I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
There has been a big fall in immigration. Arguably, that's due to a range of factors unrelated to Stamer's choices, but immigration is definitely way down during the period he is in charge.
It is down but nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date
In the year ending December 2024, net migration to the UK was provisionally estimated at 431,000, a significant decrease from the 860,000 recorded in the previous year. This reduction is primarily attributed to a drop in immigration, particularly among non-EU nationals arriving for work and study, and an increase in emigration, notably by international students.
"...nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date"
But on his watch.
As with the economy, the government gets to take the good with the bad.
And as far as Farage and his mob are concerned, were immigration to be (say) below 200k by the time of the next election, and the numbers in asylum hotels down to a nugatory figure, then that fox would be truly shot.
No it wouldn't, people don't want a drop in net migration, they want net emigration of third world legal immigrants and deportation of criminal illegal immigrants and fake asylum seekers. Labour will not achieve any of these goals. The UK needs a period of net zero migration or a few years of net emigration, the population is beyond the limit of what our infrastructure and housing can reasonably provide for and the arrivals don't generate enough economic activity that allows for construction of new infrastructure to maintain their presence.
Realistically we need to see emigration of between 2 and 3 million unskilled migrants and dependents that arrived over the last 5 years with only 1m or so highly skilled migrants to replace them from culturally aligned countries. I highly doubt Labour will be able to do that, they don't have the stomach to send those people home that should never have been invited by Boris.
Of course Labour won't do that. If people want a far right nativist approach to immigration they'll have to elect a far right nativist party to government.
And they will
Well fine (although I doubt it). But the point is, stop making out Labour should do it. Tightening the rules, reducing the inward numbers, discouraging illegal routes, that's a fair enough ask and will probably happen; the rest requires a genuine far right mandate from a general election. In 2029.
Returning large numbers of migrants, legally , is simply now something that's in the national interest. Ofcourse a Labour government should be doing it. My money would be on them, eventually, doing so, but in some half arsed way that upsets supporters like you, because of some imaginary line they have crossed , whilst delivering tiny numbers of removals.
The EU Parliament is currently seeking to improve the 'repatriation of irregular migrants' as they put it. Does that make them far right'.
Saying thanks but no thanks to a significant number of the Boris wave millions is simply common sense, will happen and the sooner the better.
@Leon I replied to your last post in reply to me yesterday, but I think you had gone by then. Just trying to keep the con cordial going.
And just to add, in support of your anecdotes, my anecdote of evidence of things getting worse in the UK. My next door neighbours are Russian. One is a concert pianist the other is a lead violinist. They aren't here much as they travel the world and have homes in France and Switzerland and they left again today. Yesterday they commented to me that they thought things were changing for the worse here and they notice the change because it is not gradual for them. Now you know I don't feel that, so I asked why. They came up with two things. Pot holes in the road are much worse and Sainsbury's not having a fresh food counter anymore. I had forgotten that had disappeared and now I miss it (plus the pot holes are a pain).
First world problems. Besides - why are they shopping in Sainsbury's? Isn't Sainsbuy's role to keep the scum out of Waitrose?
A Stephen Fry quote that I repeat often and that is coming from me, a Sainsbury's shopper.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
@Leon I replied to your last post in reply to me yesterday, but I think you had gone by then. Just trying to keep the con cordial going.
And just to add, in support of your anecdotes, my anecdote of evidence of things getting worse in the UK. My next door neighbours are Russian. One is a concert pianist the other is a lead violinist. They aren't here much as they travel the world and have homes in France and Switzerland and they left again today. Yesterday they commented to me that they thought things were changing for the worse here and they notice the change because it is not gradual for them. Now you know I don't feel that, so I asked why. They came up with two things. Pot holes in the road are much worse than before and Sainsbury's not having a fresh food counter anymore. I had forgotten that had disappeared and now I miss it (plus the pot holes are a pain).
I am wholly convinced the public realm is in decline. You can see it in photos of Britain 10. 20, years ago. Less litter, less graffiti, better streets, better street furniture. And yes a more homogeneous populace - if that’s your thing
Of course if you go back 40-50 years then london was a toilet. These things tend to go in cycles
But beyond the visible decay is a general sense of gloom and malaise which is arguably worse
10, 20 years ago, so early noughties is what you are saying. The UK was some kind of a nirvana.
I don't think so. I know you are an incomer to London so perhaps it was glistening a bit in your eyes back then but nothing much has changed. We had the various protests by crusties, we had no-go zones, we had everything we have today. There was no great moment when it all changed for the better/worse.
Trump announced he’ll sit with Putin even if the Russian president declines to meet with Zelenskyy — breaking from the administration’s earlier stance.
In a world where the US can no longer be relied on as a military ally, Ukraine's continuing survival is essential to Europe's security.
Trump has said he will sit down with Putin, not yet that he will agree to carve up Ukraine and give the east of the country to Russia. He also is ready to meet with Zelensky again
The WNBA has been providing quite a lot of amusement this summer. There was the “protest” by the two teams in the all star game where they wore t-shirts saying “pay us what you owe us” which just ended up with the finances being torn apart showing what a loss the women’s game made and how it was covered by the men’s game. The players didn’t understand why they aren’t being paid the same as the men, whose game makes about $2b a year profit even after their huge wages.
This then went to get people to look at the viewing figures which were abysmal - when they threatened to strike my favourite comment was “tens of people will be upset if this happens”.
The dildo throwing has just been a childish reaction to the nonsense over the last few weeks.
The WNBA should lean into it, and make it an official pre-game thing.
Invite Vance or someone to throw the first dildo.
It’s going to keep happening unless they do lean into it. Trying to take it seriously just encourages the jokers.
One player wrote on Twitter to please stop doing this because someone will get hurt, the top reply was “Stop playing basketball on the dildo range”, with 35,000 likes. https://x.com/red1bangarang/status/1951495276717384126
Which celeb/politician would actually be up for it ?
Good question. They should really be able to get a few retired basketballers to try and throw one in from halfway.
As for politicans, most of the younger Congresscritters on both sides have been seen to have a sense of humour at some point, having grown up around social media. They’d definitely need to get both sides engaged though, otherwise it would become as political as a jeans advert.
How do you think the players feel about this?
Right now most of them are having a severe sense of humour failure about it, which is why it keeps happening.
If they’d leaned into the joke the first time it happened, it would have been a one and done.
It's designed to degrade and humiliate them so I can see why they are not laughing.
Of course. But the best, possibly the only way to deal with the assholes would be to lean into it.
How is a professional athlete supposed to "lean into it" when some arsehole throws a rubber cock at her? What's the ideal leaning into it course of action?
I suggested upthread: make it official and get some celeb to do a dildo chuck before the game.
They've tried banning bags, and doing entry searches, but that's clearly futile.
You could try legal action, but MAGA would probably get that reversed.
As with many of these things, the first time it was simply a joke rather than an attempt at a political or misogynistic statement.
The po-faced reaction now encourages people to keep doing it, with betting markets on colours and dates. They have little choice but to lean into it at this point, bag bans aren’t going to solve the problem.
The WNBA has been providing quite a lot of amusement this summer. There was the “protest” by the two teams in the all star game where they wore t-shirts saying “pay us what you owe us” which just ended up with the finances being torn apart showing what a loss the women’s game made and how it was covered by the men’s game. The players didn’t understand why they aren’t being paid the same as the men, whose game makes about $2b a year profit even after their huge wages.
This then went to get people to look at the viewing figures which were abysmal - when they threatened to strike my favourite comment was “tens of people will be upset if this happens”.
The dildo throwing has just been a childish reaction to the nonsense over the last few weeks.
The WNBA should lean into it, and make it an official pre-game thing.
Invite Vance or someone to throw the first dildo.
It’s going to keep happening unless they do lean into it. Trying to take it seriously just encourages the jokers.
One player wrote on Twitter to please stop doing this because someone will get hurt, the top reply was “Stop playing basketball on the dildo range”, with 35,000 likes. https://x.com/red1bangarang/status/1951495276717384126
Which celeb/politician would actually be up for it ?
Good question. They should really be able to get a few retired basketballers to try and throw one in from halfway.
As for politicans, most of the younger Congresscritters on both sides have been seen to have a sense of humour at some point, having grown up around social media. They’d definitely need to get both sides engaged though, otherwise it would become as political as a jeans advert.
How do you think the players feel about this?
Right now most of them are having a severe sense of humour failure about it, which is why it keeps happening.
If they’d leaned into the joke the first time it happened, it would have been a one and done.
It's designed to degrade and humiliate them so I can see why they are not laughing.
Of course. But the best, possibly the only way to deal with the assholes would be to lean into it.
How is a professional athlete supposed to "lean into it" when some arsehole throws a rubber cock at her? What's the ideal leaning into it course of action?
I suggested upthread: make it official and get some celeb to do a dildo chuck before the game.
They've tried banning bags, and doing entry searches, but that's clearly futile.
You could try legal action, but MAGA would probably get that reversed.
Should this not be like violent or racist behaviour at UK football grounds - a lifetime ban (aiui). And that should encourager les autres.
If, of course, there is a serious intention to prevent the behaviour.
@Leon I replied to your last post in reply to me yesterday, but I think you had gone by then. Just trying to keep the con cordial going.
And just to add, in support of your anecdotes, my anecdote of evidence of things getting worse in the UK. My next door neighbours are Russian. One is a concert pianist the other is a lead violinist. They aren't here much as they travel the world and have homes in France and Switzerland and they left again today. Yesterday they commented to me that they thought things were changing for the worse here and they notice the change because it is not gradual for them. Now you know I don't feel that, so I asked why. They came up with two things. Pot holes in the road are much worse than before and Sainsbury's not having a fresh food counter anymore. I had forgotten that had disappeared and now I miss it (plus the pot holes are a pain).
I am wholly convinced the public realm is in decline. You can see it in photos of Britain 10. 20, years ago. Less litter, less graffiti, better streets, better street furniture. And yes a more homogeneous populace - if that’s your thing
Of course if you go back 40-50 years then london was a toilet. These things tend to go in cycles
But beyond the visible decay is a general sense of gloom and malaise which is arguably worse
10, 20 years ago, so early noughties is what you are saying. The UK was some kind of a nirvana.
I don't think so. I know you are an incomer to London so perhaps it was glistening a bit in your eyes back then but nothing much has changed. We had the various protests by crusties, we had no-go zones, we had everything we have today. There was no great moment when it all changed for the better/worse.
lol
I’ve been here since 1981. And my god it was a shithole then. I squatted all around Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia - central London, in houses now worth £5m - simply because so much of london was deserted
I also lived in “hard to let” council property in Wapping for £ 1 a month. Yes. Off Garnet Street (which actually gave its name to Alf Garnet). I went back to the old gaff a few years ago and the entire block - surrounding a small marina (then a disused dock) - has been lavishiy refurbed and flats are now £600,000 for 1 beds
So london has a long way to go before it slides back to the nadir of the 80s (when its population actually bottomed out around 6m+, then began its long recovery under thatcher and then major)
But has london declined since, say, 2005? Yes absolutely
And the demographic change (of which I partly disapprove) has been even more brutal and striking
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
A creative answer.
"I'm going to move the origin of the graph over .... THERE !"
(It is true that the deficit did decline gradually, but at what cost to the country, investment, science base, quality of public footpaths, applying appropriate taxes to appriopriate items and 101 other things?).
Boris by contrast spent more than any PM since Brown and indeed Boris spent more than Blair did for most of his premiership and more even than Starmer and Reeves are now and there were no big tax cuts under Boris either.
Boris also increased immigration from outside the EU even with taking us out of the EU and EEA and was generally socially liberal and pro net zero.
Indeed, apart from Brexit Boris as PM was not really that rightwing and conservative at all
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
A creative answer.
"I'm going to move the origin of the graph over .... THERE !"
(It is true that the deficit did decline gradually, but at what cost to the country, investment, science base, quality of public footpaths, applying appropriate taxes to appriopriate items and 101 other things?).
Happy memories of the time HYUFD equated the entire Scottish seafood industry, afloat and ashore, offshore and inshore, with a few self-selected skippers of large distant waters vessels.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Rather like seeing a tuatara in the zoo: an evolutionary relict of political thought demanding the restriction of education to the wealthy because the poor etc. etc.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
You do love restricting access to Oxbridge. Can't think why.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
A creative answer.
"I'm going to move the origin of the graph over .... THERE !"
(It is true that the deficit did decline gradually, but at what cost to the country, investment, science base, quality of public footpaths, applying appropriate taxes to appriopriate items and 101 other things?).
Happy memories of the time HYUFD equated the entire Scottish seafood industry, afloat and ashore, offshore and inshore, with a few self-selected skippers of large distant waters vessels.
No, Philosophy or History or English or Classics graduates from Oxbridge would also pay lower fees than Law or Economics or PPE or STEM graduates as on average their courses have a lower graduate earnings premium and are cheap to run.
Oxbridge like Harvard and Yale could also further build up its scholarship and bursary funds with higher fees, especially for lower income students studying the most expensive courses
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
You do love restricting access to Oxbridge. Can't think why.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
A creative answer.
"I'm going to move the origin of the graph over .... THERE !"
(It is true that the deficit did decline gradually, but at what cost to the country, investment, science base, quality of public footpaths, applying appropriate taxes to appriopriate items and 101 other things?).
Happy memories of the time HYUFD equated the entire Scottish seafood industry, afloat and ashore, offshore and inshore, with a few self-selected skippers of large distant waters vessels.
No, Philosophy or History or English or Classics graduates from Oxbridge would also pay lower fees than Law or Economics or PPE or STEM graduates as on average their courses have a lower graduate earnings premium and are cheap to run.
Oxbridge like Harvard and Yale could also further build up its scholarship and bursary funds with higher fees, especially for lower income students studying the most expensive courses
"[H]igher fees, especially for lower income students studying the most expensive courses", you say?
Now *that* is revolutionary. Or rather counter-revolutionary.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
You do love restricting access to Oxbridge. Can't think why.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
A creative answer.
"I'm going to move the origin of the graph over .... THERE !"
(It is true that the deficit did decline gradually, but at what cost to the country, investment, science base, quality of public footpaths, applying appropriate taxes to appriopriate items and 101 other things?).
Happy memories of the time HYUFD equated the entire Scottish seafood industry, afloat and ashore, offshore and inshore, with a few self-selected skippers of large distant waters vessels.
No, Philosophy or History or English or Classics graduates from Oxbridge would also pay lower fees than Law or Economics or PPE or STEM graduates as on average their courses have a lower graduate earnings premium and are cheap to run.
Oxbridge like Harvard and Yale could also further build up its scholarship and bursary funds with higher fees, especially for lower income students studying the most expensive courses
"[H]igher fees, especially for lower income students studying the most expensive courses", you say?
Now *that* is revolutionary. Or rather counter-revolutionary.
No the scholarships would be for lower income students, higher income students would still pay full price even for the most expensive courses
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
You do love restricting access to Oxbridge. Can't think why.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
A creative answer.
"I'm going to move the origin of the graph over .... THERE !"
(It is true that the deficit did decline gradually, but at what cost to the country, investment, science base, quality of public footpaths, applying appropriate taxes to appriopriate items and 101 other things?).
Happy memories of the time HYUFD equated the entire Scottish seafood industry, afloat and ashore, offshore and inshore, with a few self-selected skippers of large distant waters vessels.
No, Philosophy or History or English or Classics graduates from Oxbridge would also pay lower fees than Law or Economics or PPE or STEM graduates as on average their courses have a lower graduate earnings premium and are cheap to run.
Oxbridge like Harvard and Yale could also further build up its scholarship and bursary funds with higher fees, especially for lower income students studying the most expensive courses
"[H]igher fees, especially for lower income students studying the most expensive courses", you say?
Now *that* is revolutionary. Or rather counter-revolutionary.
No the scholarships would be for lower income students, higher income students would still pay full price even for the most expensive courses
That's the complete opposite of what you have just written! Do make up your mind.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
My Trust is asking for voluntary redundancies, but hasn't ruled out compulsory ones. They are aiming for managerial and admin grades, but I am not convinced this is working. The plan has me doing the data entry that was formerly done be the receptionist. I don't mind, but it means that I see fewer patients.
And your hourly rate for the data entry work is significantly higher than a receptionists would be!
BTW - do you have a view on email vs post for patient letters/appointments? I only ask as we had an appointment letter come through for our son the day after the appointment. Now the delay is down to Royal Mail (under pressure in our town - we get a big bundle of post about once a week) but why use post at all?
We do text notifications when people have a mobile number on file, but the default is paper. Last week I got a paper bill and reminder dated 2 weeks apart in the same post.
Part of Wes Streetings 10 year plan for the NHS is that sort of thing, also electronic booking and AI led responses to queries about appointments and rebooking. I think the vision is to do it via the NHS App rather than open emails.
In principle I have no problems, but there are issues around confidentiality with emails, the same reason hospitals show as "unknown" on phones, and we aren't allowed to leave answerphone messages. Also there are significant issues about equity of access for communities and patients who lack those IT skills and infrastructure.
Can you ask patients “How do you wish us to communicate with you?” The cost of post and phone calls across the NHS must be astronomical, compared to having your system send out emails and text messages.
@Leon I replied to your last post in reply to me yesterday, but I think you had gone by then. Just trying to keep the con cordial going.
And just to add, in support of your anecdotes, my anecdote of evidence of things getting worse in the UK. My next door neighbours are Russian. One is a concert pianist the other is a lead violinist. They aren't here much as they travel the world and have homes in France and Switzerland and they left again today. Yesterday they commented to me that they thought things were changing for the worse here and they notice the change because it is not gradual for them. Now you know I don't feel that, so I asked why. They came up with two things. Pot holes in the road are much worse than before and Sainsbury's not having a fresh food counter anymore. I had forgotten that had disappeared and now I miss it (plus the pot holes are a pain).
I am wholly convinced the public realm is in decline. You can see it in photos of Britain 10. 20, years ago. Less litter, less graffiti, better streets, better street furniture. And yes a more homogeneous populace - if that’s your thing
Of course if you go back 40-50 years then london was a toilet. These things tend to go in cycles
But beyond the visible decay is a general sense of gloom and malaise which is arguably worse
Even our new stuff is worse than decades old public realm in Australia and Germany. Edinburgh is one of greatest exports the UK has (tourism serves as such) yet the city is a tatty mess.
Oddly, some of the charm of the city comes with that grottiness - particularly the Old Town. But otherwise, it almost physically hurts to look at it. A hotel on the Royal Mile has had scaffolding on it for 6 years. A utilities scar on Rose Street has been there for 7 years. The cycle lanes are designed by idiots, and we refuse to put in trees for *reasons*. Endless telecoms infrastructure plonked at random on pavements.
The sad thing is when someone has an immaculate garden but the public park adjacent is a tip. The balance is wrong.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
You do love restricting access to Oxbridge. Can't think why.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
A creative answer.
"I'm going to move the origin of the graph over .... THERE !"
(It is true that the deficit did decline gradually, but at what cost to the country, investment, science base, quality of public footpaths, applying appropriate taxes to appriopriate items and 101 other things?).
Happy memories of the time HYUFD equated the entire Scottish seafood industry, afloat and ashore, offshore and inshore, with a few self-selected skippers of large distant waters vessels.
No, Philosophy or History or English or Classics graduates from Oxbridge would also pay lower fees than Law or Economics or PPE or STEM graduates as on average their courses have a lower graduate earnings premium and are cheap to run.
Oxbridge like Harvard and Yale could also further build up its scholarship and bursary funds with higher fees, especially for lower income students studying the most expensive courses
"[H]igher fees, especially for lower income students studying the most expensive courses", you say?
Now *that* is revolutionary. Or rather counter-revolutionary.
No the scholarships would be for lower income students, higher income students would still pay full price even for the most expensive courses
That's the complete opposite of what you have just written! Do make up your mind.
No it wasn't, just you being difficult for the sake of it
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
There has been a big fall in immigration. Arguably, that's due to a range of factors unrelated to Stamer's choices, but immigration is definitely way down during the period he is in charge.
It is down but nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date
In the year ending December 2024, net migration to the UK was provisionally estimated at 431,000, a significant decrease from the 860,000 recorded in the previous year. This reduction is primarily attributed to a drop in immigration, particularly among non-EU nationals arriving for work and study, and an increase in emigration, notably by international students.
"...nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date"
But on his watch.
As with the economy, the government gets to take the good with the bad.
And as far as Farage and his mob are concerned, were immigration to be (say) below 200k by the time of the next election, and the numbers in asylum hotels down to a nugatory figure, then that fox would be truly shot.
No it wouldn't, people don't want a drop in net migration, they want net emigration of third world legal immigrants and deportation of criminal illegal immigrants and fake asylum seekers. Labour will not achieve any of these goals. The UK needs a period of net zero migration or a few years of net emigration, the population is beyond the limit of what our infrastructure and housing can reasonably provide for and the arrivals don't generate enough economic activity that allows for construction of new infrastructure to maintain their presence.
Realistically we need to see emigration of between 2 and 3 million unskilled migrants and dependents that arrived over the last 5 years with only 1m or so highly skilled migrants to replace them from culturally aligned countries. I highly doubt Labour will be able to do that, they don't have the stomach to send those people home that should never have been invited by Boris.
Of course Labour won't do that. If people want a far right nativist approach to immigration they'll have to elect a far right nativist party to government.
And they will
Well fine (although I doubt it). But the point is, stop making out Labour should do it. Tightening the rules, reducing the inward numbers, discouraging illegal routes, that's a fair enough ask and will probably happen; the rest requires a genuine far right mandate from a general election. In 2029.
Returning large numbers of migrants, legally , is simply now something that's in the national interest. Ofcourse a Labour government should be doing it. My money would be on them, eventually, doing so, but in some half arsed way that upsets supporters like you, because of some imaginary line they have crossed , whilst delivering tiny numbers of removals.
The EU Parliament is currently seeking to improve the 'repatriation of irregular migrants' as they put it. Does that make them far right'.
Saying thanks but no thanks to a significant number of the Boris wave millions is simply common sense, will happen and the sooner the better.
The 'national interest' is not imo served by encouraging the public to blame immigrants for anything and everything that's bad about this country. Or by exaggerating the extent to which things are bad. That's far right populist propaganda. It's how they win. It's the road to a dark place.
As for the Boriswave, that was another screw up by the Tories in their dreadful 19/22 manifestation. Farage is making hay with it and the Tories look like they're going to chase the same voter groups.
Labour should leave them to it and just concentrate on improving the immigration system. Deliver incremental results without any more "island of strangers" nonsense. If that's not enough, so be it. We'll get to that dark place and we'll deserve to be there. Like America.
@Leon I replied to your last post in reply to me yesterday, but I think you had gone by then. Just trying to keep the con cordial going.
And just to add, in support of your anecdotes, my anecdote of evidence of things getting worse in the UK. My next door neighbours are Russian. One is a concert pianist the other is a lead violinist. They aren't here much as they travel the world and have homes in France and Switzerland and they left again today. Yesterday they commented to me that they thought things were changing for the worse here and they notice the change because it is not gradual for them. Now you know I don't feel that, so I asked why. They came up with two things. Pot holes in the road are much worse than before and Sainsbury's not having a fresh food counter anymore. I had forgotten that had disappeared and now I miss it (plus the pot holes are a pain).
I am wholly convinced the public realm is in decline. You can see it in photos of Britain 10. 20, years ago. Less litter, less graffiti, better streets, better street furniture. And yes a more homogeneous populace - if that’s your thing
Of course if you go back 40-50 years then london was a toilet. These things tend to go in cycles
But beyond the visible decay is a general sense of gloom and malaise which is arguably worse
One of the many things that bemuses me about your rants is your (ahem) blindness. When we were in London a couple of weeks ago, we walked from St Pancras to Euston and then back via Regent's Park. There was not much litter at all, but what was shocking was the number of rough sleepers. That matters much more than litter IMO, although preferably neither.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
There has been a big fall in immigration. Arguably, that's due to a range of factors unrelated to Stamer's choices, but immigration is definitely way down during the period he is in charge.
It is down but nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date
In the year ending December 2024, net migration to the UK was provisionally estimated at 431,000, a significant decrease from the 860,000 recorded in the previous year. This reduction is primarily attributed to a drop in immigration, particularly among non-EU nationals arriving for work and study, and an increase in emigration, notably by international students.
"...nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date"
But on his watch.
As with the economy, the government gets to take the good with the bad.
And as far as Farage and his mob are concerned, were immigration to be (say) below 200k by the time of the next election, and the numbers in asylum hotels down to a nugatory figure, then that fox would be truly shot.
No it wouldn't, people don't want a drop in net migration, they want net emigration of third world legal immigrants and deportation of criminal illegal immigrants and fake asylum seekers. Labour will not achieve any of these goals. The UK needs a period of net zero migration or a few years of net emigration, the population is beyond the limit of what our infrastructure and housing can reasonably provide for and the arrivals don't generate enough economic activity that allows for construction of new infrastructure to maintain their presence.
Realistically we need to see emigration of between 2 and 3 million unskilled migrants and dependents that arrived over the last 5 years with only 1m or so highly skilled migrants to replace them from culturally aligned countries. I highly doubt Labour will be able to do that, they don't have the stomach to send those people home that should never have been invited by Boris.
Of course Labour won't do that. If people want a far right nativist approach to immigration they'll have to elect a far right nativist party to government.
And they will
Well fine (although I doubt it). But the point is, stop making out Labour should do it. Tightening the rules, reducing the inward numbers, discouraging illegal routes, that's a fair enough ask and will probably happen; the rest requires a genuine far right mandate from a general election. In 2029.
Returning large numbers of migrants, legally , is simply now something that's in the national interest. Ofcourse a Labour government should be doing it. My money would be on them, eventually, doing so, but in some half arsed way that upsets supporters like you, because of some imaginary line they have crossed , whilst delivering tiny numbers of removals.
The EU Parliament is currently seeking to improve the 'repatriation of irregular migrants' as they put it. Does that make them far right'.
Saying thanks but no thanks to a significant number of the Boris wave millions is simply common sense, will happen and the sooner the better.
The 'national interest' is not imo served by encouraging the public to blame immigrants for anything and everything that's bad about this country. Or by exaggerating the extent to which things are bad. That's far right populist propaganda. It's how they win. It's the road to a dark place.
As for the Boriswave, that was another screw up by the Tories in their dreadful 19/22 manifestation. Farage is making hay with it and the Tories look like they're going to chase the same voter groups.
Labour should leave them to it and just concentrate on improving the immigration system. Deliver incremental results without any more "island of strangers" nonsense. If that's not enough, so be it. We'll get to that dark place and we'll deserve to be there. Like America.
You still haven’t answered. Should the Boriswave be given leave to remain - ie become permanent legal migrants? Or do we politely decline and say sorry, at the end of your visa, you go home?
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
STEM graduates already earn well above average salaries on average and their courses are also more expensive to run than most courses.
In my view Economics and Business courses tuition fees should be highest, as they have most demand and have above average graduate earnings premiums, with STEM subjects tuition fees second highest.
Many STEM and Business courses already have years out in industry anyway but university should be as much for research and broadening the mind as getting a well paid job after
On the upside, I am strolling around Queen Mary’s Garden in the Regent’s Park and it is idyllic. In this gorgeous mellow English summer sun
So much nicer than the torpid heat of the Med
Soho last night was thrumming as well. Heaving and jammers. London is ever the outlier
Exactly. Just the same as it ever was with the proviso that in general people are drawn there and places have gentrified as a function of global increasing wealth. Oh how I laughed when friends of mine took their lives into their own hands by buying a big house just by the front line in Leamington Road Villas.
You must look at the relative position not in absolute terms or you would be bemoaning the fact that you could buy a Mars Bar in 1980 for 3p or whatever it was and now they cost a fortune.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
You do love restricting access to Oxbridge. Can't think why.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
A creative answer.
"I'm going to move the origin of the graph over .... THERE !"
(It is true that the deficit did decline gradually, but at what cost to the country, investment, science base, quality of public footpaths, applying appropriate taxes to appriopriate items and 101 other things?).
Happy memories of the time HYUFD equated the entire Scottish seafood industry, afloat and ashore, offshore and inshore, with a few self-selected skippers of large distant waters vessels.
No, Philosophy or History or English or Classics graduates from Oxbridge would also pay lower fees than Law or Economics or PPE or STEM graduates as on average their courses have a lower graduate earnings premium and are cheap to run.
Oxbridge like Harvard and Yale could also further build up its scholarship and bursary funds with higher fees, especially for lower income students studying the most expensive courses
"[H]igher fees, especially for lower income students studying the most expensive courses", you say?
Now *that* is revolutionary. Or rather counter-revolutionary.
No the scholarships would be for lower income students, higher income students would still pay full price even for the most expensive courses
That's the complete opposite of what you have just written! Do make up your mind.
No it wasn't, just you being difficult for the sake of it
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
There has been a big fall in immigration. Arguably, that's due to a range of factors unrelated to Stamer's choices, but immigration is definitely way down during the period he is in charge.
It is down but nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date
In the year ending December 2024, net migration to the UK was provisionally estimated at 431,000, a significant decrease from the 860,000 recorded in the previous year. This reduction is primarily attributed to a drop in immigration, particularly among non-EU nationals arriving for work and study, and an increase in emigration, notably by international students.
"...nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date"
But on his watch.
As with the economy, the government gets to take the good with the bad.
And as far as Farage and his mob are concerned, were immigration to be (say) below 200k by the time of the next election, and the numbers in asylum hotels down to a nugatory figure, then that fox would be truly shot.
No it wouldn't, people don't want a drop in net migration, they want net emigration of third world legal immigrants and deportation of criminal illegal immigrants and fake asylum seekers. Labour will not achieve any of these goals. The UK needs a period of net zero migration or a few years of net emigration, the population is beyond the limit of what our infrastructure and housing can reasonably provide for and the arrivals don't generate enough economic activity that allows for construction of new infrastructure to maintain their presence.
Realistically we need to see emigration of between 2 and 3 million unskilled migrants and dependents that arrived over the last 5 years with only 1m or so highly skilled migrants to replace them from culturally aligned countries. I highly doubt Labour will be able to do that, they don't have the stomach to send those people home that should never have been invited by Boris.
Of course Labour won't do that. If people want a far right nativist approach to immigration they'll have to elect a far right nativist party to government.
I really don't think it is 'far right' to say that a significant number of the millions who have arrived on these shores very recently, to the obvious detriment of our society and economy, should be returned. It's simple common sense.
If mass deportations of legal immigrants on account of culture and ethnicity isn't far right I'm not sure what is. But whatever, I'm agreeing with the point that Labour won't be doing it. There's a valid debate about what 'Labour values' are but they certainly don't stretch to that.
If my suggestion about enforcing criminal sanctions on the employers (via rewarding the exploited migrants) was taken up, within a short period of time, nearly no employers would employ them.
The WNBA has been providing quite a lot of amusement this summer. There was the “protest” by the two teams in the all star game where they wore t-shirts saying “pay us what you owe us” which just ended up with the finances being torn apart showing what a loss the women’s game made and how it was covered by the men’s game. The players didn’t understand why they aren’t being paid the same as the men, whose game makes about $2b a year profit even after their huge wages.
This then went to get people to look at the viewing figures which were abysmal - when they threatened to strike my favourite comment was “tens of people will be upset if this happens”.
The dildo throwing has just been a childish reaction to the nonsense over the last few weeks.
The WNBA should lean into it, and make it an official pre-game thing.
Invite Vance or someone to throw the first dildo.
It’s going to keep happening unless they do lean into it. Trying to take it seriously just encourages the jokers.
One player wrote on Twitter to please stop doing this because someone will get hurt, the top reply was “Stop playing basketball on the dildo range”, with 35,000 likes. https://x.com/red1bangarang/status/1951495276717384126
Which celeb/politician would actually be up for it ?
Good question. They should really be able to get a few retired basketballers to try and throw one in from halfway.
As for politicans, most of the younger Congresscritters on both sides have been seen to have a sense of humour at some point, having grown up around social media. They’d definitely need to get both sides engaged though, otherwise it would become as political as a jeans advert.
How do you think the players feel about this?
Right now most of them are having a severe sense of humour failure about it, which is why it keeps happening.
If they’d leaned into the joke the first time it happened, it would have been a one and done.
It's designed to degrade and humiliate them so I can see why they are not laughing.
Of course. But the best, possibly the only way to deal with the assholes would be to lean into it.
How is a professional athlete supposed to "lean into it" when some arsehole throws a rubber cock at her? What's the ideal leaning into it course of action?
Presumably find the childish (*^$£^*% who threw it, bend him over and insert said rubber implement in his frenulum.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling.
Despite being portrayed as a One Nation Moderate, Cameron was actually the most Thatcherite PM in economic terms we have had since Thatcher herself
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
You're misreading the grammar. He said 'national debt' - the 'increase' is a verb rather than part of the subject of the sentence. So you are flat wrong there.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
You do have a point, but all you and Sandpit for the matter of that are talking about is tinkering at the edges while ignoring the real problem - the entire university funding system, fees, research grants, spending, endowments, is more broken than Trump's brain cell and needs rethinking from the guts up.
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
I was appointed a Lecturer Grade 2 in 1969. My annual salary was £1695. Isn't inflation wonderful!?
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
I was appointed a Lecturer Grade 2 in 1969. My annual salary was £1695. Isn't inflation wonderful!?
Minimum wage 40 hours a week is more than £25k now. Puts it into perspective.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
There has been a big fall in immigration. Arguably, that's due to a range of factors unrelated to Stamer's choices, but immigration is definitely way down during the period he is in charge.
It is down but nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date
In the year ending December 2024, net migration to the UK was provisionally estimated at 431,000, a significant decrease from the 860,000 recorded in the previous year. This reduction is primarily attributed to a drop in immigration, particularly among non-EU nationals arriving for work and study, and an increase in emigration, notably by international students.
"...nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date"
But on his watch.
As with the economy, the government gets to take the good with the bad.
And as far as Farage and his mob are concerned, were immigration to be (say) below 200k by the time of the next election, and the numbers in asylum hotels down to a nugatory figure, then that fox would be truly shot.
No it wouldn't, people don't want a drop in net migration, they want net emigration of third world legal immigrants and deportation of criminal illegal immigrants and fake asylum seekers. Labour will not achieve any of these goals. The UK needs a period of net zero migration or a few years of net emigration, the population is beyond the limit of what our infrastructure and housing can reasonably provide for and the arrivals don't generate enough economic activity that allows for construction of new infrastructure to maintain their presence.
Realistically we need to see emigration of between 2 and 3 million unskilled migrants and dependents that arrived over the last 5 years with only 1m or so highly skilled migrants to replace them from culturally aligned countries. I highly doubt Labour will be able to do that, they don't have the stomach to send those people home that should never have been invited by Boris.
Of course Labour won't do that. If people want a far right nativist approach to immigration they'll have to elect a far right nativist party to government.
And they will
Well fine (although I doubt it). But the point is, stop making out Labour should do it. Tightening the rules, reducing the inward numbers, discouraging illegal routes, that's a fair enough ask and will probably happen; the rest requires a genuine far right mandate from a general election. In 2029.
Returning large numbers of migrants, legally , is simply now something that's in the national interest. Ofcourse a Labour government should be doing it. My money would be on them, eventually, doing so, but in some half arsed way that upsets supporters like you, because of some imaginary line they have crossed , whilst delivering tiny numbers of removals.
The EU Parliament is currently seeking to improve the 'repatriation of irregular migrants' as they put it. Does that make them far right'.
Saying thanks but no thanks to a significant number of the Boris wave millions is simply common sense, will happen and the sooner the better.
The 'national interest' is not imo served by encouraging the public to blame immigrants for anything and everything that's bad about this country. Or by exaggerating the extent to which things are bad. That's far right populist propaganda. It's how they win. It's the road to a dark place.
As for the Boriswave, that was another screw up by the Tories in their dreadful 19/22 manifestation. Farage is making hay with it and the Tories look like they're going to chase the same voter groups.
Labour should leave them to it and just concentrate on improving the immigration system. Deliver incremental results without any more "island of strangers" nonsense. If that's not enough, so be it. We'll get to that dark place and we'll deserve to be there. Like America.
You still haven’t answered. Should the Boriswave be given leave to remain - ie become permanent legal migrants? Or do we politely decline and say sorry, at the end of your visa, you go home?
I don't think we should be going around sticking "Boriswave" labels on people and on that basis ejecting them from the country, no.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
I was appointed a Lecturer Grade 2 in 1969. My annual salary was £1695. Isn't inflation wonderful!?
Minimum wage 40 hours a week is more than £25k now. Puts it into perspective.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
I was appointed a Lecturer Grade 2 in 1969. My annual salary was £1695. Isn't inflation wonderful!?
Minimum wage 40 hours a week is more than £25k now. Puts it into perspective.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
There has been a big fall in immigration. Arguably, that's due to a range of factors unrelated to Stamer's choices, but immigration is definitely way down during the period he is in charge.
It is down but nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date
In the year ending December 2024, net migration to the UK was provisionally estimated at 431,000, a significant decrease from the 860,000 recorded in the previous year. This reduction is primarily attributed to a drop in immigration, particularly among non-EU nationals arriving for work and study, and an increase in emigration, notably by international students.
"...nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date"
But on his watch.
As with the economy, the government gets to take the good with the bad.
And as far as Farage and his mob are concerned, were immigration to be (say) below 200k by the time of the next election, and the numbers in asylum hotels down to a nugatory figure, then that fox would be truly shot.
No it wouldn't, people don't want a drop in net migration, they want net emigration of third world legal immigrants and deportation of criminal illegal immigrants and fake asylum seekers. Labour will not achieve any of these goals. The UK needs a period of net zero migration or a few years of net emigration, the population is beyond the limit of what our infrastructure and housing can reasonably provide for and the arrivals don't generate enough economic activity that allows for construction of new infrastructure to maintain their presence.
Realistically we need to see emigration of between 2 and 3 million unskilled migrants and dependents that arrived over the last 5 years with only 1m or so highly skilled migrants to replace them from culturally aligned countries. I highly doubt Labour will be able to do that, they don't have the stomach to send those people home that should never have been invited by Boris.
Of course Labour won't do that. If people want a far right nativist approach to immigration they'll have to elect a far right nativist party to government.
I really don't think it is 'far right' to say that a significant number of the millions who have arrived on these shores very recently, to the obvious detriment of our society and economy, should be returned. It's simple common sense.
If mass deportations of legal immigrants on account of culture and ethnicity isn't far right I'm not sure what is. But whatever, I'm agreeing with the point that Labour won't be doing it. There's a valid debate about what 'Labour values' are but they certainly don't stretch to that.
If my suggestion about enforcing criminal sanctions on the employers (via rewarding the exploited migrants) was taken up, within a short period of time, nearly no employers would employ them.
@Leon I replied to your last post in reply to me yesterday, but I think you had gone by then. Just trying to keep the con cordial going.
And just to add, in support of your anecdotes, my anecdote of evidence of things getting worse in the UK. My next door neighbours are Russian. One is a concert pianist the other is a lead violinist. They aren't here much as they travel the world and have homes in France and Switzerland and they left again today. Yesterday they commented to me that they thought things were changing for the worse here and they notice the change because it is not gradual for them. Now you know I don't feel that, so I asked why. They came up with two things. Pot holes in the road are much worse than before and Sainsbury's not having a fresh food counter anymore. I had forgotten that had disappeared and now I miss it (plus the pot holes are a pain).
I am wholly convinced the public realm is in decline. You can see it in photos of Britain 10. 20, years ago. Less litter, less graffiti, better streets, better street furniture. And yes a more homogeneous populace - if that’s your thing
Of course if you go back 40-50 years then london was a toilet. These things tend to go in cycles
But beyond the visible decay is a general sense of gloom and malaise which is arguably worse
10, 20 years ago, so early noughties is what you are saying. The UK was some kind of a nirvana.
I don't think so. I know you are an incomer to London so perhaps it was glistening a bit in your eyes back then but nothing much has changed. We had the various protests by crusties, we had no-go zones, we had everything we have today. There was no great moment when it all changed for the better/worse.
lol
I’ve been here since 1981. And my god it was a shithole then. I squatted all around Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia - central London, in houses now worth £5m - simply because so much of london was deserted
I also lived in “hard to let” council property in Wapping for £ 1 a month. Yes. Off Garnet Street (which actually gave its name to Alf Garnet). I went back to the old gaff a few years ago and the entire block - surrounding a small marina (then a disused dock) - has been lavishiy refurbed and flats are now £600,000 for 1 beds
So london has a long way to go before it slides back to the nadir of the 80s (when its population actually bottomed out around 6m+, then began its long recovery under thatcher and then major)
But has london declined since, say, 2005? Yes absolutely
And the demographic change (of which I partly disapprove) has been even more brutal and striking
Growing under Ken Livingstone, declining under Boris?
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.
It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
I was appointed a Lecturer Grade 2 in 1969. My annual salary was £1695. Isn't inflation wonderful!?
Minimum wage 40 hours a week is more than £25k now. Puts it into perspective.
Which is ridiculous, hence we now have more unemployed than job vacancies again.
Better to have a minimum wage of £10-15k and near full employment for the able bodied adult than a full time minimum wage of £25k and UK unemployment now at around 5% and rising
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
I was appointed a Lecturer Grade 2 in 1969. My annual salary was £1695. Isn't inflation wonderful!?
Minimum wage 40 hours a week is more than £25k now. Puts it into perspective.
I was earning £18k as a paralegal in 2021…
I earnt £12k as a paralegal for 6 months 15 years ago
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.
It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown
And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
You do have a point, but all you and Sandpit for the matter of that are talking about is tinkering at the edges while ignoring the real problem - the entire university funding system, fees, research grants, spending, endowments, is more broken than Trump's brain cell and needs rethinking from the guts up.
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
Fees should be charged based on league table ranking of the university and graduate earning premium of the course as I said.
At the moment an investment banker who studied Economics at Cambridge pays the same tuition fee as someone who studied art at Brighton who works as a waitress and sells a few paintings on the side which is ridiculous
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
I was appointed a Lecturer Grade 2 in 1969. My annual salary was £1695. Isn't inflation wonderful!?
Minimum wage 40 hours a week is more than £25k now. Puts it into perspective.
I was earning £18k as a paralegal in 2021…
I earnt £12k as a paralegal for 6 months 15 years ago
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
I was appointed a Lecturer Grade 2 in 1969. My annual salary was £1695. Isn't inflation wonderful!?
Minimum wage 40 hours a week is more than £25k now. Puts it into perspective.
I was earning £18k as a paralegal in 2021…
I earnt £12k as a paralegal for 6 months 15 years ago
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
You do have a point, but all you and Sandpit for the matter of that are talking about is tinkering at the edges while ignoring the real problem - the entire university funding system, fees, research grants, spending, endowments, is more broken than Trump's brain cell and needs rethinking from the guts up.
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
Fees should be charged based on league table ranking of the university and graduate earning premium of the course as I said.
At the moment an investment banker who studied Economics at Cambridge pays the same tuition fee as someone studying art at Brighton who works as a waitress and sells a few paintings on the side which is ridiculous
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
You do have a point, but all you and Sandpit for the matter of that are talking about is tinkering at the edges while ignoring the real problem - the entire university funding system, fees, research grants, spending, endowments, is more broken than Trump's brain cell and needs rethinking from the guts up.
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
Fees should be charged based on league table ranking of the university and graduate earning premium of the course as I said.
At the moment an investment banker who studied Economics at Cambridge pays the same tuition fee as someone studying art at Brighton who works as a waitress and sells a few paintings on the side which is ridiculous
Indeed.
After all, one of them is a parasite that brings nothing to the country economically.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
You do have a point, but all you and Sandpit for the matter of that are talking about is tinkering at the edges while ignoring the real problem - the entire university funding system, fees, research grants, spending, endowments, is more broken than Trump's brain cell and needs rethinking from the guts up.
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
The implosion is pretty close in the US, and will likely happen there first.
At the end of the day, I suggest that the most likely workable scenario is an agreement between university, student, and bank, with government getting out of the way as far as possible. The current system has the risk mostly on the student but also on the government.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.
It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown
And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.
Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
You do have a point, but all you and Sandpit for the matter of that are talking about is tinkering at the edges while ignoring the real problem - the entire university funding system, fees, research grants, spending, endowments, is more broken than Trump's brain cell and needs rethinking from the guts up.
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
Fees should be charged based on league table ranking of the university and graduate earning premium of the course as I said.
At the moment an investment banker who studied Economics at Cambridge pays the same tuition fee as someone studying art at Brighton who works as a waitress and sells a few paintings on the side which is ridiculous
Two excellent catches in that over off Josh Shaw, one a screamer at backward point by Boorman and the other an even more stunning grab in his follow through by Shaw himself.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.
It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown
And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.
Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016
Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.
It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown
And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.
Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016
Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.
It led to the decline in increase in the national debt
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
I was appointed a Lecturer Grade 2 in 1969. My annual salary was £1695. Isn't inflation wonderful!?
Minimum wage 40 hours a week is more than £25k now. Puts it into perspective.
I was earning £18k as a paralegal in 2021…
I was earning £975 pa as a mathematician in Slough in 1965.
Forecasting the demand for Dulux paint using dynamic programming and Bayesian updating. Also using Markov chains to predict changing market shares. Sixty years ago.
I should dust it off and apply it to political party market shares.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
There has been a big fall in immigration. Arguably, that's due to a range of factors unrelated to Stamer's choices, but immigration is definitely way down during the period he is in charge.
It is down but nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date
In the year ending December 2024, net migration to the UK was provisionally estimated at 431,000, a significant decrease from the 860,000 recorded in the previous year. This reduction is primarily attributed to a drop in immigration, particularly among non-EU nationals arriving for work and study, and an increase in emigration, notably by international students.
"...nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date"
But on his watch.
As with the economy, the government gets to take the good with the bad.
And as far as Farage and his mob are concerned, were immigration to be (say) below 200k by the time of the next election, and the numbers in asylum hotels down to a nugatory figure, then that fox would be truly shot.
No it wouldn't, people don't want a drop in net migration, they want net emigration of third world legal immigrants and deportation of criminal illegal immigrants and fake asylum seekers. Labour will not achieve any of these goals. The UK needs a period of net zero migration or a few years of net emigration, the population is beyond the limit of what our infrastructure and housing can reasonably provide for and the arrivals don't generate enough economic activity that allows for construction of new infrastructure to maintain their presence.
Realistically we need to see emigration of between 2 and 3 million unskilled migrants and dependents that arrived over the last 5 years with only 1m or so highly skilled migrants to replace them from culturally aligned countries. I highly doubt Labour will be able to do that, they don't have the stomach to send those people home that should never have been invited by Boris.
Of course Labour won't do that. If people want a far right nativist approach to immigration they'll have to elect a far right nativist party to government.
I really don't think it is 'far right' to say that a significant number of the millions who have arrived on these shores very recently, to the obvious detriment of our society and economy, should be returned. It's simple common sense.
If mass deportations of legal immigrants on account of culture and ethnicity isn't far right I'm not sure what is. But whatever, I'm agreeing with the point that Labour won't be doing it. There's a valid debate about what 'Labour values' are but they certainly don't stretch to that.
If my suggestion about enforcing criminal sanctions on the employers (via rewarding the exploited migrants) was taken up, within a short period of time, nearly no employers would employ them.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.
It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown
And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.
Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016
Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.
It led to the decline in increase in the national debt
Maybe. But yet the national debt still increased over the 14 years you were in power. Massively.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
You do have a point, but all you and Sandpit for the matter of that are talking about is tinkering at the edges while ignoring the real problem - the entire university funding system, fees, research grants, spending, endowments, is more broken than Trump's brain cell and needs rethinking from the guts up.
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
Fees should be charged based on league table ranking of the university and graduate earning premium of the course as I said.
At the moment an investment banker who studied Economics at Cambridge pays the same tuition fee as someone studying art at Brighton who works as a waitress and sells a few paintings on the side which is ridiculous
Which league table ranking?
1 Top Oxbridge Colleges 2 JCL Oxbridge Colleges (younger than the one I went to) 3 Imperial, UCL, KCL, Durham 4 What do you mean, there are other universities?
(Sixth form tutor hat on)
That's the point of the repayment system. Do a degree and end up in a low pay (perhaps creative or socially useful) job, you don't repay the sticker price of your degree ever. That's a feature, not a bug. Do a degree that catapults you into the top 1%, you repay the cost of your degree and a bit more.
The differentiation is much more fine-grained than course X at college Y, which is how it should be. The amount you actually pay depends on your personal graduate premium, not someone's guess of what will happen in decades to come.
It was actually quite an elegant system in the beginning, though subsequent politics has mostly made it worse.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
You do have a point, but all you and Sandpit for the matter of that are talking about is tinkering at the edges while ignoring the real problem - the entire university funding system, fees, research grants, spending, endowments, is more broken than Trump's brain cell and needs rethinking from the guts up.
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
Fees should be charged based on league table ranking of the university and graduate earning premium of the course as I said.
At the moment an investment banker who studied Economics at Cambridge pays the same tuition fee as someone studying art at Brighton who works as a waitress and sells a few paintings on the side which is ridiculous
Which league table ranking?
1 Top Oxbridge Colleges 2 JCL Oxbridge Colleges (younger than the one I went to) 3 Imperial, UCL, KCL, Durham 4 What do you mean, there are other universities?
(Sixth form tutor hat on)
That's the point of the repayment system. Do a degree and end up in a low pay (perhaps creative or socially useful) job, you don't repay the sticker price of your degree ever. That's a feature, not a bug. Do a degree that catapults you into the top 1%, you repay the cost of your degree and a bit more.
The differentiation is much more fine-grained than course X at college Y, which is how it should be. The amount you actually pay depends on your personal graduate premium, not someone's guess of what will happen in decades to come.
It was actually quite an elegant system in the beginning, though subsequent politics has mostly made it worse.
No it isn't it is just ignoring the market value and cost of degrees.
The repayment system can be kept as now so if you do investment banking at Cambridge and end up teaching in a comprehensive you may not repay the full price of your degree still
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
You do have a point, but all you and Sandpit for the matter of that are talking about is tinkering at the edges while ignoring the real problem - the entire university funding system, fees, research grants, spending, endowments, is more broken than Trump's brain cell and needs rethinking from the guts up.
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
Fees should be charged based on league table ranking of the university and graduate earning premium of the course as I said.
At the moment an investment banker who studied Economics at Cambridge pays the same tuition fee as someone studying art at Brighton who works as a waitress and sells a few paintings on the side which is ridiculous
Which league table ranking?
1 Top Oxbridge Colleges 2 JCL Oxbridge Colleges (younger than the one I went to) 3 Imperial, UCL, KCL, Durham 4 What do you mean, there are other universities?
(Sixth form tutor hat on)
That's the point of the repayment system. Do a degree and end up in a low pay (perhaps creative or socially useful) job, you don't repay the sticker price of your degree ever. That's a feature, not a bug. Do a degree that catapults you into the top 1%, you repay the cost of your degree and a bit more.
The differentiation is much more fine-grained than course X at college Y, which is how it should be. The amount you actually pay depends on your personal graduate premium, not someone's guess of what will happen in decades to come.
It was actually quite an elegant system in the beginning, though subsequent politics has mostly made it worse.
No it isn't it is just ignoring the market value and cost of degrees.
The repayment system can be kept as now so if you do investment banking at Cambridge and end up teaching in a comprehensive you may not repay the full price of your degree still
"Washington and Moscow are aiming to reach a deal to halt the war in Ukraine that would lock in Russia's ocupation of territory seized during its military invasion, according to people familiar with the matter. US and Russian officials are working toward an agreement on territories for a planned summit meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as early as next week, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The US is working to get buy in from Ukraine and its European allies on the deal, which is far from certain, the people said."
"Washington and Moscow are aiming to reach a deal to halt the war in Ukraine that would lock in Russia's ocupation of territory seized during its military invasion, according to people familiar with the matter. US and Russian officials are working toward an agreement on territories for a planned summit meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as early as next week, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The US is working to get buy in from Ukraine and its European allies on the deal, which is far from certain, the people said."
"Washington and Moscow are aiming to reach a deal to halt the war in Ukraine that would lock in Russia's ocupation of territory seized during its military invasion, according to people familiar with the matter. US and Russian officials are working toward an agreement on territories for a planned summit meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as early as next week, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The US is working to get buy in from Ukraine and its European allies on the deal, which is far from certain, the people said."
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.
It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown
And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.
Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016
Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.
It led to the decline in increase in the national debt
Ha, Tories still claiming that a decline in the rate of increase of a variable is as good as a decline in the variable itself.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
There has been a big fall in immigration. Arguably, that's due to a range of factors unrelated to Stamer's choices, but immigration is definitely way down during the period he is in charge.
It is down but nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date
In the year ending December 2024, net migration to the UK was provisionally estimated at 431,000, a significant decrease from the 860,000 recorded in the previous year. This reduction is primarily attributed to a drop in immigration, particularly among non-EU nationals arriving for work and study, and an increase in emigration, notably by international students.
"...nothing to do with Starmer's actions to date"
But on his watch.
As with the economy, the government gets to take the good with the bad.
And as far as Farage and his mob are concerned, were immigration to be (say) below 200k by the time of the next election, and the numbers in asylum hotels down to a nugatory figure, then that fox would be truly shot.
No it wouldn't, people don't want a drop in net migration, they want net emigration of third world legal immigrants and deportation of criminal illegal immigrants and fake asylum seekers. Labour will not achieve any of these goals. The UK needs a period of net zero migration or a few years of net emigration, the population is beyond the limit of what our infrastructure and housing can reasonably provide for and the arrivals don't generate enough economic activity that allows for construction of new infrastructure to maintain their presence.
Realistically we need to see emigration of between 2 and 3 million unskilled migrants and dependents that arrived over the last 5 years with only 1m or so highly skilled migrants to replace them from culturally aligned countries. I highly doubt Labour will be able to do that, they don't have the stomach to send those people home that should never have been invited by Boris.
Of course Labour won't do that. If people want a far right nativist approach to immigration they'll have to elect a far right nativist party to government.
And they will
Well fine (although I doubt it). But the point is, stop making out Labour should do it. Tightening the rules, reducing the inward numbers, discouraging illegal routes, that's a fair enough ask and will probably happen; the rest requires a genuine far right mandate from a general election. In 2029.
Returning large numbers of migrants, legally , is simply now something that's in the national interest. Ofcourse a Labour government should be doing it. My money would be on them, eventually, doing so, but in some half arsed way that upsets supporters like you, because of some imaginary line they have crossed , whilst delivering tiny numbers of removals.
The EU Parliament is currently seeking to improve the 'repatriation of irregular migrants' as they put it. Does that make them far right'.
Saying thanks but no thanks to a significant number of the Boris wave millions is simply common sense, will happen and the sooner the better.
The 'national interest' is not imo served by encouraging the public to blame immigrants for anything and everything that's bad about this country. Or by exaggerating the extent to which things are bad. That's far right populist propaganda. It's how they win. It's the road to a dark place.
As for the Boriswave, that was another screw up by the Tories in their dreadful 19/22 manifestation. Farage is making hay with it and the Tories look like they're going to chase the same voter groups.
Labour should leave them to it and just concentrate on improving the immigration system. Deliver incremental results without any more "island of strangers" nonsense. If that's not enough, so be it. We'll get to that dark place and we'll deserve to be there. Like America.
You still haven’t answered. Should the Boriswave be given leave to remain - ie become permanent legal migrants? Or do we politely decline and say sorry, at the end of your visa, you go home?
Emphatically no. Give them a carriage clock and a picture of spitfire and on their way home.
Mind you, it’s not going to happen is it. They will stay here a net burden to the exchequer
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.
It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown
And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.
Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016
Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.
It led to the decline in increase in the national debt
Ha, Tories still claiming that a decline in the rate of increase of a variable is as good as a decline in the variable itself.
Well Kemi is now going even further and promising a full Milei style axe to public spending if you prefer that.
On the other side of the coin further tax rises on the cards from Reeves and Labour in the autumn
"Washington and Moscow are aiming to reach a deal to halt the war in Ukraine that would lock in Russia's ocupation of territory seized during its military invasion, according to people familiar with the matter. US and Russian officials are working toward an agreement on territories for a planned summit meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as early as next week, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The US is working to get buy in from Ukraine and its European allies on the deal, which is far from certain, the people said."
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.
It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown
And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.
Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016
Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.
It led to the decline in increase in the national debt
Ha, Tories still claiming that a decline in the rate of increase of a variable is as good as a decline in the variable itself.
The actual stated plan was to reduce the deficit, by restraining increase in government expenditure (overall) to less than the growth in the economy but still above inflation. The idea being that this would gradually reduce the deficit to zero over a number of years, rather than IMF style chops of 20% to various things. Which can be seen here -
The original plan was to carry on, into debt repayment to produce a cushion for the next economic cycle, IIRC.
"Washington and Moscow are aiming to reach a deal to halt the war in Ukraine that would lock in Russia's ocupation of territory seized during its military invasion, according to people familiar with the matter. US and Russian officials are working toward an agreement on territories for a planned summit meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as early as next week, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The US is working to get buy in from Ukraine and its European allies on the deal, which is far from certain, the people said."
@Leon I replied to your last post in reply to me yesterday, but I think you had gone by then. Just trying to keep the con cordial going.
And just to add, in support of your anecdotes, my anecdote of evidence of things getting worse in the UK. My next door neighbours are Russian. One is a concert pianist the other is a lead violinist. They aren't here much as they travel the world and have homes in France and Switzerland and they left again today. Yesterday they commented to me that they thought things were changing for the worse here and they notice the change because it is not gradual for them. Now you know I don't feel that, so I asked why. They came up with two things. Pot holes in the road are much worse and Sainsbury's not having a fresh food counter anymore. I had forgotten that had disappeared and now I miss it (plus the pot holes are a pain).
First world problems. Besides - why are they shopping in Sainsbury's? Isn't Sainsbuy's role to keep the scum out of Waitrose?
A Stephen Fry quote that I repeat often and that is coming from me, a Sainsbury's shopper.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
My son for example had a 3 year contract in Dubai. When Covid hit and the floor drop out of the business, he (and a lot of the British ex-pats) were let go quite brutally. No negotiation or pay off, just out the door. And since his residence there was based on having a job, he had to find a new job quick if he wanted to stay which he did. It was a shitty job but it smoothed his eventual return to the UK. So perhaps ILR could be longer than 5 years and related to having a real job (as opposed to just living here).
Also I have a Spanish BiL who was a Swiss Gastarbeiter. Similarly he worked from contract to contract (30 years) but when he was injured and couldn't work he received some financial help, then none. After the payments ran out, the Swiss Police started coming round making his life difficult since his prospects for another contract were low. He left though he has the cushion of a generous pension in Swiss Francs.
There are methods of providing security to those here for economic reasons but the UK's terms appear to be very lax. This again comes round to policy design and implementation - and control. If you can't crew up the courts to handle the numbers then politicians deserve a kicking. But going a bit further, FPTP leads to a form of political roundabout where the blame game is a substitute for bipartisan agreement on what is best for the country.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
You do have a point, but all you and Sandpit for the matter of that are talking about is tinkering at the edges while ignoring the real problem - the entire university funding system, fees, research grants, spending, endowments, is more broken than Trump's brain cell and needs rethinking from the guts up.
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
If I could do two big changes to how Uni is run etc.
1) Post A level application. Scrap the whole farrago of applying to five places, choosing one and a reserve, waiting for results to see if you've made it, clearing if you haven't. Get the exams marked sooner, apply with results in hand. Done.
2) Allow uni's to set the fees for courses to what they want.
3) (I know I said two but this is a biggy) - scrap funding bodies and dole out the research money to the Uni's to decide who gets it.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
I was appointed a Lecturer Grade 2 in 1969. My annual salary was £1695. Isn't inflation wonderful!?
Minimum wage 40 hours a week is more than £25k now. Puts it into perspective.
Which is ridiculous, hence we now have more unemployed than job vacancies again.
Better to have a minimum wage of £10-15k and near full employment for the able bodied adult than a full time minimum wage of £25k and UK unemployment now at around 5% and rising
Our unemployment rate is still at historically low levels, even if it has crept up a bit recently. It's almost entirely frictional unemployment. Tesco are offering more than minimum wage - it's only really cleaning and social care jobs where you might have a bit of slack.
The unemployed only represent about 15% of working age adults who are out of work. If you want to get the inactive back into the labour market (early retirees, carers, the disabled, students) you need to have strong wages to offer an incentive.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.
It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown
And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.
Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016
Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.
It led to the decline in increase in the national debt
Maybe. But yet the national debt still increased over the 14 years you were in power. Massively.
What additional cuts would you have made to balance the budget and run a surplus?
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
You do have a point, but all you and Sandpit for the matter of that are talking about is tinkering at the edges while ignoring the real problem - the entire university funding system, fees, research grants, spending, endowments, is more broken than Trump's brain cell and needs rethinking from the guts up.
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
If I could do two big changes to how Uni is run etc.
1) Post A level application. Scrap the whole farrago of applying to five places, choosing one and a reserve, waiting for results to see if you've made it, clearing if you haven't. Get the exams marked sooner, apply with results in hand. Done.
2) Allow uni's to set the fees for courses to what they want.
3) (I know I said two but this is a biggy) - scrap funding bodies and dole out the research money to the Uni's to decide who gets it.
My fear for 2), is technically when they raises the cap to £9k, that was max not the fee. However, within unis all departments demanded to charge the same fees across the board and between unis after a few years of the odd uni offering cheaper fees, they all upped it to the max as the perception was cheaper fees = lesser quality course.
I could see repeat of that, and also the fees at elite US colleges are now mental and yes some of that is better pay for lecturers, better facilities, but also plenty of evidence it gets hosed of all sorts of non-academic stuff because we must have x, as y college got one, and the number of admin people at these places is crazy.
I think that was a long way if saying unis don't seem to work as a proper market.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
I was appointed a Lecturer Grade 2 in 1969. My annual salary was £1695. Isn't inflation wonderful!?
Minimum wage 40 hours a week is more than £25k now. Puts it into perspective.
Which is ridiculous, hence we now have more unemployed than job vacancies again.
Better to have a minimum wage of £10-15k and near full employment for the able bodied adult than a full time minimum wage of £25k and UK unemployment now at around 5% and rising
Our unemployment rate is still at historically low levels, even if it has crept up a bit recently. It's almost entirely frictional unemployment. Tesco are offering more than minimum wage - it's only really cleaning and social care jobs where you might have a bit of slack.
The unemployed only represent about 15% of working age adults who are out of work. If you want to get the inactive back into the labour market (early retirees, carers, the disabled, students) you need to have strong wages to offer an incentive.
Unemployment in the UK is now almost 1% higher than in the US and rising even with Trump's tariffs.
The US Federal minimum wage is only $15,000 about £12,000.
Our minimum wage is also now even higher than that in France and Germany and Australia too
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.
It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown
And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.
Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016
Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.
It led to the decline in increase in the national debt
Maybe. But yet the national debt still increased over the 14 years you were in power. Massively.
What additional cuts would you have made to balance the budget and run a surplus?
I'd double council tax. That's the current deficit wiped out (nearly) in one go.
A freeze on hospital spending, abolish stamp duty, NICs/IT merger. Borrow as much for capital investment as the markets allow.
"Washington and Moscow are aiming to reach a deal to halt the war in Ukraine that would lock in Russia's ocupation of territory seized during its military invasion, according to people familiar with the matter. US and Russian officials are working toward an agreement on territories for a planned summit meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as early as next week, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The US is working to get buy in from Ukraine and its European allies on the deal, which is far from certain, the people said."
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.
It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown
And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.
Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016
Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.
It led to the decline in increase in the national debt
Maybe. But yet the national debt still increased over the 14 years you were in power. Massively.
What additional cuts would you have made to balance the budget and run a surplus?
I'd double council tax. That's the current deficit wiped out (nearly) in one go.
A freeze on hospital spending, abolish stamp duty, NICs/IT merger. Borrow as much for capital investment as the markets allow.
I honestly don't see the point in borrowing for capital investment when the cost of infrastructure is so high. We need to actually work to remove all of those barriers before we even think about that. Again, it just seems absolutely criminal to me that building a third runway at Heathrow will cost £49bn, even the short runway will come in at £21bn. This is just one example, there's suggestions that the next nuclear plant will be £70bn while Korea builds all of this similar infrastructure at a tenth of the cost. It's not as though their living standards are substantially different to ours.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
You’d think someone interested in politics would understand the difference between the deficit and the debt but you’ve never been good with numbers.
You did not just say national debt, you said national debt increase, the national debt increase was lower under Cameron and Clegg and Osborne than Brown and Darling
Are you trying to argue that the national debt didn’t increase between 2010 and 2024? Because it did. Massively.
It increased at a lower rate than under Brown and Darling, certainly pre lockdown
And yet the national debt increased. Massively. Strong financial management by the Tories. Bravo.
Spending as a percentage of gdp was 47% when Brown left office in 2010, falling to 41% when Cameron left office in 2016
Maybe, but that isn’t the national debt. That’s a different statistic entirely.
It led to the decline in increase in the national debt
Maybe. But yet the national debt still increased over the 14 years you were in power. Massively.
What additional cuts would you have made to balance the budget and run a surplus?
I'd double council tax. That's the current deficit wiped out (nearly) in one go.
A freeze on hospital spending, abolish stamp duty, NICs/IT merger. Borrow as much for capital investment as the markets allow.
Revise the council tax bands or apply a land value tax.
"Washington and Moscow are aiming to reach a deal to halt the war in Ukraine that would lock in Russia's ocupation of territory seized during its military invasion, according to people familiar with the matter. US and Russian officials are working toward an agreement on territories for a planned summit meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as early as next week, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The US is working to get buy in from Ukraine and its European allies on the deal, which is far from certain, the people said."
"Washington and Moscow are aiming to reach a deal to halt the war in Ukraine that would lock in Russia's ocupation of territory seized during its military invasion, according to people familiar with the matter. US and Russian officials are working toward an agreement on territories for a planned summit meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as early as next week, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The US is working to get buy in from Ukraine and its European allies on the deal, which is far from certain, the people said."
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
You do have a point, but all you and Sandpit for the matter of that are talking about is tinkering at the edges while ignoring the real problem - the entire university funding system, fees, research grants, spending, endowments, is more broken than Trump's brain cell and needs rethinking from the guts up.
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
If I could do two big changes to how Uni is run etc.
1) Post A level application. Scrap the whole farrago of applying to five places, choosing one and a reserve, waiting for results to see if you've made it, clearing if you haven't. Get the exams marked sooner, apply with results in hand. Done.
2) Allow uni's to set the fees for courses to what they want.
3) (I know I said two but this is a biggy) - scrap funding bodies and dole out the research money to the Uni's to decide who gets it.
My fear for 2), is technically when they raises the cap to £9k, that was max not the fee. However, within unis all departments demanded to charge the same fees across the board and between unis after a few years of the odd uni offering cheaper fees, they all upped it to the max as the perception was cheaper fees = lesser quality course.
I could see repeat of that, and also the fees at elite US colleges are now mental and yes some of that is better pay for lecturers, better facilities, but also plenty of evidence it gets hosed of all sorts of non-academic stuff because we must have x, as y college got one, and the number of admin people at these places is crazy.
I think that was a long way if saying unis don't seem to work as a proper market.
Yes the market is totally broken, mostly because the universities and lenders take little to no risk in student loans. They’re playing ‘think-of-a-number’ and have massively increased administration rather than academic costs in recent years.
There’s stories in the US this week of loans being sold at 17.9% annual interest on a 15-year term. You’d want to get the hell out of that loan the day you had a stable income. There’s no reason for such rates for loans that can even survive a bankruptcy.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
You do have a point, but all you and Sandpit for the matter of that are talking about is tinkering at the edges while ignoring the real problem - the entire university funding system, fees, research grants, spending, endowments, is more broken than Trump's brain cell and needs rethinking from the guts up.
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
Fees should be charged based on league table ranking of the university and graduate earning premium of the course as I said.
At the moment an investment banker who studied Economics at Cambridge pays the same tuition fee as someone studying art at Brighton who works as a waitress and sells a few paintings on the side which is ridiculous
Which league table ranking?
1 Top Oxbridge Colleges 2 JCL Oxbridge Colleges (younger than the one I went to) 3 Imperial, UCL, KCL, Durham 4 What do you mean, there are other universities?
(Sixth form tutor hat on)
That's the point of the repayment system. Do a degree and end up in a low pay (perhaps creative or socially useful) job, you don't repay the sticker price of your degree ever. That's a feature, not a bug. Do a degree that catapults you into the top 1%, you repay the cost of your degree and a bit more.
The differentiation is much more fine-grained than course X at college Y, which is how it should be. The amount you actually pay depends on your personal graduate premium, not someone's guess of what will happen in decades to come.
It was actually quite an elegant system in the beginning, though subsequent politics has mostly made it worse.
No it isn't it is just ignoring the market value and cost of degrees.
The repayment system can be kept as now so if you do investment banking at Cambridge and end up teaching in a comprehensive you may not repay the full price of your degree still
Replace “may not” with “will not”.
Actually, experienced teachers are better paid than many imagine. The problem is that, as in medicine, the first few years are brutal and there is a high attrition rate. But once you've got your lesson plans worked out, it's five hours a day at the chalkface with free tea and biscuits and very long holidays. If you look at the staff list on any school website, almost everyone is picking up extra money as head of department or lead practitioner or head of house or head of year or safeguarding lead or timetabler or, well, look for yourself, any one of 15 assistant and deputy heads, so probably somewhere upwards of £50 or £60,000 and maybe double that for the lucky few. Compare that with a salaried GP on around £80,000 or a medical registrar on around £70,000.
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Why doesn't she focus on all the popular ways to increase taxes and cut spending? It's exasperating.
Truth is that income tax has to rise, but she cannot do that because of her idiotic pre election promises
Also you do not raise taxes to address a huge hole in the public finances and use some of that tax raising to create another spending commitment
Do you think whoever is leading the tory party at the next GE will do into it promising to raise income tax because I don't.
Labour are a high tax high spend government and it is not in their DNA to cut spending
Conservatives are low tax low spending and I would expect a conservative government to reduce corporation tax, encourage wealth creation and abolish IHT on farmers. I would also expect a review of all net zero subsidies
Why on earth would you expect them to do that? Most of that is at odds with their time in office - particularly on renewables and farmers.
Any party that is focussed on a pensioner voting cohort like the Conservatives is going to high tax, high spend.
Cameron and Osborne certainly cut spending as a percentage of gdp and cut tax at all income levels, including a big inheritance tax cut.
Kemi has said she will take an axe to spending, especially welfare spending and net zero spending etc and at one stage even proposed means testing the triple lock
How much did the national debt increase during the last Conservative government?
Because of lockdown, Cameron and Osborne certainly cut it compared to what Brown left
A creative answer.
"I'm going to move the origin of the graph over .... THERE !"
(It is true that the deficit did decline gradually, but at what cost to the country, investment, science base, quality of public footpaths, applying appropriate taxes to appriopriate items and 101 other things?).
Boris by contrast spent more than any PM since Brown and indeed Boris spent more than Blair did for most of his premiership and more even than Starmer and Reeves are now and there were no big tax cuts under Boris either.
Boris also increased immigration from outside the EU even with taking us out of the EU and EEA and was generally socially liberal and pro net zero.
Indeed, apart from Brexit Boris as PM was not really that rightwing and conservative at all
Don’t forget that Boris contested his first adult election under the SDP banner
"Washington and Moscow are aiming to reach a deal to halt the war in Ukraine that would lock in Russia's ocupation of territory seized during its military invasion, according to people familiar with the matter. US and Russian officials are working toward an agreement on territories for a planned summit meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as early as next week, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The US is working to get buy in from Ukraine and its European allies on the deal, which is far from certain, the people said."
I expect the two child benefit cap will go in November mostly funded by an increase in gambling taxes . This no 10 will hope will reduce the appeal of Your party .
An increase in gambling taxes is low hanging fruit and won’t be controversial for the vast majority of the public .
Good morning
Another unpopular measure according to the polls, and does nothing to address Reeves 'all my very own deep hole' in the public finances
Fiddling whilst London burns. She's crashed the economy properly. To show Liz how its done
She has not 'crashed the economy'.
Some people need to remember the mantra "you lost- get over it".
There's a degree of general anger on the right about there being a Labour government. Just the fact of it. Because it's hardly a big socialist experiment, is it.
The biggest threat to Farage is that Starmer succeeds. And Farage has very little agency in that, which I think is why his core political activities are shit-shovelling and shit-stirring - notably him and all his colleagues constantly (husk off) lying about what is happening to try and create a febrile summer. It's not a kind word, but it is what they do.
Conversely the noisier and more desperate Farage becomes, the greater risks he faces in his own political base. For example, he has weakened his vetting process, but that will let more knuckle draggers inside the sandcastle, but may cause some of the decents to exit from the other door. His support base is tribal and fissiparous, and he knows it. And he has a compliant mass media largely onside ignoring real problems, but that could change. He is walking a tightrope, or perhaps several tightropes.
Each time Starmer reduces immigration, or their policies lock up an trafficking gang, or reduce the number of hotels in use, or anything else, it washes away a bit more of Farage's sandcastle of rhetoric.
The same goes for the other areas - NHS, Local Government, Economy, Defence and so on.
I think as a society we want an inclusive, pleasant place to be rather than the hell hole Farage wants to pretend exists.
The question is how far Starmer's Govt can succeed and make progress, and how much of that will be perceived, and to what extent Farage's smokescreen can have effect.
The problem that you (and I given my antipathy towards Farage) have is that Starmer is showing no signs of 'succeeding'. His policies do not appear to be having any impact on migration nor does he appear to be making any progress in any other policy areas.
Now on one level, with my strange (by most people's standards) view of migration as a positive thing, I am not particularly sad that Starmer is not succeeding. But on another level of wanting competent Government answerable to the people - perhaps the only reason to consider Starmer as a better choice than Sunak at the last election - he is failing utterly. And that failure makes a Reform victory and its consequences all the more likely.
I'm not ready to call that yet. What would success be and how would we - and voters - detect it?
We can see certain clear successes - NHS Waiting Lists down from 7.64 million to 7.3 million in the first 12 months (assuming published numbers of -0.03 million for June and July which is trend). That's big and is turning around a 15 year trend, but imo not big enough to be obvious.
I'm actually seeing extra police. Also defence expenditure, and expenditure in local government, are ticking up. Various metrics are improving very slowly.
I think "more money in my pocket" is perhaps better than expected, but detectible for eg minimum wagers rather than the PB demographic.
There are good things that have been / are being done that will require time to see (perhaps too much time). IMO Local Gov reorganisation is one of these, which will be valuable over time; we desperately need well resourced, capable local goverment. One of the reason I would be pleased to see the Tory Party die is because I don't believe any more there is any chance of them ever believing in investing in the public realm. I had hopes, but they are going backwards and may turn into mini-me Farages.
At the next election everyone will still be grumpy. It's imo whether it is "they've done a bit, and it is working for me a bit, so we can give them a bit more time", or "failure, let's try something completely different".
But most of the new legislation is hardly in, never mind having time to have an impact. And the Tories are still rushing in circles round the drain.
So my core view is ... we can't know yet. Which is boring.
NHS waiting lists are being held hostage for much higher pay. If the nurses get screwed but the surgeons and consultants get large pay rises, that could negate the politics of reduced waiting lists.
Waiting lists should be coming down anyway, absent a big uptick in a nasty variant of COvid - they reason they were so badly bent out of shape in the first place.
Point of order. The Consultants and Surgeons are not striking, it is the Resident Docors (formerly Junior Doctors).
Consultants got 4%, so a fraction over CPI, and incidentally not yet paid. I am told that it is in this month's pay, backdated to April.
Uni academics, who have suffered a similar decline in salary to medics, are rejoicing in 1.4% this year. Mainly thanks to the governments (plural) refusing to allow inflation matching increases in student fees.
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
Other way around. Fees for STEM subjects should be significantly reduced, as that’s where the skills shortages lie.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
Unfortunately, they tend to cost significantly more to run.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
Which is ridiculous, you should pay the market price for the course you are studying not somebody else's course. Humanities course fees should be frozen or even cut
You do have a point, but all you and Sandpit for the matter of that are talking about is tinkering at the edges while ignoring the real problem - the entire university funding system, fees, research grants, spending, endowments, is more broken than Trump's brain cell and needs rethinking from the guts up.
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
Fees should be charged based on league table ranking of the university and graduate earning premium of the course as I said.
At the moment an investment banker who studied Economics at Cambridge pays the same tuition fee as someone studying art at Brighton who works as a waitress and sells a few paintings on the side which is ridiculous
Which league table ranking?
1 Top Oxbridge Colleges 2 JCL Oxbridge Colleges (younger than the one I went to) 3 Imperial, UCL, KCL, Durham 4 What do you mean, there are other universities?
(Sixth form tutor hat on)
That's the point of the repayment system. Do a degree and end up in a low pay (perhaps creative or socially useful) job, you don't repay the sticker price of your degree ever. That's a feature, not a bug. Do a degree that catapults you into the top 1%, you repay the cost of your degree and a bit more.
The differentiation is much more fine-grained than course X at college Y, which is how it should be. The amount you actually pay depends on your personal graduate premium, not someone's guess of what will happen in decades to come.
It was actually quite an elegant system in the beginning, though subsequent politics has mostly made it worse.
No it isn't it is just ignoring the market value and cost of degrees.
The repayment system can be kept as now so if you do investment banking at Cambridge and end up teaching in a comprehensive you may not repay the full price of your degree still
Replace “may not” with “will not”.
Actually, experienced teachers are better paid than many imagine. The problem is that, as in medicine, the first few years are brutal and there is a high attrition rate. But once you've got your lesson plans worked out, it's five hours a day at the chalkface with free tea and biscuits and very long holidays. If you look at the staff list on any school website, almost everyone is picking up extra money as head of department or lead practitioner or head of house or head of year or safeguarding lead or timetabler or, well, look for yourself, any one of 15 assistant and deputy heads, so probably somewhere upwards of £50 or £60,000 and maybe double that for the lucky few. Compare that with a salaried GP on around £80,000 or a medical registrar on around £70,000.
It's more complicated than that (lesson plans are a moving target, for example, and free biscuits went some time ago), but yes- survive the initial trial by fire, and you get paid more for less effort. Outside London, a normal teacher atop the pay scale is on £45k, £50k or so if they can get the upper pay scale. Head of a big department may get another £10k or so. Two catches-
1 The Biggie is that schools will often only recruit at the bottom of the scale, so experienced teachers can get trapped.
2 The higher the pay, the easier it is to think "hey, I value time more than money" and go part time. That's going to be tricky to fix, because people really motivated by money are really expensive.
Comments
The EU Parliament is currently seeking to improve the 'repatriation of irregular migrants' as they put it. Does that make them far right'.
Saying thanks but no thanks to a significant number of the Boris wave millions is simply common sense, will happen and the sooner the better.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy5yy13ng33o
Average salary for a lecturer in the UK is £36,555 with starting salaries for academics often below £30k
https://uk.indeed.com/career/lecturer/salaries
Though of course the whole student fees system needs reform, fees for courses in economics at Cambridge or law at Oxford or medicine or engineering at Imperial should be far higher than they are for starters while courses in creative arts in newer universities should certainly be frozen or even cut
I don't think so. I know you are an incomer to London so perhaps it was glistening a bit in your eyes back then but nothing much has changed. We had the various protests by crusties, we had no-go zones, we had everything we have today. There was no great moment when it all changed for the better/worse.
The po-faced reaction now encourages people to keep doing it, with betting markets on colours and dates. They have little choice but to lean into it at this point, bag bans aren’t going to solve the problem.
encourager les autres.If, of course, there is a serious intention to prevent the behaviour.
I’ve been here since 1981. And my god it was a shithole then. I squatted all around Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia - central London, in houses now worth £5m - simply because so much of london was deserted
I also lived in “hard to let” council property in Wapping for £ 1 a month. Yes. Off Garnet Street (which actually gave its name to Alf Garnet). I went back to the old gaff a few years ago and the entire block - surrounding a small marina (then a disused dock) - has been lavishiy refurbed and flats are now £600,000 for 1 beds
So london has a long way to go before it slides back to the nadir of the 80s (when its population actually bottomed out around 6m+, then began its long recovery under thatcher and then major)
But has london declined since, say, 2005? Yes absolutely
And the demographic change (of which I partly disapprove) has been even more brutal and striking
Boris also increased immigration from outside the EU even with taking us out of the EU and EEA and was generally socially liberal and pro net zero.
Indeed, apart from Brexit Boris as PM was not really that rightwing and conservative at all
So much nicer than the torpid heat of the Med
Soho last night was thrumming as well. Heaving and jammers. London is ever the outlier
Oxbridge like Harvard and Yale could also further build up its scholarship and bursary funds with higher fees, especially for lower income students studying the most expensive courses
Now *that* is revolutionary. Or rather counter-revolutionary.
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Mr_Horniman_s_Walrus/_9t-EAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=horniman&pg=RA1-PT24&printsec=frontcover
Oddly, some of the charm of the city comes with that grottiness - particularly the Old Town. But otherwise, it almost physically hurts to look at it. A hotel on the Royal Mile has had scaffolding on it for 6 years. A utilities scar on Rose Street has been there for 7 years. The cycle lanes are designed by idiots, and we refuse to put in trees for *reasons*. Endless telecoms infrastructure plonked at random on pavements.
The sad thing is when someone has an immaculate garden but the public park adjacent is a tip. The balance is wrong.
Universities should also work with employers to make sure the courses are actually useful and tailored to what’s needed in industry now and in the future.
As for the Boriswave, that was another screw up by the Tories in their dreadful 19/22 manifestation. Farage is making hay with it and the Tories look like they're going to chase the same voter groups.
Labour should leave them to it and just concentrate on improving the immigration system. Deliver incremental results without any more "island of strangers" nonsense. If that's not enough, so be it. We'll get to that dark place and we'll deserve to be there. Like America.
The irony is that the reason fees are higher for humanities courses is to cross-subsidise those courses which run at a loss.
In my view Economics and Business courses tuition fees should be highest, as they have most demand and have above average graduate earnings premiums, with STEM subjects tuition fees second highest.
Many STEM and Business courses already have years out in industry anyway but university should be as much for research and broadening the mind as getting a well paid job after
You must look at the relative position not in absolute terms or you would be bemoaning the fact that you could buy a Mars Bar in 1980 for 3p or whatever it was and now they cost a fortune.
What do you think would happen next?
Despite being portrayed as a One Nation Moderate, Cameron was actually the most Thatcherite PM in economic terms we have had since Thatcher herself
I don't know what the answer is but I can foresee a major implosion without it.
The former won't happen. Too many feathers would get seriously ruffled by any changes.
Therefore at some point we should expect the latter.
Better to have a minimum wage of £10-15k and near full employment for the able bodied adult than a full time minimum wage of £25k and UK unemployment now at around 5% and rising
At the moment an investment banker who studied Economics at Cambridge pays the same tuition fee as someone who studied art at Brighton who works as a waitress and sells a few paintings on the side which is ridiculous
After all, one of them is a parasite that brings nothing to the country economically.
And the other might do some decent paintings
At the end of the day, I suggest that the most likely workable scenario is an agreement between university, student, and bank, with government getting out of the way as far as possible. The current system has the risk mostly on the student but also on the government.
England fielders, please watch the video...
Forecasting the demand for Dulux paint using dynamic programming and Bayesian updating.
Also using Markov chains to predict changing market shares. Sixty years ago.
I should dust it off and apply it to political party market shares.
2 JCL Oxbridge Colleges (younger than the one I went to)
3 Imperial, UCL, KCL, Durham
4 What do you mean, there are other universities?
(Sixth form tutor hat on)
That's the point of the repayment system. Do a degree and end up in a low pay (perhaps creative or socially useful) job, you don't repay the sticker price of your degree ever. That's a feature, not a bug. Do a degree that catapults you into the top 1%, you repay the cost of your degree and a bit more.
The differentiation is much more fine-grained than course X at college Y, which is how it should be. The amount you actually pay depends on your personal graduate premium, not someone's guess of what will happen in decades to come.
It was actually quite an elegant system in the beginning, though subsequent politics has mostly made it worse.
The repayment system can be kept as now so if you do investment banking at Cambridge and end up teaching in a comprehensive you may not repay the full price of your degree still
"Washington and Moscow are aiming to reach a deal to halt the war in Ukraine that would lock in Russia's ocupation of territory seized during its military invasion, according to people familiar with the matter. US and Russian officials are working toward an agreement on territories for a planned summit meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin as early as next week, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The US is working to get buy in from Ukraine and its European allies on the deal, which is far from certain, the people said."
https://x.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1953828464047665241
Mind you, it’s not going to happen is it. They will stay here a net burden to the exchequer
https://x.com/sirsimonclarke/status/1953735045274915023?s=61
On the other side of the coin further tax rises on the cards from Reeves and Labour in the autumn
Which can be seen here -
The original plan was to carry on, into debt repayment to produce a cushion for the next economic cycle, IIRC.
The war could end tomorrow if Russia withdrew
https://www.gov.uk/indefinite-leave-to-remain
My son for example had a 3 year contract in Dubai. When Covid hit and the floor drop out of the business, he (and a lot of the British ex-pats) were let go quite brutally. No negotiation or pay off, just out the door. And since his residence there was based on having a job, he had to find a new job quick if he wanted to stay which he did. It was a shitty job but it smoothed his eventual return to the UK. So perhaps ILR could be longer than 5 years and related to having a real job (as opposed to just living here).
Also I have a Spanish BiL who was a Swiss Gastarbeiter. Similarly he worked from contract to contract (30 years) but when he was injured and couldn't work he received some financial help, then none. After the payments ran out, the Swiss Police started coming round making his life difficult since his prospects for another contract were low. He left though he has the cushion of a generous pension in Swiss Francs.
There are methods of providing security to those here for economic reasons but the UK's terms appear to be very lax. This again comes round to policy design and implementation - and control. If you can't crew up the courts to handle the numbers then politicians deserve a kicking. But going a bit further, FPTP leads to a form of political roundabout where the blame game is a substitute for bipartisan agreement on what is best for the country.
AV please.
1) Post A level application. Scrap the whole farrago of applying to five places, choosing one and a reserve, waiting for results to see if you've made it, clearing if you haven't. Get the exams marked sooner, apply with results in hand. Done.
2) Allow uni's to set the fees for courses to what they want.
3) (I know I said two but this is a biggy) - scrap funding bodies and dole out the research money to the Uni's to decide who gets it.
This country is neither as tacky nor as expensive as travel journalists had me believe. In fact, parts of it are rather pleasant.
The unemployed only represent about 15% of working age adults who are out of work. If you want to get the inactive back into the labour market (early retirees, carers, the disabled, students) you need to have strong wages to offer an incentive.
I could see repeat of that, and also the fees at elite US colleges are now mental and yes some of that is better pay for lecturers, better facilities, but also plenty of evidence it gets hosed of all sorts of non-academic stuff because we must have x, as y college got one, and the number of admin people at these places is crazy.
I think that was a long way if saying unis don't seem to work as a proper market.
NEW THREAD
The US Federal minimum wage is only $15,000 about £12,000.
Our minimum wage is also now even higher than that in France and Germany and Australia too
A freeze on hospital spending, abolish stamp duty, NICs/IT merger. Borrow as much for capital investment as the markets allow.
And they are much closer to that than most think.
There’s stories in the US this week of loans being sold at 17.9% annual interest on a 15-year term. You’d want to get the hell out of that loan the day you had a stable income. There’s no reason for such rates for loans that can even survive a bankruptcy.
1 The Biggie is that schools will often only recruit at the bottom of the scale, so experienced teachers can get trapped.
2 The higher the pay, the easier it is to think "hey, I value time more than money" and go part time. That's going to be tricky to fix, because people really motivated by money are really expensive.