A property value tax (replacing council tax) was, I thought, a more likely option. The downsides of that seem less apparent - although still some question of valuations there (particularly around properties that are substantially improved or extended).
How very PB, a header on the SNP & Indy turns into a reflexive regurgitation of Brexit was good anctually and Remoaners smell.
Obsessive, toi?
Complete with a laboured, bitter, unfunny whine from your good self. So, yes: tick tick tick
"Leavers are, for obvious reasons, reflexively defensive these days."
QED
It is remarkable that a handful of Brexiteers have the audacity to spam the site each day with a million posts decrying current government fiscal travails, whilst still quietly considering Brexit is a success and "Boris Johnson got all the big calls right".
How sad that on a politics site, people should have views that conflict with your own.
Well I seem to recall the beasting of Scott for his anti-Brexit posting. "Scott,n' paste" etc. And the same people complaining about that are doing exactly the same but on a topic that cheers them.
It's your entitlement to spam the site with your point of view (TBF, your posts are very measured, legitimate and very readable some, other posters on the other hand are just particularly dreary). Their posts do not add to, but diminish the debate.
PB is such a fantastic resource. It was at its best during US election 2020 as exceptional posters counted down Donald Trump's defeat with data, when it looked from the early count like he might have won.
A number of my favourite (like minded) posters seem recently to have thrown in the towel. If we want the site to be a pro- Tory/ Reform echo chamber let's crack on regardless.
Oh do stop bleating. The Labour Party is now in power. The government of the day ALWAYS gets a kicking on PB and its opponents are thereby energised. Cope
And of course this government is excruciatingly bad (see the polls) and led by a loathsome failure (see the polls) so it will get particularly and severely drubbed. Cope
He is coping. Mechanism of choice being to point out the deluge of brainless drivel from right wingers (and one or two others who risibly claim to be unaligned) on here.
It's an honourable course. Much easier to de-engage or 'go light' (ie do only the non politics chitchat that PB is always good for, regardless of clashing world views and brain chemistries).
ON topic, the Economist is claiming that Xiaomi phones are now basically as good as iPhones, and much cheaper - and therefore about to conquer the world
I’ve just checked the prices of Xiaomi on Amazon. They are indeed ludicrously cheap (compared to Apple and Samsung etc)
Are they genuinely good? Has anyone got one?
I can say with authority that I am now using Chinese made earbuds to listen to music and at £25 a set they are probably as good as Apple’s which cost £150
Not earbuds but a phone.
Redmi Note 13, a couple of years old now and only 4g. I had one before that too. No cable-free charging, but perfectly adequate otherwise, and the Chinese Red Army know my every step.
Interesting
I had my Chinatechnophany a few months ago when I mislaid all my Apple earbuds (average price £175?) and resorted to this cheap pair of Chinese earbuds (£20) which I had bought but never really used before
I then realised that the Chinese buds were not just five times cheaper but…. Superior. Better bass
I’ve now stocked up on these absurdly cheap earbuds and virtually abandoned Apple. They can fuck off with charging me nearly £200 for stuff that always gets lost and is unusable after a year
How very PB, a header on the SNP & Indy turns into a reflexive regurgitation of Brexit was good anctually and Remoaners smell.
Obsessive, toi?
Complete with a laboured, bitter, unfunny whine from your good self. So, yes: tick tick tick
"Leavers are, for obvious reasons, reflexively defensive these days."
QED
It is remarkable that a handful of Brexiteers have the audacity to spam the site each day with a million posts decrying current government fiscal travails, whilst still quietly considering Brexit is a success and "Boris Johnson got all the big calls right".
How sad that on a politics site, people should have views that conflict with your own.
Well I seem to recall the beasting of Scott for his anti-Brexit posting. "Scott,n' paste" etc. And the same people complaining about that are doing exactly the same but on a topic that cheers them.
It's your entitlement to spam the site with your point of view (TBF, your posts are very measured, legitimate and very readable some, other posters on the other hand are just particularly dreary). Their posts do not add to, but diminish the debate.
PB is such a fantastic resource. It was at its best during US election 2020 as exceptional posters counted down Donald Trump's defeat with data, when it looked from the early count like he might have won.
A number of my favourite (like minded) posters seem recently to have thrown in the towel. If we want the site to be a pro- Tory/ Reform echo chamber let's crack on regardless.
Oh do stop bleating. The Labour Party is now in power. The government of the day ALWAYS gets a kicking on PB and its opponents are thereby energised. Cope
And of course this government is excruciatingly bad (see the polls) and led by a loathsome failure (see the polls) so it will get particularly and severely drubbed. Cope
I don't believe I have defended the Government, they have certainly disappointed on many levels, although they are yet to plumb the depths of Brexit, Johnson and Truss.
I believe a rational debate on their shortcomings is fine. There is enough real failure to discuss without posters with Starmer/ Reeves derangement syndrome quoting ten consecutive posts of Daily Telegraph unhinged stories. "Starmer will give up the Isle of Man"."Starmer will have to call in the IMF". " If only the Tories had won, none of this would have happened". Also their enthusiasm for the Sultanas is reminiscent of their excitement at paying three quid to vote Corbyn as Labour leader, their smiles were wiped off their faces when he nearly won in 2017. And to think I have been accused of Brexit/ Johnson/ Farage/ Trump derangement.
Anyway this board will only be perfect when all the centrist dads have pissed off to ConHome for a more balanced debate.
You would do your sanity a massive favour if you went and picked random previous threads on PB from during probably any of the years of Tory government. You would see the grief the government got, deserved and undeserved.
Criticisms worthy and unworthy of each Tory Leader, for every one of your “Starmer will give away the Isle of Man” piss takes was something laid at the door of Sunak, Boris, May. Think of the crap thrown at Truss about her alleged sexual proclivities.
I have private messages I sent to a PBer who was getting very angry and perhaps overwrought with the pile ons by left leaning posters in the months leading to the last election. Posters who were extremely vocal as their side surged to a massive majority are quiet now, not because some mysterious cabal of right wing voters scaring them off but because there is very little to enthuse them about “their team”.
Those of us trying to defend the Tories over a year ago, like the doomed defenders at Dien Bien Phu, are feeling a bit of pep and “told you so” grim amusement whilst those who slammed the Tories and pumped Labour are feeling probably a little embarrassment.
You do seem to suffer some odd persecution complex on behalf of centre left posters who are still around despite your cries lamenting them being scared off by the right wing mongol hoards.
Easier for your happiness if you just accept that Labour and the left are getting grief because they are doing a bad job and not a conspiracy.
He’s just an oddball.
He sent me a direct message, totally unsolicited, to tell me I was a Tory shill (in spite of never voting for them in a GE in my life) and he’d keep calling me out. Fancy being that invested in an online poster on an online forum. Wacky.
I think you’re right that some on the left just expected their side to come in and the commentary here be deferential and North Korean.
I voted labour. Where they do good I will say, where they fuck up I will say.
I think MP is also aware that PB akways has a "default mode" on the right, which is particularly in effect on quieter days when there's no big news to bring in the full.range of lurking posters.
This was generally less obvious during the years of obviously egregious Truss and Johnson stupidity, when so many people were motivared to post.against Toryism.
Ed Miliband admits Sizewell C cost has almost doubled to £38bn
I was utterly bemused by Reform's attack on renewable energy and the subsidies that it supposedly takes with a preference for nuclear instead. The strike price for nuclear is already nearly twice the renewable rate and they are heading in opposite directions. The one universal and unbreakable rule since the 1950s has always been that nuclear energy is the most expensive option. Always. And it is going to remain so.
Trouble is that almost all our energy options are bad.
Solar has got very cheap to install but doesn't work in winter at our latitude, which is our peak demand.
Wind has stopped getting significantly cheaper, and the strike prices we are having to offer are above the current grid price - i.e. we're locking in higher prices for the next 30 years with the wind we're building now. And our electricity is already extraordinarily expensive.
Nuclear should be the answer, but because we've decided to do it as a JV with the French rather than buying Korean designs off the peg it makes even wind look cheap.
Coal is by far the cheapest source of power, but we don't like it because it's not clean and have just destroyed all our coal fired infrastructure.
Gas is fairly expensive compared to coal, and much harder to store, we refuse to frack for the massive reserves we appear to sat on (fracking is what's driven the US energy price so low, and thus caused their whole economy to pull away from Europe). Very vulnerable to global price shocks.
Tidal has potential, but suffers from big project syndrome (see also Nuclear) and the planning/environmental lobby, hence we've never built any.
There are lots of ways it could be fixed, but it all of them require slaying at least one sacred cow, most of them several. And in exactly none of the options for fixing it is wind the right answer - so obviously that's what we've bet the farm on.
The chat I had with the local fUKers on Sunday was interesting. Their objections to Net Zero were primarily: SSEN building ugly pylons to take clean energy to England Spending £lots to have turbines not running due lack of said pylons to take the energy to England
Their view was that UK energy is sky high cos of paying to have turbines switched off. Not because we're pegged to import gas prices we largely don't import. And their solution is RR small nukes which are definitely available to generate cheap power tomorrow.
Of all their policies it's the most baffling. I pointed out that in practice all their options leave us on the hook to foreigners as opposed to making our own power here. They disagreed - because nobody wants these ugly turbines here. And don't worry about foreigners.
Riiiiiight.
There's also the complicating argument over regional pricing of electricity, but you're quite right in saying that opposing grid upgrades is entirely antithetical to Scotland's economic interests.
Much wind goodness is brewed out at sea, with cables laid on the ocean floor. Surely the obvious plan is to connect cables into landside hubs and then dahn sarf with another ocean floor interconnector. Which removes said pylons and gives more jobs to our offshore services industry. Win Win.
It is! The connections into it landside? That's the contentious bit.
Interesting it's Drax. They're good at diversifying fingers into many pies, so it figures. But Eggborough was nearby (power station now gone) and would have had lots of redundant electricity shifting infrastructure. There was talk of a CCGT there, but not sure whether that's happening.
ETA: Permission was granted for the CCGT, but I think the site has been largely re-used for warehouse space, so maybe a change of plan there. Website, here: https://eggboroughccgt.co.uk/
How very PB, a header on the SNP & Indy turns into a reflexive regurgitation of Brexit was good anctually and Remoaners smell.
Obsessive, toi?
Complete with a laboured, bitter, unfunny whine from your good self. So, yes: tick tick tick
"Leavers are, for obvious reasons, reflexively defensive these days."
QED
It is remarkable that a handful of Brexiteers have the audacity to spam the site each day with a million posts decrying current government fiscal travails, whilst still quietly considering Brexit is a success and "Boris Johnson got all the big calls right".
How sad that on a politics site, people should have views that conflict with your own.
Well I seem to recall the beasting of Scott for his anti-Brexit posting. "Scott,n' paste" etc. And the same people complaining about that are doing exactly the same but on a topic that cheers them.
It's your entitlement to spam the site with your point of view (TBF, your posts are very measured, legitimate and very readable some, other posters on the other hand are just particularly dreary). Their posts do not add to, but diminish the debate.
PB is such a fantastic resource. It was at its best during US election 2020 as exceptional posters counted down Donald Trump's defeat with data, when it looked from the early count like he might have won.
A number of my favourite (like minded) posters seem recently to have thrown in the towel. If we want the site to be a pro- Tory/ Reform echo chamber let's crack on regardless.
Oh do stop bleating. The Labour Party is now in power. The government of the day ALWAYS gets a kicking on PB and its opponents are thereby energised. Cope
And of course this government is excruciatingly bad (see the polls) and led by a loathsome failure (see the polls) so it will get particularly and severely drubbed. Cope
I don't believe I have defended the Government, they have certainly disappointed on many levels, although they are yet to plumb the depths of Brexit, Johnson and Truss.
I believe a rational debate on their shortcomings is fine. There is enough real failure to discuss without posters with Starmer/ Reeves derangement syndrome quoting ten consecutive posts of Daily Telegraph unhinged stories. "Starmer will give up the Isle of Man"."Starmer will have to call in the IMF". " If only the Tories had won, none of this would have happened". Also their enthusiasm for the Sultanas is reminiscent of their excitement at paying three quid to vote Corbyn as Labour leader, their smiles were wiped off their faces when he nearly won in 2017. And to think I have been accused of Brexit/ Johnson/ Farage/ Trump derangement.
Anyway this board will only be perfect when all the centrist dads have pissed off to ConHome for a more balanced debate.
You would do your sanity a massive favour if you went and picked random previous threads on PB from during probably any of the years of Tory government. You would see the grief the government got, deserved and undeserved.
Criticisms worthy and unworthy of each Tory Leader, for every one of your “Starmer will give away the Isle of Man” piss takes was something laid at the door of Sunak, Boris, May. Think of the crap thrown at Truss about her alleged sexual proclivities.
I have private messages I sent to a PBer who was getting very angry and perhaps overwrought with the pile ons by left leaning posters in the months leading to the last election. Posters who were extremely vocal as their side surged to a massive majority are quiet now, not because some mysterious cabal of right wing voters scaring them off but because there is very little to enthuse them about “their team”.
Those of us trying to defend the Tories over a year ago, like the doomed defenders at Dien Bien Phu, are feeling a bit of pep and “told you so” grim amusement whilst those who slammed the Tories and pumped Labour are feeling probably a little embarrassment.
You do seem to suffer some odd persecution complex on behalf of centre left posters who are still around despite your cries lamenting them being scared off by the right wing mongol hoards.
Easier for your happiness if you just accept that Labour and the left are getting grief because they are doing a bad job and not a conspiracy.
He’s just an oddball.
He sent me a direct message, totally unsolicited, to tell me I was a Tory shill (in spite of never voting for them in a GE in my life) and he’d keep calling me out. Fancy being that invested in an online poster on an online forum. Wacky.
I think you’re right that some on the left just expected their side to come in and the commentary here be deferential and North Korean.
I voted labour. Where they do good I will say, where they fuck up I will say.
I’ve got two types of lefty friend, now
The majority have abandoned all hope and slumped into despair. Several are now more right wing than me on pivotal issues tho they still vaguely say “I’m sort of left but I don’t like the government”
Then there are the holdouts who are getting evermore shrill and brittle. They find criticism increasingly hard to take and - perhaps as a result? - are moving further left. So they can disown the Labour govt as being not lefty enough. That’s the problem, according to them
A property value tax (replacing council tax) was, I thought, a more likely option. The downsides of that seem less apparent - although still some question of valuations there (particularly around properties that are substantially improved or extended).
It’s certainly one of the proposals being floated by those on the left of Labour.
I’d agree with a property value tax being more likely.
So what top front bench post are we expecting Cleverly to land this afternoon?
I can't even recall who is current Foreign office shadow.
I have everything crossed for Matt "I love Parmos me!" Vickers to get promoted into the ShadCab. He's been shit excellent as shadow naahbutLabur minister and would be banging if she gets him banging on about Culture or summut.
A property value tax (replacing council tax) was, I thought, a more likely option. The downsides of that seem less apparent - although still some question of valuations there (particularly around properties that are substantially improved or extended).
I see the forum has spent half the morning debating the economics of Regency England.
Never change PB, never change!!!
A marked improvement on ‘deport all foreigners’ as the debate may, or may not, have been last night. Different people had a different perspective. My perspective was I didn’t want a piece of it.
A property value tax (replacing council tax) was, I thought, a more likely option. The downsides of that seem less apparent - although still some question of valuations there (particularly around properties that are substantially improved or extended).
Unions are pushing for one I believe.
So are the Greens, some in the left wing press and some of the more cerebral members of the PLP like Richard Burgon.
How very PB, a header on the SNP & Indy turns into a reflexive regurgitation of Brexit was good anctually and Remoaners smell.
Obsessive, toi?
Complete with a laboured, bitter, unfunny whine from your good self. So, yes: tick tick tick
"Leavers are, for obvious reasons, reflexively defensive these days."
QED
It is remarkable that a handful of Brexiteers have the audacity to spam the site each day with a million posts decrying current government fiscal travails, whilst still quietly considering Brexit is a success and "Boris Johnson got all the big calls right".
How sad that on a politics site, people should have views that conflict with your own.
Well I seem to recall the beasting of Scott for his anti-Brexit posting. "Scott,n' paste" etc. And the same people complaining about that are doing exactly the same but on a topic that cheers them.
It's your entitlement to spam the site with your point of view (TBF, your posts are very measured, legitimate and very readable some, other posters on the other hand are just particularly dreary). Their posts do not add to, but diminish the debate.
PB is such a fantastic resource. It was at its best during US election 2020 as exceptional posters counted down Donald Trump's defeat with data, when it looked from the early count like he might have won.
A number of my favourite (like minded) posters seem recently to have thrown in the towel. If we want the site to be a pro- Tory/ Reform echo chamber let's crack on regardless.
Oh do stop bleating. The Labour Party is now in power. The government of the day ALWAYS gets a kicking on PB and its opponents are thereby energised. Cope
And of course this government is excruciatingly bad (see the polls) and led by a loathsome failure (see the polls) so it will get particularly and severely drubbed. Cope
I don't believe I have defended the Government, they have certainly disappointed on many levels, although they are yet to plumb the depths of Brexit, Johnson and Truss.
I believe a rational debate on their shortcomings is fine. There is enough real failure to discuss without posters with Starmer/ Reeves derangement syndrome quoting ten consecutive posts of Daily Telegraph unhinged stories. "Starmer will give up the Isle of Man"."Starmer will have to call in the IMF". " If only the Tories had won, none of this would have happened". Also their enthusiasm for the Sultanas is reminiscent of their excitement at paying three quid to vote Corbyn as Labour leader, their smiles were wiped off their faces when he nearly won in 2017. And to think I have been accused of Brexit/ Johnson/ Farage/ Trump derangement.
Anyway this board will only be perfect when all the centrist dads have pissed off to ConHome for a more balanced debate.
You would do your sanity a massive favour if you went and picked random previous threads on PB from during probably any of the years of Tory government. You would see the grief the government got, deserved and undeserved.
Criticisms worthy and unworthy of each Tory Leader, for every one of your “Starmer will give away the Isle of Man” piss takes was something laid at the door of Sunak, Boris, May. Think of the crap thrown at Truss about her alleged sexual proclivities.
I have private messages I sent to a PBer who was getting very angry and perhaps overwrought with the pile ons by left leaning posters in the months leading to the last election. Posters who were extremely vocal as their side surged to a massive majority are quiet now, not because some mysterious cabal of right wing voters scaring them off but because there is very little to enthuse them about “their team”.
Those of us trying to defend the Tories over a year ago, like the doomed defenders at Dien Bien Phu, are feeling a bit of pep and “told you so” grim amusement whilst those who slammed the Tories and pumped Labour are feeling probably a little embarrassment.
You do seem to suffer some odd persecution complex on behalf of centre left posters who are still around despite your cries lamenting them being scared off by the right wing mongol hoards.
Easier for your happiness if you just accept that Labour and the left are getting grief because they are doing a bad job and not a conspiracy.
He’s just an oddball.
He sent me a direct message, totally unsolicited, to tell me I was a Tory shill (in spite of never voting for them in a GE in my life) and he’d keep calling me out. Fancy being that invested in an online poster on an online forum. Wacky.
I think you’re right that some on the left just expected their side to come in and the commentary here be deferential and North Korean.
I voted labour. Where they do good I will say, where they fuck up I will say.
I’ve got two types of lefty friend, now
The majority have abandoned all hope and slumped into despair. Several are now more right wing than me on pivotal issues tho they still vaguely say “I’m sort of left but I don’t like the government”
Then there are the holdouts who are getting evermore shrill and brittle. They find criticism increasingly hard to take and - perhaps as a result? - are moving further left. So they can disown the Labour govt as being not lefty enough. That’s the problem, according to them
‘NEW: James Cleverly will become as Shadow Secretary of State for Housing. Tories see this as a key role to take on Angela Rayner’
So the Tories who failed on housebuilding can criticise Labour when they fail on housebuilding and the Lib Dem’s can demand an extension of the green belt.
Meanwhile Reform will promise whatever they think people want to hear and change daily.
So what top front bench post are we expecting Cleverly to land this afternoon?
I can't even recall who is current Foreign office shadow.
I have everything crossed for Matt "I love Parmos me!" Vickers to get promoted into the ShadCab. He's been shit excellent as shadow naahbutLabur minister and would be banging if she gets him banging on about Culture or summut.
My wife had a story about Matt from last week where he complained the council wanted £x000 for some landscape work and that he could do it for nothing like that (which he then went and did for point scoring reasons).
The diffference was his work was a one off job which already looks dire while the council now have to find that £x000 to undo his mess and support it long term
Even if the 40% that dislike him try and caucus against him (and only some will) the 37% that like him is enough to give him a whacking majority against a divided opposition
I thought his crime package was decidedly clever. Doesn’t matter about the details - people are just yearning to hear that someone will get a tough, unpleasant grip on crime. Deport thousands. Lock up thousands more. End shoplifting. Fuck the human rights nonsense
Honestly, after last night in Soho with the Groucho manager personally warning me about phone theft right outside the club (never happened before) I say: bring it on. I’m so very very tired of this small scale but life-eroding lawlessness
A property value tax (replacing council tax) was, I thought, a more likely option. The downsides of that seem less apparent - although still some question of valuations there (particularly around properties that are substantially improved or extended).
It’s certainly one of the proposals being floated by those on the left of Labour.
I’d agree with a property value tax being more likely.
A property value tax has been floated on here often enough because it’s literally the one thing that could be easily taxed more - heck we’ve debated it often enough that I or Max or Malm could probably do a presentation to the Treasury about it tomorrow
ON topic, the Economist is claiming that Xiaomi phones are now basically as good as iPhones, and much cheaper - and therefore about to conquer the world
I’ve just checked the prices of Xiaomi on Amazon. They are indeed ludicrously cheap (compared to Apple and Samsung etc)
Are they genuinely good? Has anyone got one?
I can say with authority that I am now using Chinese made earbuds to listen to music and at £25 a set they are probably as good as Apple’s which cost £150
Not earbuds but a phone.
Redmi Note 13, a couple of years old now and only 4g. I had one before that too. No cable-free charging, but perfectly adequate otherwise, and the Chinese Red Army know my every step.
Interesting
I had my Chinatechnophany a few months ago when I mislaid all my Apple earbuds (average price £175?) and resorted to this cheap pair of Chinese earbuds (£20) which I had bought but never really used before
I then realised that the Chinese buds were not just five times cheaper but…. Superior. Better bass
I’ve now stocked up on these absurdly cheap earbuds and virtually abandoned Apple. They can fuck off with charging me nearly £200 for stuff that always gets lost and is unusable after a year
My wife has some Bose earbuds which were absurdly expensive. Also made in the PRC.
I suspect the Chinese Red Army also knew your whereabouts from your more expensive earbuds too.
A property value tax (replacing council tax) was, I thought, a more likely option. The downsides of that seem less apparent - although still some question of valuations there (particularly around properties that are substantially improved or extended).
It’s certainly one of the proposals being floated by those on the left of Labour.
I’d agree with a property value tax being more likely.
A property value tax has been floated on here often enough because it’s literally the one thing that could be easily taxed more - heck we’ve debated it often enough that I or Max or Malm could probably do a presentation to the Treasury about it tomorrow
It seems to be something people here have a broad consensus of agreement on across the political divide.
So what top front bench post are we expecting Cleverly to land this afternoon?
I can't even recall who is current Foreign office shadow.
I have everything crossed for Matt "I love Parmos me!" Vickers to get promoted into the ShadCab. He's been shit excellent as shadow naahbutLabur minister and would be banging if she gets him banging on about Culture or summut.
My wife had a story about Matt from last week where he complained the council wanted £x000 for some landscape work and that he could do it for nothing like that (which he then went and did for point scoring reasons).
The diffference was his work was a one off job which already looks dire while the council now have to find that £x000 to undo his mess and support it long term
My wife knew him when they both served as Stockton councillors. A nice guy, but not remotely the sharpest of their coterie at the time. Selected to contest Stockton South as a survivor of the various rounds of blue on blue knifings, and mates with Ben Houchen International Airport who, like Matt, is an absolute spanner intellectually.
ON topic, the Economist is claiming that Xiaomi phones are now basically as good as iPhones, and much cheaper - and therefore about to conquer the world
I’ve just checked the prices of Xiaomi on Amazon. They are indeed ludicrously cheap (compared to Apple and Samsung etc)
Are they genuinely good? Has anyone got one?
I can say with authority that I am now using Chinese made earbuds to listen to music and at £25 a set they are probably as good as Apple’s which cost £150
Not earbuds but a phone.
Redmi Note 13, a couple of years old now and only 4g. I had one before that too. No cable-free charging, but perfectly adequate otherwise, and the Chinese Red Army know my every step.
Interesting
I had my Chinatechnophany a few months ago when I mislaid all my Apple earbuds (average price £175?) and resorted to this cheap pair of Chinese earbuds (£20) which I had bought but never really used before
I then realised that the Chinese buds were not just five times cheaper but…. Superior. Better bass
I’ve now stocked up on these absurdly cheap earbuds and virtually abandoned Apple. They can fuck off with charging me nearly £200 for stuff that always gets lost and is unusable after a year
My wife has some Bose earbuds which were absurdly expensive. Also made in the PRC.
I suspect the Chinese Red Army also knew your whereabouts from your more expensive earbuds too.
I don’t care any more. I’ve lost too many mega expensive £180 Apple earbuds. That stings. Or they get grimy and stop working
How very PB, a header on the SNP & Indy turns into a reflexive regurgitation of Brexit was good anctually and Remoaners smell.
Obsessive, toi?
Complete with a laboured, bitter, unfunny whine from your good self. So, yes: tick tick tick
"Leavers are, for obvious reasons, reflexively defensive these days."
QED
It is remarkable that a handful of Brexiteers have the audacity to spam the site each day with a million posts decrying current government fiscal travails, whilst still quietly considering Brexit is a success and "Boris Johnson got all the big calls right".
How sad that on a politics site, people should have views that conflict with your own.
Well I seem to recall the beasting of Scott for his anti-Brexit posting. "Scott,n' paste" etc. And the same people complaining about that are doing exactly the same but on a topic that cheers them.
It's your entitlement to spam the site with your point of view (TBF, your posts are very measured, legitimate and very readable some, other posters on the other hand are just particularly dreary). Their posts do not add to, but diminish the debate.
PB is such a fantastic resource. It was at its best during US election 2020 as exceptional posters counted down Donald Trump's defeat with data, when it looked from the early count like he might have won.
A number of my favourite (like minded) posters seem recently to have thrown in the towel. If we want the site to be a pro- Tory/ Reform echo chamber let's crack on regardless.
Oh do stop bleating. The Labour Party is now in power. The government of the day ALWAYS gets a kicking on PB and its opponents are thereby energised. Cope
And of course this government is excruciatingly bad (see the polls) and led by a loathsome failure (see the polls) so it will get particularly and severely drubbed. Cope
I don't believe I have defended the Government, they have certainly disappointed on many levels, although they are yet to plumb the depths of Brexit, Johnson and Truss.
I believe a rational debate on their shortcomings is fine. There is enough real failure to discuss without posters with Starmer/ Reeves derangement syndrome quoting ten consecutive posts of Daily Telegraph unhinged stories. "Starmer will give up the Isle of Man"."Starmer will have to call in the IMF". " If only the Tories had won, none of this would have happened". Also their enthusiasm for the Sultanas is reminiscent of their excitement at paying three quid to vote Corbyn as Labour leader, their smiles were wiped off their faces when he nearly won in 2017. And to think I have been accused of Brexit/ Johnson/ Farage/ Trump derangement.
Anyway this board will only be perfect when all the centrist dads have pissed off to ConHome for a more balanced debate.
You would do your sanity a massive favour if you went and picked random previous threads on PB from during probably any of the years of Tory government. You would see the grief the government got, deserved and undeserved.
Criticisms worthy and unworthy of each Tory Leader, for every one of your “Starmer will give away the Isle of Man” piss takes was something laid at the door of Sunak, Boris, May. Think of the crap thrown at Truss about her alleged sexual proclivities.
I have private messages I sent to a PBer who was getting very angry and perhaps overwrought with the pile ons by left leaning posters in the months leading to the last election. Posters who were extremely vocal as their side surged to a massive majority are quiet now, not because some mysterious cabal of right wing voters scaring them off but because there is very little to enthuse them about “their team”.
Those of us trying to defend the Tories over a year ago, like the doomed defenders at Dien Bien Phu, are feeling a bit of pep and “told you so” grim amusement whilst those who slammed the Tories and pumped Labour are feeling probably a little embarrassment.
You do seem to suffer some odd persecution complex on behalf of centre left posters who are still around despite your cries lamenting them being scared off by the right wing mongol hoards.
Easier for your happiness if you just accept that Labour and the left are getting grief because they are doing a bad job and not a conspiracy.
He’s just an oddball.
He sent me a direct message, totally unsolicited, to tell me I was a Tory shill (in spite of never voting for them in a GE in my life) and he’d keep calling me out. Fancy being that invested in an online poster on an online forum. Wacky.
I think you’re right that some on the left just expected their side to come in and the commentary here be deferential and North Korean.
I voted labour. Where they do good I will say, where they fuck up I will say.
I politely asked you to leave me alone. And I will ask again.
‘NEW: James Cleverly will become as Shadow Secretary of State for Housing. Tories see this as a key role to take on Angela Rayner’
So the Tories who failed on housebuilding can criticise Labour when they fail on housebuilding and the Lib Dem’s can demand an extension of the green belt.
Meanwhile Reform will promise whatever they think people want to hear and change daily.
You missed out the Cleverly Defence, which I imagine will get deployed:
CLEVERLY: Why aren't Labour building the houses we need? RAYNER: You had 14 years to build houses and you did nothing! If its important to build houses in Barnsley why didn't you do so? CLEVERLY: Cos its a shithole
Vote Conservative because if you want shit government you may as well be sneered at whilst it happens.
Reasonable article but definitely of the glass half full type, re-iterating all the bogus London reasons to allow them to keep milking us and ignoring any of the positives , ie biggest one is how on earth could we be worse off than we are under the English parliament. Lots of small countries doing much better than the basket case UK and they have little or no resources compared to Scotland. We will just see the usual "London" responses here from bigoted people with no clue about Scotland other than it is a nice piggy bank that has lots of collateral to back up their loans.
I might misremember but perhaps some of our Indian contributors would like to comment. Apparently India was 10% of the world GDP before the Raj and 1% during it as wealth was extracted. An independent India (or Ireland) is now climbing up the ranks.
Or perhaps there are other reasons for the comparative growth / decline in a nations fortunes - but why not give everyone a chance. Especially since the Welsh, Irish and Scots are all 'spongers'
Quite a bit of that wasn't exactly wealth extraction, though. World GDP grew rapidly during the Industrial Revolution - and the British control of India meant they were unable to shield their (very large) domestic textile industry from mechanised competition, so it collapsed as a result.
Pre-Industrial Revolution, a State’s share of world GDP tended to match its share of world population, with most people growing food as peasants, in villages. Maximum GDP per head was about $2,000. The lives of the elite were simply unimaginable to such people.
I was reading one economic article about the Roman Empire, which estimated Senatorial incomes at an average £9m, in 150, and knightly incomes at £720,000. The rest were on about £800 a year, per capita.
That all changed after 1800.
I get the impression that some people are bitter that Britain industrialised first, perhaps even than Britain industrialised at all.
Not a bit of it; it's something which provided us with a century or so of prosperity, for which I'm grateful.
That it also had a pretty disastrous effect on the economy of the Indian subcontinent, as a fairly direct result of our being the colonial power at the same time as we industrialised, isn't particularly controversial.
Indeed.
But there are people who do resent the industrial revolution happening here as they think one of:
1) It allowed 'wicked' Britain to 'exploit' the rest of the world.
2) It ended some rural pastoral idyll.
3) It messed up some wonderful Jane Austen style social system.
It’s funny. The Bennetts are “poor”, but they still own a village. Even minor nobility, in a pre-industrial world, live lives of incredible opulence, compared to the vast majority.
It takes a village to raise a family.
It's the income gap in the Roman Empire that's really staggering. Although estimates for GDP per head have to be treated with extreme caution, economic historians do it on the basis of wheat production. And, so you find the average Senatorial family with an income about 10,000 times greater than the typical inhabitant. It's a much bigger disparity, even than in Regency England. Granted, a Senatorial household could easily comprise 1,000 people, once you include freedmen and slaves.
How very PB, a header on the SNP & Indy turns into a reflexive regurgitation of Brexit was good anctually and Remoaners smell.
Obsessive, toi?
Complete with a laboured, bitter, unfunny whine from your good self. So, yes: tick tick tick
"Leavers are, for obvious reasons, reflexively defensive these days."
QED
It is remarkable that a handful of Brexiteers have the audacity to spam the site each day with a million posts decrying current government fiscal travails, whilst still quietly considering Brexit is a success and "Boris Johnson got all the big calls right".
How sad that on a politics site, people should have views that conflict with your own.
Well I seem to recall the beasting of Scott for his anti-Brexit posting. "Scott,n' paste" etc. And the same people complaining about that are doing exactly the same but on a topic that cheers them.
It's your entitlement to spam the site with your point of view (TBF, your posts are very measured, legitimate and very readable some, other posters on the other hand are just particularly dreary). Their posts do not add to, but diminish the debate.
PB is such a fantastic resource. It was at its best during US election 2020 as exceptional posters counted down Donald Trump's defeat with data, when it looked from the early count like he might have won.
A number of my favourite (like minded) posters seem recently to have thrown in the towel. If we want the site to be a pro- Tory/ Reform echo chamber let's crack on regardless.
Oh do stop bleating. The Labour Party is now in power. The government of the day ALWAYS gets a kicking on PB and its opponents are thereby energised. Cope
And of course this government is excruciatingly bad (see the polls) and led by a loathsome failure (see the polls) so it will get particularly and severely drubbed. Cope
I don't believe I have defended the Government, they have certainly disappointed on many levels, although they are yet to plumb the depths of Brexit, Johnson and Truss.
I believe a rational debate on their shortcomings is fine. There is enough real failure to discuss without posters with Starmer/ Reeves derangement syndrome quoting ten consecutive posts of Daily Telegraph unhinged stories. "Starmer will give up the Isle of Man"."Starmer will have to call in the IMF". " If only the Tories had won, none of this would have happened". Also their enthusiasm for the Sultanas is reminiscent of their excitement at paying three quid to vote Corbyn as Labour leader, their smiles were wiped off their faces when he nearly won in 2017. And to think I have been accused of Brexit/ Johnson/ Farage/ Trump derangement.
Anyway this board will only be perfect when all the centrist dads have pissed off to ConHome for a more balanced debate.
You would do your sanity a massive favour if you went and picked random previous threads on PB from during probably any of the years of Tory government. You would see the grief the government got, deserved and undeserved.
Criticisms worthy and unworthy of each Tory Leader, for every one of your “Starmer will give away the Isle of Man” piss takes was something laid at the door of Sunak, Boris, May. Think of the crap thrown at Truss about her alleged sexual proclivities.
I have private messages I sent to a PBer who was getting very angry and perhaps overwrought with the pile ons by left leaning posters in the months leading to the last election. Posters who were extremely vocal as their side surged to a massive majority are quiet now, not because some mysterious cabal of right wing voters scaring them off but because there is very little to enthuse them about “their team”.
Those of us trying to defend the Tories over a year ago, like the doomed defenders at Dien Bien Phu, are feeling a bit of pep and “told you so” grim amusement whilst those who slammed the Tories and pumped Labour are feeling probably a little embarrassment.
You do seem to suffer some odd persecution complex on behalf of centre left posters who are still around despite your cries lamenting them being scared off by the right wing mongol hoards.
Easier for your happiness if you just accept that Labour and the left are getting grief because they are doing a bad job and not a conspiracy.
He’s just an oddball.
He sent me a direct message, totally unsolicited, to tell me I was a Tory shill (in spite of never voting for them in a GE in my life) and he’d keep calling me out. Fancy being that invested in an online poster on an online forum. Wacky.
I think you’re right that some on the left just expected their side to come in and the commentary here be deferential and North Korean.
I voted labour. Where they do good I will say, where they fuck up I will say.
I’ve got two types of lefty friend, now
The majority have abandoned all hope and slumped into despair. Several are now more right wing than me on pivotal issues tho they still vaguely say “I’m sort of left but I don’t like the government”
Then there are the holdouts who are getting evermore shrill and brittle. They find criticism increasingly hard to take and - perhaps as a result? - are moving further left. So they can disown the Labour govt as being not lefty enough. That’s the problem, according to them
Tbh their brittleness is tiresome
It was so easy in opposition to believe that the government had terrible policies and that there was plenty of money if only the government chose to spend it on the things that matter. Of course, the government facilitated those beliefs by having some supremely stupid policies, such as Rwanda.
But the harsh bite of reality, once Labour became the government, seems particularly vicious this time. There is no money, there are no good choices, we are already spending too much and yet we have a range of unmet needs for genuinely vulnerable people. I think this has been particularly acute because of the Ming Vase policy successfully carried out be Starmer by which he basically avoided any hard decisions, any commitments (other than frankly unsustainable promises on tax that he would be better off breaking), any ideas at all really. The media failed us by letting him away with this but Labour supporters in particular were also guilty of a lot of wishful thinking.
I have no problem in acknowledging that the current government's inheritance was terrible, there was a lot of unreality on the other side too. I accept that Reeves in particular has a hell of a job on her hands and I frankly question whether she is up to it. It is not surprising that the wishful thinkers are dismayed. It is the reluctance of any of our political parties (including Reform) to get close to addressing what needs to be done that is causing widespread despair.
‘NEW: James Cleverly will become as Shadow Secretary of State for Housing. Tories see this as a key role to take on Angela Rayner’
So the Tories who failed on housebuilding can criticise Labour when they fail on housebuilding and the Lib Dem’s can demand an extension of the green belt.
Meanwhile Reform will promise whatever they think people want to hear and change daily.
You missed out the Cleverly Defence, which I imagine will get deployed:
CLEVERLY: Why aren't Labour building the houses we need? RAYNER: You had 14 years to build houses and you did nothing! If its important to build houses in Barnsley why didn't you do so? CLEVERLY: Cos its a shithole
Vote Conservative because if you want shit government you may as well be sneered at whilst it happens.
It's a sound policy. We have to stop having Labour shitholes.
‘NEW: James Cleverly will become as Shadow Secretary of State for Housing. Tories see this as a key role to take on Angela Rayner’
So the Tories who failed on housebuilding can criticise Labour when they fail on housebuilding and the Lib Dem’s can demand an extension of the green belt.
Meanwhile Reform will promise whatever they think people want to hear and change daily.
You missed out the Cleverly Defence, which I imagine will get deployed:
CLEVERLY: Why aren't Labour building the houses we need? RAYNER: You had 14 years to build houses and you did nothing! If its important to build houses in Barnsley why didn't you do so? CLEVERLY: Cos its a shithole
Vote Conservative because if you want shit government you may as well be sneered at whilst it happens.
It's a sound policy. We have to stop having Labour shitholes.
Because Labour shitholes now vote for Reform.
They've got someone new to let them down. Very exciting times .
How very PB, a header on the SNP & Indy turns into a reflexive regurgitation of Brexit was good anctually and Remoaners smell.
Obsessive, toi?
Complete with a laboured, bitter, unfunny whine from your good self. So, yes: tick tick tick
"Leavers are, for obvious reasons, reflexively defensive these days."
QED
It is remarkable that a handful of Brexiteers have the audacity to spam the site each day with a million posts decrying current government fiscal travails, whilst still quietly considering Brexit is a success and "Boris Johnson got all the big calls right".
How sad that on a politics site, people should have views that conflict with your own.
Well I seem to recall the beasting of Scott for his anti-Brexit posting. "Scott,n' paste" etc. And the same people complaining about that are doing exactly the same but on a topic that cheers them.
It's your entitlement to spam the site with your point of view (TBF, your posts are very measured, legitimate and very readable some, other posters on the other hand are just particularly dreary). Their posts do not add to, but diminish the debate.
PB is such a fantastic resource. It was at its best during US election 2020 as exceptional posters counted down Donald Trump's defeat with data, when it looked from the early count like he might have won.
A number of my favourite (like minded) posters seem recently to have thrown in the towel. If we want the site to be a pro- Tory/ Reform echo chamber let's crack on regardless.
Oh do stop bleating. The Labour Party is now in power. The government of the day ALWAYS gets a kicking on PB and its opponents are thereby energised. Cope
And of course this government is excruciatingly bad (see the polls) and led by a loathsome failure (see the polls) so it will get particularly and severely drubbed. Cope
I don't believe I have defended the Government, they have certainly disappointed on many levels, although they are yet to plumb the depths of Brexit, Johnson and Truss.
I believe a rational debate on their shortcomings is fine. There is enough real failure to discuss without posters with Starmer/ Reeves derangement syndrome quoting ten consecutive posts of Daily Telegraph unhinged stories. "Starmer will give up the Isle of Man"."Starmer will have to call in the IMF". " If only the Tories had won, none of this would have happened". Also their enthusiasm for the Sultanas is reminiscent of their excitement at paying three quid to vote Corbyn as Labour leader, their smiles were wiped off their faces when he nearly won in 2017. And to think I have been accused of Brexit/ Johnson/ Farage/ Trump derangement.
Anyway this board will only be perfect when all the centrist dads have pissed off to ConHome for a more balanced debate.
You would do your sanity a massive favour if you went and picked random previous threads on PB from during probably any of the years of Tory government. You would see the grief the government got, deserved and undeserved.
Criticisms worthy and unworthy of each Tory Leader, for every one of your “Starmer will give away the Isle of Man” piss takes was something laid at the door of Sunak, Boris, May. Think of the crap thrown at Truss about her alleged sexual proclivities.
I have private messages I sent to a PBer who was getting very angry and perhaps overwrought with the pile ons by left leaning posters in the months leading to the last election. Posters who were extremely vocal as their side surged to a massive majority are quiet now, not because some mysterious cabal of right wing voters scaring them off but because there is very little to enthuse them about “their team”.
Those of us trying to defend the Tories over a year ago, like the doomed defenders at Dien Bien Phu, are feeling a bit of pep and “told you so” grim amusement whilst those who slammed the Tories and pumped Labour are feeling probably a little embarrassment.
You do seem to suffer some odd persecution complex on behalf of centre left posters who are still around despite your cries lamenting them being scared off by the right wing mongol hoards.
Easier for your happiness if you just accept that Labour and the left are getting grief because they are doing a bad job and not a conspiracy.
He’s just an oddball.
He sent me a direct message, totally unsolicited, to tell me I was a Tory shill (in spite of never voting for them in a GE in my life) and he’d keep calling me out. Fancy being that invested in an online poster on an online forum. Wacky.
I think you’re right that some on the left just expected their side to come in and the commentary here be deferential and North Korean.
I voted labour. Where they do good I will say, where they fuck up I will say.
I politely asked you to leave me alone. And I will ask again.
You had a strop as I pointed out to someone you had flounced. I had not even addressed you. As was the same with this post you chose to reply to.
I suspect you have issues, and not of Top Gear magazine.
How very PB, a header on the SNP & Indy turns into a reflexive regurgitation of Brexit was good anctually and Remoaners smell.
Obsessive, toi?
Complete with a laboured, bitter, unfunny whine from your good self. So, yes: tick tick tick
"Leavers are, for obvious reasons, reflexively defensive these days."
QED
It is remarkable that a handful of Brexiteers have the audacity to spam the site each day with a million posts decrying current government fiscal travails, whilst still quietly considering Brexit is a success and "Boris Johnson got all the big calls right".
How sad that on a politics site, people should have views that conflict with your own.
Well I seem to recall the beasting of Scott for his anti-Brexit posting. "Scott,n' paste" etc. And the same people complaining about that are doing exactly the same but on a topic that cheers them.
It's your entitlement to spam the site with your point of view (TBF, your posts are very measured, legitimate and very readable some, other posters on the other hand are just particularly dreary). Their posts do not add to, but diminish the debate.
PB is such a fantastic resource. It was at its best during US election 2020 as exceptional posters counted down Donald Trump's defeat with data, when it looked from the early count like he might have won.
A number of my favourite (like minded) posters seem recently to have thrown in the towel. If we want the site to be a pro- Tory/ Reform echo chamber let's crack on regardless.
Oh do stop bleating. The Labour Party is now in power. The government of the day ALWAYS gets a kicking on PB and its opponents are thereby energised. Cope
And of course this government is excruciatingly bad (see the polls) and led by a loathsome failure (see the polls) so it will get particularly and severely drubbed. Cope
I don't believe I have defended the Government, they have certainly disappointed on many levels, although they are yet to plumb the depths of Brexit, Johnson and Truss.
I believe a rational debate on their shortcomings is fine. There is enough real failure to discuss without posters with Starmer/ Reeves derangement syndrome quoting ten consecutive posts of Daily Telegraph unhinged stories. "Starmer will give up the Isle of Man"."Starmer will have to call in the IMF". " If only the Tories had won, none of this would have happened". Also their enthusiasm for the Sultanas is reminiscent of their excitement at paying three quid to vote Corbyn as Labour leader, their smiles were wiped off their faces when he nearly won in 2017. And to think I have been accused of Brexit/ Johnson/ Farage/ Trump derangement.
Anyway this board will only be perfect when all the centrist dads have pissed off to ConHome for a more balanced debate.
You would do your sanity a massive favour if you went and picked random previous threads on PB from during probably any of the years of Tory government. You would see the grief the government got, deserved and undeserved.
Criticisms worthy and unworthy of each Tory Leader, for every one of your “Starmer will give away the Isle of Man” piss takes was something laid at the door of Sunak, Boris, May. Think of the crap thrown at Truss about her alleged sexual proclivities.
I have private messages I sent to a PBer who was getting very angry and perhaps overwrought with the pile ons by left leaning posters in the months leading to the last election. Posters who were extremely vocal as their side surged to a massive majority are quiet now, not because some mysterious cabal of right wing voters scaring them off but because there is very little to enthuse them about “their team”.
Those of us trying to defend the Tories over a year ago, like the doomed defenders at Dien Bien Phu, are feeling a bit of pep and “told you so” grim amusement whilst those who slammed the Tories and pumped Labour are feeling probably a little embarrassment.
You do seem to suffer some odd persecution complex on behalf of centre left posters who are still around despite your cries lamenting them being scared off by the right wing mongol hoards.
Easier for your happiness if you just accept that Labour and the left are getting grief because they are doing a bad job and not a conspiracy.
He’s just an oddball.
He sent me a direct message, totally unsolicited, to tell me I was a Tory shill (in spite of never voting for them in a GE in my life) and he’d keep calling me out. Fancy being that invested in an online poster on an online forum. Wacky.
I think you’re right that some on the left just expected their side to come in and the commentary here be deferential and North Korean.
I voted labour. Where they do good I will say, where they fuck up I will say.
I politely asked you to leave me alone. And I will ask again.
You had a strop as I pointed out to someone you had flounced. I had not even addressed you. As was the same with this post you chose to reply to.
I suspect you have issues, and not of Top Gear magazine.
I again politely request that you desist in psychoanalysing me and leave me alone.
I see the forum has spent half the morning debating the economics of Regency England.
Never change PB, never change!!!
A marked improvement on ‘deport all foreigners’ as the debate may, or may not, have been last night. Different people had a different perspective. My perspective was I didn’t want a piece of it.
It moved on to "anyone who doesn't have four British grandparents should have fewer rights".
A property value tax (replacing council tax) was, I thought, a more likely option. The downsides of that seem less apparent - although still some question of valuations there (particularly around properties that are substantially improved or extended).
It’s certainly one of the proposals being floated by those on the left of Labour.
I’d agree with a property value tax being more likely.
A property value tax has been floated on here often enough because it’s literally the one thing that could be easily taxed more - heck we’ve debated it often enough that I or Max or Malm could probably do a presentation to the Treasury about it tomorrow
A property or land tax would be better, sure. But any government who introduces such a change will be kicked out asap, even if they can withstand the inevitable backbench rebellion from MPs in the constituencies where the average voter will become worse off. So like most things we can do to make our economy better, it won't happen.
NEW: Angela Rayner has told cabinet that economic insecurity, rapid de-industrialisation, immigration, technological change & declining trust in institutions was having profound impact on society.
She said 17/18 places that saw the worst disorder last summer ranked as most deprived - and that govt had to address people's concerns about community cohesion.
Welsh Tory Leader Darren Millar: "Naturally, I'm disappointed by Laura's decision and Conservative Party members and voters in South East Wales will feel very let down by her announcement.
The Welsh Conservatives will not allow this to distract us from our national mission to boot Labour out and fix Wales.
In the meantime, we wish Laura all the very best in her new high tax and high spend party."
Ed Miliband admits Sizewell C cost has almost doubled to £38bn
I was utterly bemused by Reform's attack on renewable energy and the subsidies that it supposedly takes with a preference for nuclear instead. The strike price for nuclear is already nearly twice the renewable rate and they are heading in opposite directions. The one universal and unbreakable rule since the 1950s has always been that nuclear energy is the most expensive option. Always. And it is going to remain so.
Trouble is that almost all our energy options are bad.
Solar has got very cheap to install but doesn't work in winter at our latitude, which is our peak demand.
Wind has stopped getting significantly cheaper, and the strike prices we are having to offer are above the current grid price - i.e. we're locking in higher prices for the next 30 years with the wind we're building now. And our electricity is already extraordinarily expensive.
Nuclear should be the answer, but because we've decided to do it as a JV with the French rather than buying Korean designs off the peg it makes even wind look cheap.
Coal is by far the cheapest source of power, but we don't like it because it's not clean and have just destroyed all our coal fired infrastructure.
Gas is fairly expensive compared to coal, and much harder to store, we refuse to frack for the massive reserves we appear to sat on (fracking is what's driven the US energy price so low, and thus caused their whole economy to pull away from Europe). Very vulnerable to global price shocks.
Tidal has potential, but suffers from big project syndrome (see also Nuclear) and the planning/environmental lobby, hence we've never built any.
There are lots of ways it could be fixed, but it all of them require slaying at least one sacred cow, most of them several. And in exactly none of the options for fixing it is wind the right answer - so obviously that's what we've bet the farm on.
The chat I had with the local fUKers on Sunday was interesting. Their objections to Net Zero were primarily: SSEN building ugly pylons to take clean energy to England Spending £lots to have turbines not running due lack of said pylons to take the energy to England
Their view was that UK energy is sky high cos of paying to have turbines switched off. Not because we're pegged to import gas prices we largely don't import. And their solution is RR small nukes which are definitely available to generate cheap power tomorrow.
Of all their policies it's the most baffling. I pointed out that in practice all their options leave us on the hook to foreigners as opposed to making our own power here. They disagreed - because nobody wants these ugly turbines here. And don't worry about foreigners.
Riiiiiight.
There's also the complicating argument over regional pricing of electricity, but you're quite right in saying that opposing grid upgrades is entirely antithetical to Scotland's economic interests.
Much wind goodness is brewed out at sea, with cables laid on the ocean floor. Surely the obvious plan is to connect cables into landside hubs and then dahn sarf with another ocean floor interconnector. Which removes said pylons and gives more jobs to our offshore services industry. Win Win.
More expensive, and still needs routes through the nimby south, and would take longer to deliver, if I recall correctly.
But certainly better than doing nothing.
As I've said a few times, scrap the carbon capture boondoggle and put the money into HVDC interconnects. That would cut rather than increase the cost of electricity, once delivered. And have superior climate change benefits.
How very PB, a header on the SNP & Indy turns into a reflexive regurgitation of Brexit was good anctually and Remoaners smell.
Obsessive, toi?
Complete with a laboured, bitter, unfunny whine from your good self. So, yes: tick tick tick
"Leavers are, for obvious reasons, reflexively defensive these days."
QED
It is remarkable that a handful of Brexiteers have the audacity to spam the site each day with a million posts decrying current government fiscal travails, whilst still quietly considering Brexit is a success and "Boris Johnson got all the big calls right".
How sad that on a politics site, people should have views that conflict with your own.
Well I seem to recall the beasting of Scott for his anti-Brexit posting. "Scott,n' paste" etc. And the same people complaining about that are doing exactly the same but on a topic that cheers them.
It's your entitlement to spam the site with your point of view (TBF, your posts are very measured, legitimate and very readable some, other posters on the other hand are just particularly dreary). Their posts do not add to, but diminish the debate.
PB is such a fantastic resource. It was at its best during US election 2020 as exceptional posters counted down Donald Trump's defeat with data, when it looked from the early count like he might have won.
A number of my favourite (like minded) posters seem recently to have thrown in the towel. If we want the site to be a pro- Tory/ Reform echo chamber let's crack on regardless.
Oh do stop bleating. The Labour Party is now in power. The government of the day ALWAYS gets a kicking on PB and its opponents are thereby energised. Cope
And of course this government is excruciatingly bad (see the polls) and led by a loathsome failure (see the polls) so it will get particularly and severely drubbed. Cope
I don't believe I have defended the Government, they have certainly disappointed on many levels, although they are yet to plumb the depths of Brexit, Johnson and Truss.
I believe a rational debate on their shortcomings is fine. There is enough real failure to discuss without posters with Starmer/ Reeves derangement syndrome quoting ten consecutive posts of Daily Telegraph unhinged stories. "Starmer will give up the Isle of Man"."Starmer will have to call in the IMF". " If only the Tories had won, none of this would have happened". Also their enthusiasm for the Sultanas is reminiscent of their excitement at paying three quid to vote Corbyn as Labour leader, their smiles were wiped off their faces when he nearly won in 2017. And to think I have been accused of Brexit/ Johnson/ Farage/ Trump derangement.
Anyway this board will only be perfect when all the centrist dads have pissed off to ConHome for a more balanced debate.
You would do your sanity a massive favour if you went and picked random previous threads on PB from during probably any of the years of Tory government. You would see the grief the government got, deserved and undeserved.
Criticisms worthy and unworthy of each Tory Leader, for every one of your “Starmer will give away the Isle of Man” piss takes was something laid at the door of Sunak, Boris, May. Think of the crap thrown at Truss about her alleged sexual proclivities.
I have private messages I sent to a PBer who was getting very angry and perhaps overwrought with the pile ons by left leaning posters in the months leading to the last election. Posters who were extremely vocal as their side surged to a massive majority are quiet now, not because some mysterious cabal of right wing voters scaring them off but because there is very little to enthuse them about “their team”.
Those of us trying to defend the Tories over a year ago, like the doomed defenders at Dien Bien Phu, are feeling a bit of pep and “told you so” grim amusement whilst those who slammed the Tories and pumped Labour are feeling probably a little embarrassment.
You do seem to suffer some odd persecution complex on behalf of centre left posters who are still around despite your cries lamenting them being scared off by the right wing mongol hoards.
Easier for your happiness if you just accept that Labour and the left are getting grief because they are doing a bad job and not a conspiracy.
He’s just an oddball.
He sent me a direct message, totally unsolicited, to tell me I was a Tory shill (in spite of never voting for them in a GE in my life) and he’d keep calling me out. Fancy being that invested in an online poster on an online forum. Wacky.
I think you’re right that some on the left just expected their side to come in and the commentary here be deferential and North Korean.
I voted labour. Where they do good I will say, where they fuck up I will say.
I’ve got two types of lefty friend, now
The majority have abandoned all hope and slumped into despair. Several are now more right wing than me on pivotal issues tho they still vaguely say “I’m sort of left but I don’t like the government”
Then there are the holdouts who are getting evermore shrill and brittle. They find criticism increasingly hard to take and - perhaps as a result? - are moving further left. So they can disown the Labour govt as being not lefty enough. That’s the problem, according to them
Tbh their brittleness is tiresome
It was so easy in opposition to believe that the government had terrible policies and that there was plenty of money if only the government chose to spend it on the things that matter. Of course, the government facilitated those beliefs by having some supremely stupid policies, such as Rwanda.
But the harsh bite of reality, once Labour became the government, seems particularly vicious this time. There is no money, there are no good choices, we are already spending too much and yet we have a range of unmet needs for genuinely vulnerable people. I think this has been particularly acute because of the Ming Vase policy successfully carried out be Starmer by which he basically avoided any hard decisions, any commitments (other than frankly unsustainable promises on tax that he would be better off breaking), any ideas at all really. The media failed us by letting him away with this but Labour supporters in particular were also guilty of a lot of wishful thinking.
I have no problem in acknowledging that the current government's inheritance was terrible, there was a lot of unreality on the other side too. I accept that Reeves in particular has a hell of a job on her hands and I frankly question whether she is up to it. It is not surprising that the wishful thinkers are dismayed. It is the reluctance of any of our political parties (including Reform) to get close to addressing what needs to be done that is causing widespread despair.
We are in a serious mess. Partisan bickering amongst the LabCon stops either recognising this - and the SNP have the same massive plank in their eye north of the wall.
We can't afford teachers, but we can't afford not to have teachers. So we need to spend more money on the things that matter and a lot less on the things that don't. Fiddling around the edges - as all governments have done in recent times - burns more money whilst not delivering structural reforms.
My frustration with my own lot is that whilst we recognise the need to make fundamental changes we're scared of talking about it, despite the manifesto being full of radical reforms.
And so we appear to be heading for Reform UK. Who ask all the right questions (e.g. why are energy prices so high) whilst preloading all the wrong answers (because wind turbines are woke).
It isn't a catastrophe for me - I'm able to insulate my family from the worst of the mess. But as a country we're going to keep sliding further into the mire.
‘NEW: James Cleverly will become as Shadow Secretary of State for Housing. Tories see this as a key role to take on Angela Rayner’
So the Tories who failed on housebuilding can criticise Labour when they fail on housebuilding and the Lib Dem’s can demand an extension of the green belt.
Meanwhile Reform will promise whatever they think people want to hear and change daily.
You missed out the Cleverly Defence, which I imagine will get deployed:
CLEVERLY: Why aren't Labour building the houses we need? RAYNER: You had 14 years to build houses and you did nothing! If its important to build houses in Barnsley why didn't you do so? CLEVERLY: Cos its a shithole
Vote Conservative because if you want shit government you may as well be sneered at whilst it happens.
The worst councils for housebuilding tend to be in the south-east/home counties.
How very PB, a header on the SNP & Indy turns into a reflexive regurgitation of Brexit was good anctually and Remoaners smell.
Obsessive, toi?
Complete with a laboured, bitter, unfunny whine from your good self. So, yes: tick tick tick
"Leavers are, for obvious reasons, reflexively defensive these days."
QED
It is remarkable that a handful of Brexiteers have the audacity to spam the site each day with a million posts decrying current government fiscal travails, whilst still quietly considering Brexit is a success and "Boris Johnson got all the big calls right".
How sad that on a politics site, people should have views that conflict with your own.
Well I seem to recall the beasting of Scott for his anti-Brexit posting. "Scott,n' paste" etc. And the same people complaining about that are doing exactly the same but on a topic that cheers them.
It's your entitlement to spam the site with your point of view (TBF, your posts are very measured, legitimate and very readable some, other posters on the other hand are just particularly dreary). Their posts do not add to, but diminish the debate.
PB is such a fantastic resource. It was at its best during US election 2020 as exceptional posters counted down Donald Trump's defeat with data, when it looked from the early count like he might have won.
A number of my favourite (like minded) posters seem recently to have thrown in the towel. If we want the site to be a pro- Tory/ Reform echo chamber let's crack on regardless.
Oh do stop bleating. The Labour Party is now in power. The government of the day ALWAYS gets a kicking on PB and its opponents are thereby energised. Cope
And of course this government is excruciatingly bad (see the polls) and led by a loathsome failure (see the polls) so it will get particularly and severely drubbed. Cope
I don't believe I have defended the Government, they have certainly disappointed on many levels, although they are yet to plumb the depths of Brexit, Johnson and Truss.
I believe a rational debate on their shortcomings is fine. There is enough real failure to discuss without posters with Starmer/ Reeves derangement syndrome quoting ten consecutive posts of Daily Telegraph unhinged stories. "Starmer will give up the Isle of Man"."Starmer will have to call in the IMF". " If only the Tories had won, none of this would have happened". Also their enthusiasm for the Sultanas is reminiscent of their excitement at paying three quid to vote Corbyn as Labour leader, their smiles were wiped off their faces when he nearly won in 2017. And to think I have been accused of Brexit/ Johnson/ Farage/ Trump derangement.
Anyway this board will only be perfect when all the centrist dads have pissed off to ConHome for a more balanced debate.
You would do your sanity a massive favour if you went and picked random previous threads on PB from during probably any of the years of Tory government. You would see the grief the government got, deserved and undeserved.
Criticisms worthy and unworthy of each Tory Leader, for every one of your “Starmer will give away the Isle of Man” piss takes was something laid at the door of Sunak, Boris, May. Think of the crap thrown at Truss about her alleged sexual proclivities.
I have private messages I sent to a PBer who was getting very angry and perhaps overwrought with the pile ons by left leaning posters in the months leading to the last election. Posters who were extremely vocal as their side surged to a massive majority are quiet now, not because some mysterious cabal of right wing voters scaring them off but because there is very little to enthuse them about “their team”.
Those of us trying to defend the Tories over a year ago, like the doomed defenders at Dien Bien Phu, are feeling a bit of pep and “told you so” grim amusement whilst those who slammed the Tories and pumped Labour are feeling probably a little embarrassment.
You do seem to suffer some odd persecution complex on behalf of centre left posters who are still around despite your cries lamenting them being scared off by the right wing mongol hoards.
Easier for your happiness if you just accept that Labour and the left are getting grief because they are doing a bad job and not a conspiracy.
He’s just an oddball.
He sent me a direct message, totally unsolicited, to tell me I was a Tory shill (in spite of never voting for them in a GE in my life) and he’d keep calling me out. Fancy being that invested in an online poster on an online forum. Wacky.
I think you’re right that some on the left just expected their side to come in and the commentary here be deferential and North Korean.
I voted labour. Where they do good I will say, where they fuck up I will say.
I politely asked you to leave me alone. And I will ask again.
It strikes me that you are more leftwing in instinct than in your considered views, and then Taz is more rightwing in instinct than his considered views.
This may mean that you are two posters particularly likely to annoy each other and lock horns; Because you are also both posters who consider themselves to be broadly occupying the centrist and moderate ground, while your starting instincts are in different places.
I see the forum has spent half the morning debating the economics of Regency England.
Never change PB, never change!!!
A marked improvement on ‘deport all foreigners’ as the debate may, or may not, have been last night. Different people had a different perspective. My perspective was I didn’t want a piece of it.
It moved on to "anyone who doesn't have four British grandparents should have fewer rights".
Oh dear.
I’m glad I stuck to the darts and YouTube
Lots of needle between Gezzy Price and Daryl Gurney.
ON topic, the Economist is claiming that Xiaomi phones are now basically as good as iPhones, and much cheaper - and therefore about to conquer the world
I’ve just checked the prices of Xiaomi on Amazon. They are indeed ludicrously cheap (compared to Apple and Samsung etc)
Are they genuinely good? Has anyone got one?
I can say with authority that I am now using Chinese made earbuds to listen to music and at £25 a set they are probably as good as Apple’s which cost £150
Not earbuds but a phone.
Redmi Note 13, a couple of years old now and only 4g. I had one before that too. No cable-free charging, but perfectly adequate otherwise, and the Chinese Red Army know my every step.
Interesting
I had my Chinatechnophany a few months ago when I mislaid all my Apple earbuds (average price £175?) and resorted to this cheap pair of Chinese earbuds (£20) which I had bought but never really used before
I then realised that the Chinese buds were not just five times cheaper but…. Superior. Better bass
I’ve now stocked up on these absurdly cheap earbuds and virtually abandoned Apple. They can fuck off with charging me nearly £200 for stuff that always gets lost and is unusable after a year
My wife has some Bose earbuds which were absurdly expensive. Also made in the PRC.
I suspect the Chinese Red Army also knew your whereabouts from your more expensive earbuds too.
I don’t care any more. I’ve lost too many mega expensive £180 Apple earbuds. That stings. Or they get grimy and stop working
Lose a £20 set? Who cares. Buy 3 more sets
This is the approach I've adopted with glasses - removing around 50% of the stress in my life - and have always taken with watches.
I only own one item which is both valuable and easy to lose, and that's my wedding ring. I have great anxiety about taking it off - not for sentimental reasons, but because I have low expectations of being able to keep track of it if it is not on my finger.
(Five two-letter words in a row there. That's unusual. I should have said "High expectations of being able to keep track of it if it is on my finger." That would have been seven.)
Welsh Tory Leader Darren Millar: "Naturally, I'm disappointed by Laura's decision and Conservative Party members and voters in South East Wales will feel very let down by her announcement.
The Welsh Conservatives will not allow this to distract us from our national mission to boot Labour out and fix Wales.
In the meantime, we wish Laura all the very best in her new high tax and high spend party."
Saucer of milk for Darren!
They could well be in Government together next May.
Well I never thought I'd be agreeing with Kit Malthouse.
Or Sir Edward Leigh.
'Is the Minister aware that many Friends of Israel worldwide, notwithstanding narrow legal definitions, are asking this moral question: when is genocide not genocide?'
No, Stride by coronation if Kemi is removed. Cleverly is focused on London Mayor ultimately.
Then Jenrick if Farage loses the next general election to reunite the right, if Farage wins the next general election but needs Tory confidence and supply then Jenrick may be in Farage's Cabinet
Well I never thought I'd be agreeing with Kit Malthouse.
I struggle to see any ground on which Lammy might face prosecution.
Yes, not a fan but can’t see how it’s remotely reasonable to say he is complicit in war crimes.
He was asked in the Today programme interview this morning why he hadn’t stopped the sale of training jets to Israel as the pilots who trained on them could then go and bomb Gaza which was quite bonkers.
I see the forum has spent half the morning debating the economics of Regency England.
Never change PB, never change!!!
A marked improvement on ‘deport all foreigners’ as the debate may, or may not, have been last night. Different people had a different perspective. My perspective was I didn’t want a piece of it.
It moved on to "anyone who doesn't have four British grandparents should have fewer rights".
Typical fibs. If you’re referring to my policy proposal it was: ultra premium social housing (eg zone 1 london) should only go to people who have been a looooong time in the UK and have no criminal record and we should add points for military service. And I proposed that this should date back 2 or 3 generations for even more points
Basic rights should be available to all British citizens - no one should starve or go homeless - but yes we should favour those who’ve been here longer and yes we should incentivise good behaviour, law abiding, and patriotism
Put it another way: if you’re a Somalian family with 5 kids that arrived 4 years ago yes we will try and house you if you’re stuck, but No you’re not getting a townhouse in Westminster
Let’s see how my proposal polls with the voters. I suggest it will be incredibly popular
How very PB, a header on the SNP & Indy turns into a reflexive regurgitation of Brexit was good anctually and Remoaners smell.
Obsessive, toi?
Complete with a laboured, bitter, unfunny whine from your good self. So, yes: tick tick tick
"Leavers are, for obvious reasons, reflexively defensive these days."
QED
It is remarkable that a handful of Brexiteers have the audacity to spam the site each day with a million posts decrying current government fiscal travails, whilst still quietly considering Brexit is a success and "Boris Johnson got all the big calls right".
How sad that on a politics site, people should have views that conflict with your own.
Well I seem to recall the beasting of Scott for his anti-Brexit posting. "Scott,n' paste" etc. And the same people complaining about that are doing exactly the same but on a topic that cheers them.
It's your entitlement to spam the site with your point of view (TBF, your posts are very measured, legitimate and very readable some, other posters on the other hand are just particularly dreary). Their posts do not add to, but diminish the debate.
PB is such a fantastic resource. It was at its best during US election 2020 as exceptional posters counted down Donald Trump's defeat with data, when it looked from the early count like he might have won.
A number of my favourite (like minded) posters seem recently to have thrown in the towel. If we want the site to be a pro- Tory/ Reform echo chamber let's crack on regardless.
Oh do stop bleating. The Labour Party is now in power. The government of the day ALWAYS gets a kicking on PB and its opponents are thereby energised. Cope
And of course this government is excruciatingly bad (see the polls) and led by a loathsome failure (see the polls) so it will get particularly and severely drubbed. Cope
I don't believe I have defended the Government, they have certainly disappointed on many levels, although they are yet to plumb the depths of Brexit, Johnson and Truss.
I believe a rational debate on their shortcomings is fine. There is enough real failure to discuss without posters with Starmer/ Reeves derangement syndrome quoting ten consecutive posts of Daily Telegraph unhinged stories. "Starmer will give up the Isle of Man"."Starmer will have to call in the IMF". " If only the Tories had won, none of this would have happened". Also their enthusiasm for the Sultanas is reminiscent of their excitement at paying three quid to vote Corbyn as Labour leader, their smiles were wiped off their faces when he nearly won in 2017. And to think I have been accused of Brexit/ Johnson/ Farage/ Trump derangement.
Anyway this board will only be perfect when all the centrist dads have pissed off to ConHome for a more balanced debate.
You would do your sanity a massive favour if you went and picked random previous threads on PB from during probably any of the years of Tory government. You would see the grief the government got, deserved and undeserved.
Criticisms worthy and unworthy of each Tory Leader, for every one of your “Starmer will give away the Isle of Man” piss takes was something laid at the door of Sunak, Boris, May. Think of the crap thrown at Truss about her alleged sexual proclivities.
I have private messages I sent to a PBer who was getting very angry and perhaps overwrought with the pile ons by left leaning posters in the months leading to the last election. Posters who were extremely vocal as their side surged to a massive majority are quiet now, not because some mysterious cabal of right wing voters scaring them off but because there is very little to enthuse them about “their team”.
Those of us trying to defend the Tories over a year ago, like the doomed defenders at Dien Bien Phu, are feeling a bit of pep and “told you so” grim amusement whilst those who slammed the Tories and pumped Labour are feeling probably a little embarrassment.
You do seem to suffer some odd persecution complex on behalf of centre left posters who are still around despite your cries lamenting them being scared off by the right wing mongol hoards.
Easier for your happiness if you just accept that Labour and the left are getting grief because they are doing a bad job and not a conspiracy.
He’s just an oddball.
He sent me a direct message, totally unsolicited, to tell me I was a Tory shill (in spite of never voting for them in a GE in my life) and he’d keep calling me out. Fancy being that invested in an online poster on an online forum. Wacky.
I think you’re right that some on the left just expected their side to come in and the commentary here be deferential and North Korean.
I voted labour. Where they do good I will say, where they fuck up I will say.
I politely asked you to leave me alone. And I will ask again.
It"s strikes me that you are more leftwing in instinct than in your considered views, and then Taz is more rightwing in instinct than his considered views.
This may mean that you are two posters particularly likely to annoy each other and lock horns; Because you are also aboth posters who consider tlthemselves to be broadly lloccupying the entrist and moderatd ground, while your starting instincts are in different places.
I discussed this with Casino as he, politely, queried where I sat as he thought I was right wing. I am fiscally conservative but socially liberal.
Probably more Blair’s wing of Labour than anything else.
I’ve always voted Labour as I felt they were for the working man and woman. I think this is less and less the case these days.
Welsh Tory Leader Darren Millar: "Naturally, I'm disappointed by Laura's decision and Conservative Party members and voters in South East Wales will feel very let down by her announcement.
The Welsh Conservatives will not allow this to distract us from our national mission to boot Labour out and fix Wales.
In the meantime, we wish Laura all the very best in her new high tax and high spend party."
Saucer of milk for Darren!
They could well be in Government together next May.
Not likely imo. I think if Reform plus Tory = enough then they'll just leave Reform to run a minority and make them compromise on everything they want to get through. If not enough Plaid will run a rainbow coalition of some type
You buried the lede: ...She was appointed to this position just over a year ago following the equally sudden death of the former head of the Supreme Court...
I wonder how her lucky replacement will feel about their nomination ?
Well I never thought I'd be agreeing with Kit Malthouse.
I struggle to see any ground on which Lammy might face prosecution.
Being Foreign Secretary with the wrong grandparentage?
Lammy was taking an absolute battering the R4 Today this morning for not being tough enough on Israel, "Do you have a guarantee from the Israeli govt that the aid package will be distributed?" , from the institution that wouldn't broadcast the documentary they commissioned, and now from Malthouse, is Malthouse's view that of the Conservative Party?
How very PB, a header on the SNP & Indy turns into a reflexive regurgitation of Brexit was good anctually and Remoaners smell.
Obsessive, toi?
Complete with a laboured, bitter, unfunny whine from your good self. So, yes: tick tick tick
"Leavers are, for obvious reasons, reflexively defensive these days."
QED
It is remarkable that a handful of Brexiteers have the audacity to spam the site each day with a million posts decrying current government fiscal travails, whilst still quietly considering Brexit is a success and "Boris Johnson got all the big calls right".
How sad that on a politics site, people should have views that conflict with your own.
Well I seem to recall the beasting of Scott for his anti-Brexit posting. "Scott,n' paste" etc. And the same people complaining about that are doing exactly the same but on a topic that cheers them.
It's your entitlement to spam the site with your point of view (TBF, your posts are very measured, legitimate and very readable some, other posters on the other hand are just particularly dreary). Their posts do not add to, but diminish the debate.
PB is such a fantastic resource. It was at its best during US election 2020 as exceptional posters counted down Donald Trump's defeat with data, when it looked from the early count like he might have won.
A number of my favourite (like minded) posters seem recently to have thrown in the towel. If we want the site to be a pro- Tory/ Reform echo chamber let's crack on regardless.
Oh do stop bleating. The Labour Party is now in power. The government of the day ALWAYS gets a kicking on PB and its opponents are thereby energised. Cope
And of course this government is excruciatingly bad (see the polls) and led by a loathsome failure (see the polls) so it will get particularly and severely drubbed. Cope
I don't believe I have defended the Government, they have certainly disappointed on many levels, although they are yet to plumb the depths of Brexit, Johnson and Truss.
I believe a rational debate on their shortcomings is fine. There is enough real failure to discuss without posters with Starmer/ Reeves derangement syndrome quoting ten consecutive posts of Daily Telegraph unhinged stories. "Starmer will give up the Isle of Man"."Starmer will have to call in the IMF". " If only the Tories had won, none of this would have happened". Also their enthusiasm for the Sultanas is reminiscent of their excitement at paying three quid to vote Corbyn as Labour leader, their smiles were wiped off their faces when he nearly won in 2017. And to think I have been accused of Brexit/ Johnson/ Farage/ Trump derangement.
Anyway this board will only be perfect when all the centrist dads have pissed off to ConHome for a more balanced debate.
You would do your sanity a massive favour if you went and picked random previous threads on PB from during probably any of the years of Tory government. You would see the grief the government got, deserved and undeserved.
Criticisms worthy and unworthy of each Tory Leader, for every one of your “Starmer will give away the Isle of Man” piss takes was something laid at the door of Sunak, Boris, May. Think of the crap thrown at Truss about her alleged sexual proclivities.
I have private messages I sent to a PBer who was getting very angry and perhaps overwrought with the pile ons by left leaning posters in the months leading to the last election. Posters who were extremely vocal as their side surged to a massive majority are quiet now, not because some mysterious cabal of right wing voters scaring them off but because there is very little to enthuse them about “their team”.
Those of us trying to defend the Tories over a year ago, like the doomed defenders at Dien Bien Phu, are feeling a bit of pep and “told you so” grim amusement whilst those who slammed the Tories and pumped Labour are feeling probably a little embarrassment.
You do seem to suffer some odd persecution complex on behalf of centre left posters who are still around despite your cries lamenting them being scared off by the right wing mongol hoards.
Easier for your happiness if you just accept that Labour and the left are getting grief because they are doing a bad job and not a conspiracy.
He’s just an oddball.
He sent me a direct message, totally unsolicited, to tell me I was a Tory shill (in spite of never voting for them in a GE in my life) and he’d keep calling me out. Fancy being that invested in an online poster on an online forum. Wacky.
I think you’re right that some on the left just expected their side to come in and the commentary here be deferential and North Korean.
I voted labour. Where they do good I will say, where they fuck up I will say.
I’ve got two types of lefty friend, now
The majority have abandoned all hope and slumped into despair. Several are now more right wing than me on pivotal issues tho they still vaguely say “I’m sort of left but I don’t like the government”
Then there are the holdouts who are getting evermore shrill and brittle. They find criticism increasingly hard to take and - perhaps as a result? - are moving further left. So they can disown the Labour govt as being not lefty enough. That’s the problem, according to them
Tbh their brittleness is tiresome
It was so easy in opposition to believe that the government had terrible policies and that there was plenty of money if only the government chose to spend it on the things that matter. Of course, the government facilitated those beliefs by having some supremely stupid policies, such as Rwanda.
But the harsh bite of reality, once Labour became the government, seems particularly vicious this time. There is no money, there are no good choices, we are already spending too much and yet we have a range of unmet needs for genuinely vulnerable people. I think this has been particularly acute because of the Ming Vase policy successfully carried out be Starmer by which he basically avoided any hard decisions, any commitments (other than frankly unsustainable promises on tax that he would be better off breaking), any ideas at all really. The media failed us by letting him away with this but Labour supporters in particular were also guilty of a lot of wishful thinking.
I have no problem in acknowledging that the current government's inheritance was terrible, there was a lot of unreality on the other side too. I accept that Reeves in particular has a hell of a job on her hands and I frankly question whether she is up to it. It is not surprising that the wishful thinkers are dismayed. It is the reluctance of any of our political parties (including Reform) to get close to addressing what needs to be done that is causing widespread despair.
We are in a serious mess. Partisan bickering amongst the LabCon stops either recognising this - and the SNP have the same massive plank in their eye north of the wall.
We can't afford teachers, but we can't afford not to have teachers. So we need to spend more money on the things that matter and a lot less on the things that don't. Fiddling around the edges - as all governments have done in recent times - burns more money whilst not delivering structural reforms.
My frustration with my own lot is that whilst we recognise the need to make fundamental changes we're scared of talking about it, despite the manifesto being full of radical reforms.
And so we appear to be heading for Reform UK. Who ask all the right questions (e.g. why are energy prices so high) whilst preloading all the wrong answers (because wind turbines are woke).
It isn't a catastrophe for me - I'm able to insulate my family from the worst of the mess. But as a country we're going to keep sliding further into the mire.
We need a clear plan to live within our means for a significant period of time until the debt burden becomes less onerous. That means significant tax increases, significant spending cuts and a real drive to get public services back to being focused on service rather than all the things we waste money on now. No one is offering that for the very good reason that the vast majority wouldn't vote for it.
We will need a genuine crisis to bring us back to reality. We already have one of the highest gilt rates of developed countries. And we borrowed over £20bn in a single month. If we simply cannot sell gilts urgent action will need to be required to rebalance the books. I fear this is coming and I am not confident that anything will adequately protect my family from it.
You buried the lede: ...She was appointed to this position just over a year ago following the equally sudden death of the former head of the Supreme Court...
I wonder how her lucky replacement will feel about their nomination ?
Even better.
I’m guessing there won’t be too many takers this time !
Well I never thought I'd be agreeing with Kit Malthouse.
I struggle to see any ground on which Lammy might face prosecution.
Yes, not a fan but can’t see how it’s remotely reasonable to say he is complicit in war crimes.
He was asked in the Today programme interview this morning why he hadn’t stopped the sale of training jets to Israel as the pilots who trained on them could then go and bomb Gaza which was quite bonkers.
Shit trainers it would appear since IDF jocks seem to be pretty loose with their 'pinpoint' strikes. Asking why the guy in charge of the Israeli airforce and therefore the area bombing of Gaza was an honored guest last weekend might have been more to the point.
Well I never thought I'd be agreeing with Kit Malthouse.
I struggle to see any ground on which Lammy might face prosecution.
Being Foreign Secretary with the wrong grandparentage?
Lammy was taking an absolute battering the R4 Today this morning for not being tough enough on Israel, "Do you have a guarantee from the Israeli govt that the aid package will be distributed?" , from the institution that wouldn't broadcast the documentary they commissioned, and now from Malthouse, is Malthouse's view that of the Conservative Party?
The starting point is if the Israeli government are taking close to zero notice of either the views of the US President nor the Israeli electorate it seems completely obvious that the UK government or Foreign Secretary have no influence at all on the matter.
Well I never thought I'd be agreeing with Kit Malthouse.
I struggle to see any ground on which Lammy might face prosecution.
Being Foreign Secretary with the wrong grandparentage?
Lammy was taking an absolute battering the R4 Today this morning for not being tough enough on Israel, "Do you have a guarantee from the Israeli govt that the aid package will be distributed?" , from the institution that wouldn't broadcast the documentary they commissioned, and now from Malthouse, is Malthouse's view that of the Conservative Party?
It should be. That would put clear blue water between them and the Government and Farage.
You buried the lede: ...She was appointed to this position just over a year ago following the equally sudden death of the former head of the Supreme Court...
I wonder how her lucky replacement will feel about their nomination ?
Even better.
I’m guessing there won’t be too many takers this time !
Well I never thought I'd be agreeing with Kit Malthouse.
I struggle to see any ground on which Lammy might face prosecution.
Its ridiculous. But the alternative is to admit that no one really gives a damn about what we think about Gaza, whether we have protests on our streets or not, whether Palestinian Action is banned or not, whether we supply Israel with a miniscule quantity of arms or not, we are simply irrelevant with no power, no influence and no resource to make a difference. And if we acknowledge that what do people talk about then?
You buried the lede: ...She was appointed to this position just over a year ago following the equally sudden death of the former head of the Supreme Court...
I wonder how her lucky replacement will feel about their nomination ?
Even better.
I’m guessing there won’t be too many takers this time !
That might be because you're unfamiliar with the penalty for refusal...
You buried the lede: ...She was appointed to this position just over a year ago following the equally sudden death of the former head of the Supreme Court...
I wonder how her lucky replacement will feel about their nomination ?
Someone else who signed their name on the wrong dotted line.
You buried the lede: ...She was appointed to this position just over a year ago following the equally sudden death of the former head of the Supreme Court...
I wonder how her lucky replacement will feel about their nomination ?
Even better.
I’m guessing there won’t be too many takers this time !
That might be because you're unfamiliar with the penalty for refusal...
You buried the lede: ...She was appointed to this position just over a year ago following the equally sudden death of the former head of the Supreme Court...
I wonder how her lucky replacement will feel about their nomination ?
Even better.
I’m guessing there won’t be too many takers this time !
The headline is wrong, long battle with cancer.
My bad, if that's true. These stories are so frequent that I've stopped bothering to check them.
‘NEW: James Cleverly will become as Shadow Secretary of State for Housing. Tories see this as a key role to take on Angela Rayner’
So the Tories who failed on housebuilding can criticise Labour when they fail on housebuilding and the Lib Dem’s can demand an extension of the green belt.
Meanwhile Reform will promise whatever they think people want to hear and change daily.
You missed out the Cleverly Defence, which I imagine will get deployed:
CLEVERLY: Why aren't Labour building the houses we need? RAYNER: You had 14 years to build houses and you did nothing! If its important to build houses in Barnsley why didn't you do so? CLEVERLY: Cos its a shithole
Vote Conservative because if you want shit government you may as well be sneered at whilst it happens.
No shortage of new housing in Barnsley.
Or affordable housing generally in Barnsley.
Housing affordability problems are based in London and the Waitrose belts.
Well I never thought I'd be agreeing with Kit Malthouse.
I struggle to see any ground on which Lammy might face prosecution.
I saw an argument that by allowing weapons to be sold to Israel then the UK government is on the hook for being complicit in the genocide.
I think that's a stretch. One would have to prove that the British government is acting "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part", the Palestinian population.
Well I never thought I'd be agreeing with Kit Malthouse.
I struggle to see any ground on which Lammy might face prosecution.
I saw an argument that by allowing weapons to be sold to Israel then the UK government is on the hook for being complicit in the genocide.
I think that's a stretch. One would have to prove that the British government is acting "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part", the Palestinian population.
A woman killed her husband with a samurai sword "stabbing and slicing him" more than 50 times before replacing the sword in its sheath on a stand, a court heard.
Its their belief system. They are fully signed up to self ID. They are presumably shitting themselves about what is happening in Fife right now - the whole structural edifice of trans and self ID hitting the real world buffers.
Well I never thought I'd be agreeing with Kit Malthouse.
I struggle to see any ground on which Lammy might face prosecution.
I saw an argument that by allowing weapons to be sold to Israel then the UK government is on the hook for being complicit in the genocide.
I think that's a stretch. One would have to prove that the British government is acting "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part", the Palestinian population.
I know, there’s a wider argument in play.
But as Sir Edward Leigh observed it has been amusing to see himself labelled as antisemite.
‘NEW: James Cleverly will become as Shadow Secretary of State for Housing. Tories see this as a key role to take on Angela Rayner’
So the Tories who failed on housebuilding can criticise Labour when they fail on housebuilding and the Lib Dem’s can demand an extension of the green belt.
Meanwhile Reform will promise whatever they think people want to hear and change daily.
You missed out the Cleverly Defence, which I imagine will get deployed:
CLEVERLY: Why aren't Labour building the houses we need? RAYNER: You had 14 years to build houses and you did nothing! If its important to build houses in Barnsley why didn't you do so? CLEVERLY: Cos its a shithole
Vote Conservative because if you want shit government you may as well be sneered at whilst it happens.
No shortage of new housing in Barnsley.
Or affordable housing generally in Barnsley.
Housing affordability problems are based in London and the Waitrose belts.
It’s the ready supply of new housing in Barnsley and elsewhere up north that keeps houses prices there relatively cheap - population is increasing but supply matches increased demand so no real price pressure.
Got to say setting Cleverly against Raynor will allow Cleverly to campaign in London on Khan’s utter inability to build new homes
Comments
A property value tax (replacing council tax) was, I thought, a more likely option. The downsides of that seem less apparent - although still some question of valuations there (particularly around properties that are substantially improved or extended).
She's a good, succinct communicator - who can avoid tropes:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zYwFFhWLH6Y
Tory Senedd member Laura Jones defects to Reform - the party's first Member of the Senedd.
https://x.com/guidofawkes/status/1947613269209846128?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
I had my Chinatechnophany a few months ago when I mislaid all my Apple earbuds (average price £175?) and resorted to this cheap pair of Chinese earbuds (£20) which I had bought but never really used before
I then realised that the Chinese buds were not just five times cheaper but…. Superior. Better bass
I’ve now stocked up on these absurdly cheap earbuds and virtually abandoned Apple. They can fuck off with charging me nearly £200 for stuff that always gets lost and is unusable after a year
Never change PB, never change!!!
He sent me a direct message, totally unsolicited, to tell me I was a Tory shill (in spite of never voting for them in a GE in my life) and he’d keep calling me out. Fancy being that invested in an online poster on an online forum. Wacky.
I think you’re right that some on the left just expected their side to come in and the commentary here be deferential and North Korean.
I voted labour. Where they do good I will say, where they fuck up I will say.
This was generally less obvious during the years of obviously egregious Truss and Johnson stupidity, when so many people were motivared to post.against Toryism.
I can't even recall who is current Foreign office shadow.
ETA: Permission was granted for the CCGT, but I think the site has been largely re-used for warehouse space, so maybe a change of plan there. Website, here: https://eggboroughccgt.co.uk/
(Don't say - "Why are they all Jokers?")
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1947561059004387753?s=61
The majority have abandoned all hope and slumped into despair. Several are now more right wing than me on pivotal issues tho they still vaguely say “I’m sort of left but I don’t like the government”
Then there are the holdouts who are getting evermore shrill and brittle. They find criticism increasingly hard to take and - perhaps as a result? - are moving further left. So they can disown the Labour govt as being not lefty enough. That’s the problem, according to them
Tbh their brittleness is tiresome
I’d agree with a property value tax being more likely.
shitexcellent as shadow naahbutLabur minister and would be banging if she gets him banging on about Culture or summut.(That's both the term for the person, who has been in Salvation Army terms "Promoted to Glory", and the instruction from Hermione Putin.)
‘NEW: James Cleverly will become as Shadow Secretary of State for Housing. Tories see this as a key role to take on Angela Rayner’
So the Tories who failed on housebuilding can criticise Labour when they fail on housebuilding and the Lib Dem’s can demand an extension of the green belt.
Meanwhile Reform will promise whatever they think people want to hear and change daily.
He can win with those.
There were a *lot* in Regency London, but we have Leon and Only Fans.
Actually I've made a typo: neutral should be 19% (+7).
The diffference was his work was a one off job which already looks dire while the council now have to find that £x000 to undo his mess and support it long term
Even if the 40% that dislike him try and caucus against him (and only some will) the 37% that like him is enough to give him a whacking majority against a divided opposition
I thought his crime package was decidedly clever. Doesn’t matter about the details - people are just yearning to hear that someone will get a tough, unpleasant grip on crime. Deport thousands. Lock up thousands more. End shoplifting. Fuck the human rights nonsense
Honestly, after last night in Soho with the Groucho manager personally warning me about phone theft right outside the club (never happened before) I say: bring it on. I’m so very very tired of this small scale but life-eroding lawlessness
In theory they could come from November onwards iirc.
It mattered once. Now it only matters to the dwindling few that support Welsh rugby
I suspect the Chinese Red Army also knew your whereabouts from your more expensive earbuds too.
It also may well work.
Lose a £20 set? Who cares. Buy 3 more sets
CLEVERLY: Why aren't Labour building the houses we need?
RAYNER: You had 14 years to build houses and you did nothing! If its important to build houses in Barnsley why didn't you do so?
CLEVERLY: Cos its a shithole
Vote Conservative because if you want shit government you may as well be sneered at whilst it happens.
But the harsh bite of reality, once Labour became the government, seems particularly vicious this time. There is no money, there are no good choices, we are already spending too much and yet we have a range of unmet needs for genuinely vulnerable people. I think this has been particularly acute because of the Ming Vase policy successfully carried out be Starmer by which he basically avoided any hard decisions, any commitments (other than frankly unsustainable promises on tax that he would be better off breaking), any ideas at all really. The media failed us by letting him away with this but Labour supporters in particular were also guilty of a lot of wishful thinking.
I have no problem in acknowledging that the current government's inheritance was terrible, there was a lot of unreality on the other side too. I accept that Reeves in particular has a hell of a job on her hands and I frankly question whether she is up to it. It is not surprising that the wishful thinkers are dismayed. It is the reluctance of any of our political parties (including Reform) to get close to addressing what needs to be done that is causing widespread despair.
Because Labour shitholes now vote for Reform.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25331379.david-lammy-told-may-end-hague-due-gaza-cowardice/
Well I never thought I'd be agreeing with Kit Malthouse.
I suspect you have issues, and not of Top Gear magazine.
https://x.com/pippacrerar/status/1947626093961158886?s=61
NEW: Angela Rayner has told cabinet that economic insecurity, rapid de-industrialisation, immigration, technological change & declining trust in institutions was having profound impact on society.
She said 17/18 places that saw the worst disorder last summer ranked as most deprived - and that govt had to address people's concerns about community cohesion.
"Naturally, I'm disappointed by Laura's decision and Conservative Party members and voters in South East Wales will feel very let down by her announcement.
The Welsh Conservatives will not allow this to distract us from our national mission to boot Labour out and fix Wales.
In the meantime, we wish Laura all the very best in her new high tax and high spend party."
Saucer of milk for Darren!
But certainly better than doing nothing.
As I've said a few times, scrap the carbon capture boondoggle and put the money into HVDC interconnects.
That would cut rather than increase the cost of electricity, once delivered. And have superior climate change benefits.
We can't afford teachers, but we can't afford not to have teachers. So we need to spend more money on the things that matter and a lot less on the things that don't. Fiddling around the edges - as all governments have done in recent times - burns more money whilst not delivering structural reforms.
My frustration with my own lot is that whilst we recognise the need to make fundamental changes we're scared of talking about it, despite the manifesto being full of radical reforms.
And so we appear to be heading for Reform UK. Who ask all the right questions (e.g. why are energy prices so high) whilst preloading all the wrong answers (because wind turbines are woke).
It isn't a catastrophe for me - I'm able to insulate my family from the worst of the mess. But as a country we're going to keep sliding further into the mire.
Stuart Andrew to Health (Argar stepping down due to ill health)
Huddlestone from chairman to DCMS
Hollinrake to chairman
This may mean that you are two posters particularly likely to annoy each other and lock horns; Because you are also both posters who consider themselves to be broadly occupying the centrist and moderate ground, while your starting instincts are in different places.
I’m glad I stuck to the darts and YouTube
Lots of needle between Gezzy Price and Daryl Gurney.
Mind you probably tame compared to here !
I only own one item which is both valuable and easy to lose, and that's my wedding ring. I have great anxiety about taking it off - not for sentimental reasons, but because I have low expectations
of being able to keep track of it if it is not on my finger.
(Five two-letter words in a row there. That's unusual.
I should have said "High expectations of being able to keep track of it if it is on my finger." That would have been seven.)
'Is the Minister aware that many Friends of Israel worldwide, notwithstanding narrow legal definitions, are asking this moral question: when is genocide not genocide?'
I sense Lammy is on the brink of unleashing the ultimate deterrent to slaughtering Gazans, thoughts and prayers (©GOP).
Then Jenrick if Farage loses the next general election to reunite the right, if Farage wins the next general election but needs Tory confidence and supply then Jenrick may be in Farage's Cabinet
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/music/dozens-of-disabled-oasis-fans-get-out-of-wheelchairs-and-start-dancing-when-music-starts/ar-AA1J0I5s?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=76baded9536e46a697f8a620fbd2f344&ei=18
He was asked in the Today programme interview this morning why he hadn’t stopped the sale of training jets to Israel as the pilots who trained on them could then go and bomb Gaza which was quite bonkers.
Basic rights should be available to all British citizens - no one should starve or go homeless - but yes we should favour those who’ve been here longer and yes we should incentivise good behaviour, law abiding, and patriotism
Put it another way: if you’re a Somalian family with 5 kids that arrived 4 years ago yes we will try and house you if you’re stuck, but No you’re not getting a townhouse in Westminster
Let’s see how my proposal polls with the voters. I suggest it will be incredibly popular
Probably more Blair’s wing of Labour than anything else.
I’ve always voted Labour as I felt they were for the working man and woman. I think this is less and less the case these days.
...She was appointed to this position just over a year ago following the equally sudden death of the former head of the Supreme Court...
I wonder how her lucky replacement will feel about their nomination ?
Ref 27 (-1)
Labour 23 (+1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 15 (-1)
Green 11 (-1)
SNP 3 (=)
We will need a genuine crisis to bring us back to reality. We already have one of the highest gilt rates of developed countries. And we borrowed over £20bn in a single month. If we simply cannot sell gilts urgent action will need to be required to rebalance the books. I fear this is coming and I am not confident that anything will adequately protect my family from it.
I’m guessing there won’t be too many takers this time !
Asking why the guy in charge of the Israeli airforce and therefore the area bombing of Gaza was an honored guest last weekend might have been more to the point.
Johnson on Epstein Files: My belief is we need the administration to have the space to do what it is doing.
RAJU: So no vote on this before the August recess?
Johnson: No
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1947376405962244442
Is this so ?
Can we opt out of it ?
It seems insane people submit vexatious claims to simply stop development.
https://x.com/sam_dumitriu/status/1947583775593914376?s=61
These stories are so frequent that I've stopped bothering to check them.
Or affordable housing generally in Barnsley.
Housing affordability problems are based in London and the Waitrose belts.
MoE. This one doesn't need reposting.
British man guilty of trying to spy for Russia
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyn0ygwd7jo
What sort of idiot would think that Moscow would want compromising information on Grant Shapps?
He might have been replaced by somebody with a brain.
Intent would require of them an actual decision.
We all want this to stop.
But as Sir Edward Leigh observed it has been amusing to see himself labelled as antisemite.
Got to say setting Cleverly against Raynor will allow Cleverly to campaign in London on Khan’s utter inability to build new homes
The trial is part of his deep cover.