blame for his inappropriate behaviour" (£)
What a chump Redwood is. No awareness at all that the period of Norman subjugation, as he would put it, was the furnace from which English would emerge as the language that would go on to conquer the world. Prior to the Conquest, 'we' spoke Old English, with all the complexity of other European languages - three genders, a complex set of inflections and endings, a whole stack of now unfamiliar letters.
While the Normans were running everything and churning out their documents in Latin and Norman french, our ancestors were turning Old English into Middle English - one of the most dramatic linguistic transformations of history. Spoken by ordinary folk and rarely written down, out went the genders and most of the inflections and endings, with propositions and a more rigid word order used to convey tense and subject/object. The dialect in the linguistic driving seat shifted from Wessex to the more populous and prosperous East Midlands, enabling a synthesis of English and Norse syntax. Through some process not fully understood, the most straightforward elements of English and Norse were melded a new language, which also took in a batch of Latin derived words from French. After a few hundred years, when writing stuff down in the way that ordinary folk spoke, our proto-super-language was born.
Had we not invented printing at just the time when, for reasons not fully understood, we changed the pronunciation of all of our vowels, such that the pronunciation of English became separated from its spelling, English would have been so obviously superior that no-one would ever have bothered to invent Esperanto.
I think the Norman Conquest was beneficial in the long run, for this country, but pretty awful for the people (those North of the Humber at any rate), that had to live through it. In that respect, it resembles the downfall of the Western Roman empire.
1066 and all that was definitive. The Norman conquest was a good thing because it helped England become top dog.
But England was pretty well off before 1066. It could well have become top dog anyway.
Comments
For a start: there are plenty of properties which are already bumping up against the maximums for housing benefit.
I suppose if our government was halfway canny it could make it the first 50 to arrive this week, no exceptions, which would at least turn it all into a game of "beggar thy neighbour" between the various gangs not to be the ones to send the first boat... Although presumably a few weeks later the gangs would be paying bunches of likely lads to go on a boat trip for their 10th deportation in as many weeks, and leave the way clear for the rest of them...
I mean its cute you care and all that, but you might as well be nostalgic for gas lamps.
ECHR says 'hello'
It is not going to happen
Remembering the bands that didnt make it past the Judges houses this year
Tony Blair made decisions that massively benefitted Oracle, and Larry Ellison has bankrolled Blair's foundation. This Government is seizing its chance to do the same while it retains what is quite clearly a very fleeting grip on the levers of power.
We already found out that our "great friend" Trump is rather indifferent to our national interests, so a closer relationship with the EU is inevitable, and the usefulness of closer economic ties to our largest trading partners can not be denied.
That's not to say that the pre-conquest society was a land of freedom and fairness, and slavery was rife. But in general yer average Anglo Saxon was considerably worse off after the invasion.
Invasions are usually not beneficial.
Reminds me a bit of how Andy Roddick used to win the first set nearly every time and lose the match against Federer.
Leon is not a person.
Leon is about seven people.
Trump is certainly not good for the EU, but seems to be less malevolent to the UK
These are uncertain times, but the future lies with a wider trading block than the EU including Canada and the TPPA all coming together
William made Netanyahu look like a pussycat, and that takes some doing.
Xi is still a bigger bastard than he was, mind.
Inflation is above 4% in 3 Eurozone countries (Estonia, Croatia and Slovakia), and 3+% in another 4 (Lithuania, Latvia, Greece and Austria). Inflation is below 1% in 2 Eurozone countries (France and Cyprus). The remaining 11 Eurozone countries are in the Goldilocks zone, 1-3%.
Obviously, having your village burned to the ground, your livestock slaughtered, your womenfolk raped, by the Norman army, and then left to starve, would have made an immense difference. We can tell how bad the Harrying of the North was through Orderic Vitalis commenting that he had frequently praised William in his Chronicle, "but I have nothing good to say about this. God will punish him." And, this, at a time when those last four words would have been meant literally.
Of course, an increasing number of countries are seeing populations decline, even without the effects of emigration.
China's population has declined for three years in a row now. South Korean, Japan and Russia are seeing similar.
Is it not far likelier that the big boys knew from a mile off that Labour were walking into power, and had words with the people they needed to have words with? Nobody noticed in the kerfuffle of a new Government coming in, and those that did rather quaintly put it down to 'naivete'.
None of the advantages, but all of the downsides like not having control over the Central Bank, or the Central Bank not setting rates based on our currency, and being our own lender of last resort etc
Does a gigantic property tax affect supply of rental properties? Absolutely. But I'd immediately sell mine to a first time buyer, reducing the demand for them too. The total number of flats available is exactly the same as before, but the proportions of housing tenure would change dramatically - you'd only own a property to live in it, otherwise it's stupid investment.
There is a socially optimal number of rental properties - perhaps 15%, in a UK context, to take account of contract workers, students and so on. In other countries it's higher. But it's certainly the case that there are more people renting than want to be at the moment.
Short version - it resulted in a small plant building tractors from major assemblies manufactured in the Czech Republic. Most of the tractors were actually completely assembled in CR.
This was because each stage of in sourcing is hard. And requires knowledge and money. So much easier to just buy it in.
Sources close to ex-MasterChef presenter claim he has ‘hypersensitivity’ to tight clothing and his condition is partly to blame for his inappropriate behaviour" (£)
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/media/article/gregg-wallace-autism-hypersensitivity-claim-v72rmtmnv
Suffice to say there are a LOT of people in China. I was struck by this little known fact when I did a Gazette Travel Assignment in Chengdu. I confess I had never heard of the city until I got there
Population?
Twenty million
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu
Economic growth stats with a sound currency.
In just the last 24 hours:
– The CEO of X resigned
– The Head of Infrastructure at xAI left for OpenAI
– The VP of Software Engineering at Tesla left for OpenAI
Musk's businesses are falling apart just as he faces increasingly dire political headwinds.
There are other ways of estimating population. Electricity consumption is one
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption
My entirely amateur guess is that, actually, China's official stated population is likely close to reality - or as close as any developed nation can get (cf the UK which has a hazy grasp of its own numbers)
Reminds me of my apprentice days
Meanwhile in reality, ie not @ScottXP loonyland cuckooclock country, this is from today
"SpaceX Valuation Hits $400 Billion, Driving Up Elon Musk's Wealth"
https://247wallst.com/income/2025/07/09/spacex-valuation-hits-400-billion-driving-up-elon-musks-wealth/
I imagine far more people have tried their namesake sauce than heard of the city.
Also, how many of us had heard of Wuhan before the Wuhan flu? Not me, I confess
Wuhan has a population of 8-12 million, depending how you measure it
Chinese cities are HUGE
"You came to our village, burned it, slaughtered half the inhabitants, raped the women, and left the survivors to starve."
"I'm sorry, I don't remember any of it."
"You don't remember?"
"The day I came to your village, it must have been the worst day of your life ... to me, it would have been Tuesday."
Though - as far as I've seen - no-one has left (or been poached - ymmv) from xAI.
If I was offered ballpark US$10mil to change job, I'd certainly consider it.
If anyone wants to offer?
To be fair, this is not impossible
But until and unless that happens, he will remain insanely wealthy and remarkably powerful, as much as his haters yearn to see him fall
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foshan
9.5m
Though it does seem to be contiguous with others, so not sure it really counts.
I have a better idea. Remember when we fast tracked justice for the rioters? Let’s do that. How do we clear the backlog? Find the courts to stay open longer hours and more days.
“But how do we pay for that”. As if the crime epidemic caused by our inability to schedule simple trials until (reportedly) 2029 is zero cost.
Pay more up front to clear the trial backlog to make criminal justice a weapon against crime to save money lost in having parts of the country crime-ridden hell holes.
I feel sorry for Kier Sunak. Head of the continuity LabCon government making no progress at all getting any of the problems fixed. Let the swamp consume itself, get people round the table and ask how do we get things moving.
Too much crime. Costing money. Can’t nick and prosecute due to backlog caused by lack of money. FFS do I have to draw you a picture in crayon?
If it was designated as one big city it would easily be the biggest in the world: 65m population
Loose fitting cotton boxers are older than him.
Disgusting that his "friends" and the Times would try that on.
This does not mean Wallace is innocent, but the claim is not intrinsically ridiculous. He is obviously autistic. Recall his "day in the life" article
Xi’an for me. Never heard of it.
It is not some "south sea bubble"
Why do people lose their minds when it comes to Musk? It is tedious
Maybe I'm just assuming it based on everything else they do.
A few months later I think Keir decided we were going to be an "AI Superpower". So maybe that's why he cancelled it. Or restarted it? Or... whatever.
And people say LLM's are unreliable...
So the excuse doesn't seem credible in his case.
That you are still a fanboi is revealing
You may find this hard because they are not readily available.
However, best guess is costs are around twice the amount of actual revenue.
Therefore, the fact the share price keeps rising shrieks 'bubble' to me.
Put it this way, if I were a banker I wouldn't accept the stock as security for anything except a very small loan.
And I have always thought the same about Tesla, before you ask. A case could also be made for Apple.
This, he said, was down to the vastly increased levels of evidence, PACE, new technology for harvesting evidence, new technology that was introduced as evidence, effectively loads of new things that have come into play and effectively increased the chances of getting justice done have also contributed to slowing down the pursuit of justice. His point being that this isn’t purely a problem relating to money for the system.
Fun fact: Hankou, now a suburb of Wuhan, was a British Concession 1862 to 1929.
Apple makes insane amounts of money
Tesla used to make insane amounts of money, but I wouldn't want to bet on it making much in the future.
💥 SUN EXCLUSIVE:
Former Conservative Party chairman Sir Jake Berry has defected to Reform warning they “our last chance to pull Britain back from terminal decline”
Hammer blow to Badenoch as former CCHQ says party doomed
Valuing things like tech companies seems to be a bit of a common error for tech bros - WeWork?