I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
They had 14 years in opposition and came to power appearing clueless
And their predecessors, with all the advantages of government, left power even more clueless.
Anne is quite right to suggest that all our politicians seem far more interested in power than they do in policy.
Quite frankly it’s not really about the last government as they were booted for very good reasons. It’s about this one. They’re in charge and we’re living with it.
They plot for power, get it, don’t know what to do with it. They cannot even get legislation through with a large majority. Part of the problem is in opposition they don’t really want to develop policy until close to the election for fear of scrutiny.
Two important caveats there, though.
One is that a Labour win didn't look at all on the cards until 2022 or so. Planning a manifesto to lose with dignity is different to planning a project for government.
The other is the boots-on-the ground practicalities of government. Getting to talk to civil servants and suchlike. Prior to 1997 and 2010, those access talks started about sixteen months before the election. Starmer had less than five months. It shows.
What would they have done differently? The issue isn't with implementing policy - it's the policies that are the problem.
From today, every neighbourhood across England and Wales has named, contactable officers to tackle crime in our communities.
Our Plan for Change in action
You would prefer Donald Trump? Here's his latest Truth Social post:
GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS. They will be announced Wednesday. Tremendous work is being done, and money being spent, on bringing it back to the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment. It had fallen on hard times, physically, BUT WILL SOON BE MAKING A MAJOR COMEBACK!!! President DJT
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
The difference this time round is Reform making a breakthrough in Parliament, and having a significant vote to build on.
For every other election in many, many decades, the party coming into power would be compared with the one they'd just beaten. Most still did unpleasant stuff, or made mistakes early on, and were often behind in the polls after 12-24 months - but they were still ultimately compared to the defeated party.
This time around Labour simply don't have any bonus at all for being the party of 'change'. In many ways they're not just suffering from their own mistakes, but with another, more obvious, 'change' party, they're seen as a continuation of everything the Tories did wrong too.
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
Good morning
So true and so depressing
I have no idea how any of the parties provide a solution and that includes the Lib Dems and Greens
However, it is fair to say Starmer is not PM material and Reeves certainly is not COE material either, and with huge tax increases on the horizon I cannot see how labour recovers, and that is without Magic Grandpa and Sultana getting their act together
My granddaughter, fresh with her degree from Leeds, has applied for 60 jobs with no success and is now on UC
How the next government will cope is for discussion but I would be amazed if labour were part of it
It's all very well saying Starmer and Reeves aren't up to the job. (I don't think the vacancy for Labour leader in 2020 was about being a PM in waiting, but there you go.) The real question is twofold;
1 Is there anyone else on the political scene who would be doing better? Badenoch is worse. Farage is worse. If you think (as I do) that Sunak and Hunt spent their final year laying traps for their successors, they are worse.
2 If the Prime Ministers we have had in recent decades have all been horribly flawed, maybe the problem is the role and our expectations, not the people who have done it.
I repeat Starmer and Reeves are not upto the job and that is obvious by the poll ratings
Now who is is a separate question, but not an excuse to give Starmer and Reeves aa pass by suggesting everyone else is worse
I doubt Rayner is up to it too and she’s the favourite to replace him if he goes
Although favourites in next leader markets often fail to succeed.
Up to the point that they become certain.
Leader markets are all about timing.
I think Rayner is good value. She ticks many of the boxes that Starmer does not (colourful, good campaigner, tickles the right Labour erogenous zones, female) and is Deputy Leader. She is the only real coronation possibility, and an open contest may well go her way too. It is very unlikely to go Streetings way.
Sure, it's a bit of a hospital pass, but she always seems up for a scrap, and has a great deal of political cunning.
Interesting set of numbers. Individually, I'm not sure they mean all that much (does anyone actually give much real consideration to "key metrics" ?); it's simply that around two thirds of the country really don't like this government.
Without significant economic progress, that is not going to change. Stagnation plus higher taxes certainly won't do it.
Given the current govt is looking to tax their way out of the mess we are in we’re doomed to it.
I actually think this govt has improved this year, but from a very low base, but we are in 1975 not 1998 and the worst is yet to come.
Where Reform could really offer an alternative is with fiscal discipline. However they won’t as many of their supporters are social conservative but fiscally liberal.
Kemi is offering Milei style slashed spending alongside lower tax anyway, fiscal conservatives may as well stay Tory now
Is she ?
She’s spoken about means testing the triple lock, which is stupid and would be needlessly bureaucratic.
What Millei style spending cuts is she offering. What is she proposing to cut ?
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
The problem I see it is that Starmer is built for a sort of managerial role when the country doesn’t need it. He might have been a decently average (or even average to good) PM conceivably, in 2015, or in the 1960s, or in the John Major role. He just isn’t the “cometh the hour” person.
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
Good morning
So true and so depressing
I have no idea how any of the parties provide a solution and that includes the Lib Dems and Greens
However, it is fair to say Starmer is not PM material and Reeves certainly is not COE material either, and with huge tax increases on the horizon I cannot see how labour recovers, and that is without Magic Grandpa and Sultana getting their act together
My granddaughter, fresh with her degree from Leeds, has applied for 60 jobs with no success and is now on UC
How the next government will cope is for discussion but I would be amazed if labour were part of it
It's all very well saying Starmer and Reeves aren't up to the job. (I don't think the vacancy for Labour leader in 2020 was about being a PM in waiting, but there you go.) The real question is twofold;
1 Is there anyone else on the political scene who would be doing better? Badenoch is worse. Farage is worse. If you think (as I do) that Sunak and Hunt spent their final year laying traps for their successors, they are worse.
2 If the Prime Ministers we have had in recent decades have all been horribly flawed, maybe the problem is the role and our expectations, not the people who have done it.
Laying traps? Citation required.
I'd swap back Sunak and Hunt in a heartbeat for what replaced them. They were dealt the shittiest hand of any post-war Government, but at least looked like they knew what needed doing.
You mean apart from the almost completely full prisons, 2024 pay negotiations hidden under the mattress, wing-and-a-prayer NI cuts, councils collapsing under social care, the Afghan refugee scandal...
VAT on schools: 1) It will cost the state more money than it raises 2) Most people don't care because they see this as fair 3) Schools are using VAT to cover all number of things
I can understand the frustration of parents affected - it is unfair. Then again there are so many things which are egregiously unfair and this isn't anywhere near the top of the unfairness chart. Carers losing their entire allowance for going £1 over the earnings cap? More unfair. And there's stacks of examples of things done by merciless ministers to make the lives of the poor and sick practically unliveable which are more unfair.
This explains point 2 above.
Process State meets populist policy.
Sure! But for many of the people in point 2, they here the people complaining and consider that they largely are the people who support all of the egregious merciless stuff which hurts people at an existential level.
Sam Freedman (yes I know) was good on that in his piece on the anti-VAT campaign;
The TLDR is that campaigns against government policy work best when you have a back channel negotiation to come up with a mutually-acceptable deal. The Independent Schools Council went straight for berating the policy in the press, and only that, which was never going to work.
Yes, VAT on school fees is another version of "Do it to Julia"; accept that there needs to be pain to balance the books, but that pain should be experienced by other people. A lot of the anger was because people used to getting their way didn't.
(And whilst there will be some blowback from this policy, it will need a massive exodus to be a net negative for the government. There is no sign of that right now. In large part because British private schools are mostly fishing in the global elite market, which isn't very price-sensitive. Hard on those who have gone from just about affording school fees to not affording them, but they're a minority of a minority.)
Is that true? Would like to see some figures to back that up. My gut is that it’s true for the Public Schools and the London private schools but the vast majority of private schools aren’t them, they are private schools in towns and cities with good local reputations attracting the children of local professionals or they are the only alternative to failing state schools in an area where people decide to make a financial sacrifice to pay for their childrens’ education.
These are the schools that will suffer - the public schools with international or national reputation and big endowments alongside the London private day schools with a big global wealthy community to fill places who would never dream of sending their children off to board will largely be fine.
Excluding international schools, about 5% of private school pupils are non-British with parents living abroad. The largest group are from China (both mainland and Hong Kong).
Another 5% are non-British but with parents who live in Britain.
So British private schools really are not fishing in the global elite market and so are sensitive to price moves and not damaging a minority of a minority.
They are to a significant extent, especially the most expensive boarding schools and many also now have branches in Asia too
I don’t personally consider 5% of their market to be a significant extent but each to their own. My point was that it was wrong to suggest that most of the market for UK private schools was foreign elite and so not as price sensitive - 90-95% is UK market according to Bondegozou’s figures so clearly not what was argued. It was someone trying to airily wave away concerns about VAT on private education as being something for the global elite to worry about which isn’t true.
The cost of sending children to private school will almost double after the introduction of VAT on fees, analysis suggests.
The parents of a privately educated child leaving school this year after A-levels are likely to have spent an average of £204,622 on fees, according to Weatherbys Private Bank. The cost of putting a child of the same age through boarding school is estimated to have been £413,471. However, costs vary widely with the Good Schools Guide putting the highest annual fees at £75,000.
Weatherbys says that for a child starting in reception at a private school this September the cost could ultimately reach £377,000 — £763,000 if they were boarding. This assumed annual inflation of 3 per cent, which accounts for two thirds of the increase, with VAT responsible for the rest.
Last September private schools put up fees by an average 6.7 per cent. When 20 per cent VAT was imposed in January, many schools initially cut fees by 5 per cent to cushion parents from the immediate impact, but overall, the average fee rose by about 22 per cent.
Buy a house (or two) near a good state school as prices will just go up.
As they will in counties and local authorities which still have grammar schools
If they can afford the prices
Grammar schools are free and areas which have them still eg Kent, Rugby, Ripon, Trafford, Lincolnshire, Chelmsford, Redbridge and Bromley are often cheaper than some areas of the home counties eg inner London, Surrey, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, West Sussex which are all comprehensive/academies.
Only Bucks and Tunbridge Wells are areas with grammar schools which are still expensive even by home counties standards
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
Good morning
So true and so depressing
I have no idea how any of the parties provide a solution and that includes the Lib Dems and Greens
However, it is fair to say Starmer is not PM material and Reeves certainly is not COE material either, and with huge tax increases on the horizon I cannot see how labour recovers, and that is without Magic Grandpa and Sultana getting their act together
My granddaughter, fresh with her degree from Leeds, has applied for 60 jobs with no success and is now on UC
How the next government will cope is for discussion but I would be amazed if labour were part of it
It's all very well saying Starmer and Reeves aren't up to the job. (I don't think the vacancy for Labour leader in 2020 was about being a PM in waiting, but there you go.) The real question is twofold;
1 Is there anyone else on the political scene who would be doing better? Badenoch is worse. Farage is worse. If you think (as I do) that Sunak and Hunt spent their final year laying traps for their successors, they are worse.
2 If the Prime Ministers we have had in recent decades have all been horribly flawed, maybe the problem is the role and our expectations, not the people who have done it.
Laying traps? Citation required.
I'd swap back Sunak and Hunt in a heartbeat for what replaced them. They were dealt the shittiest hand of any post-war Government, but at least looked like they knew what needed doing.
You mean apart from the almost completely full prisons, 2024 pay negotiations hidden under the mattress, wing-and-a-prayer NI cuts, councils collapsing under social care, the Afghan refugee scandal...
VAT on schools: 1) It will cost the state more money than it raises 2) Most people don't care because they see this as fair 3) Schools are using VAT to cover all number of things
I can understand the frustration of parents affected - it is unfair. Then again there are so many things which are egregiously unfair and this isn't anywhere near the top of the unfairness chart. Carers losing their entire allowance for going £1 over the earnings cap? More unfair. And there's stacks of examples of things done by merciless ministers to make the lives of the poor and sick practically unliveable which are more unfair.
This explains point 2 above.
Process State meets populist policy.
Sure! But for many of the people in point 2, they here the people complaining and consider that they largely are the people who support all of the egregious merciless stuff which hurts people at an existential level.
Sam Freedman (yes I know) was good on that in his piece on the anti-VAT campaign;
The TLDR is that campaigns against government policy work best when you have a back channel negotiation to come up with a mutually-acceptable deal. The Independent Schools Council went straight for berating the policy in the press, and only that, which was never going to work.
Yes, VAT on school fees is another version of "Do it to Julia"; accept that there needs to be pain to balance the books, but that pain should be experienced by other people. A lot of the anger was because people used to getting their way didn't.
(And whilst there will be some blowback from this policy, it will need a massive exodus to be a net negative for the government. There is no sign of that right now. In large part because British private schools are mostly fishing in the global elite market, which isn't very price-sensitive. Hard on those who have gone from just about affording school fees to not affording them, but they're a minority of a minority.)
Is that true? Would like to see some figures to back that up. My gut is that it’s true for the Public Schools and the London private schools but the vast majority of private schools aren’t them, they are private schools in towns and cities with good local reputations attracting the children of local professionals or they are the only alternative to failing state schools in an area where people decide to make a financial sacrifice to pay for their childrens’ education.
These are the schools that will suffer - the public schools with international or national reputation and big endowments alongside the London private day schools with a big global wealthy community to fill places who would never dream of sending their children off to board will largely be fine.
Excluding international schools, about 5% of private school pupils are non-British with parents living abroad. The largest group are from China (both mainland and Hong Kong).
Another 5% are non-British but with parents who live in Britain.
So British private schools really are not fishing in the global elite market and so are sensitive to price moves and not damaging a minority of a minority.
No they’re not. But government thinks that every private school is just like Eton.
Trump downgrades his discussion with Putin as "fact finding".
How long before he discovers the fact that Putin is a land-grabbing c*** who uses terror as his one and only tactic, destroying homes, hospitals, schools to get his way? And discovers that hundreds, thousands of innocent Ukrainians have died whilst Trump keeps cutting Vlad some more weeks and months of slack?
Trump is so far up Putin's arse, you'll have trouble working out where he ends and Putin begins
From today, every neighbourhood across England and Wales has named, contactable officers to tackle crime in our communities.
Our Plan for Change in action
You would prefer Donald Trump? Here's his latest Truth Social post:
GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS. They will be announced Wednesday. Tremendous work is being done, and money being spent, on bringing it back to the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment. It had fallen on hard times, physically, BUT WILL SOON BE MAKING A MAJOR COMEBACK!!! President DJT
Well at least he’s writing them himself, even if they are crazy!
Starmer’s Twitter account comes across as being written by some AI policy bot.
VAT on schools: 1) It will cost the state more money than it raises 2) Most people don't care because they see this as fair 3) Schools are using VAT to cover all number of things
I can understand the frustration of parents affected - it is unfair. Then again there are so many things which are egregiously unfair and this isn't anywhere near the top of the unfairness chart. Carers losing their entire allowance for going £1 over the earnings cap? More unfair. And there's stacks of examples of things done by merciless ministers to make the lives of the poor and sick practically unliveable which are more unfair.
This explains point 2 above.
Process State meets populist policy.
Sure! But for many of the people in point 2, they here the people complaining and consider that they largely are the people who support all of the egregious merciless stuff which hurts people at an existential level.
Sam Freedman (yes I know) was good on that in his piece on the anti-VAT campaign;
The TLDR is that campaigns against government policy work best when you have a back channel negotiation to come up with a mutually-acceptable deal. The Independent Schools Council went straight for berating the policy in the press, and only that, which was never going to work.
Yes, VAT on school fees is another version of "Do it to Julia"; accept that there needs to be pain to balance the books, but that pain should be experienced by other people. A lot of the anger was because people used to getting their way didn't.
(And whilst there will be some blowback from this policy, it will need a massive exodus to be a net negative for the government. There is no sign of that right now. In large part because British private schools are mostly fishing in the global elite market, which isn't very price-sensitive. Hard on those who have gone from just about affording school fees to not affording them, but they're a minority of a minority.)
Is that true? Would like to see some figures to back that up. My gut is that it’s true for the Public Schools and the London private schools but the vast majority of private schools aren’t them, they are private schools in towns and cities with good local reputations attracting the children of local professionals or they are the only alternative to failing state schools in an area where people decide to make a financial sacrifice to pay for their childrens’ education.
These are the schools that will suffer - the public schools with international or national reputation and big endowments alongside the London private day schools with a big global wealthy community to fill places who would never dream of sending their children off to board will largely be fine.
Excluding international schools, about 5% of private school pupils are non-British with parents living abroad. The largest group are from China (both mainland and Hong Kong).
Another 5% are non-British but with parents who live in Britain.
So British private schools really are not fishing in the global elite market and so are sensitive to price moves and not damaging a minority of a minority.
No they’re not. But government thinks that every private school is just like Eton.
Even Eton is only about 15% overseas students. I sometimes teach postgrad classes which are 100% overseas students.
From today, every neighbourhood across England and Wales has named, contactable officers to tackle crime in our communities.
Our Plan for Change in action
You would prefer Donald Trump? Here's his latest Truth Social post:
GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS. They will be announced Wednesday. Tremendous work is being done, and money being spent, on bringing it back to the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment. It had fallen on hard times, physically, BUT WILL SOON BE MAKING A MAJOR COMEBACK!!! President DJT
At least he dictates his own posts !
Does he ? It's got to the point where he's so easy to parody his staffers probably do it too.
From today, every neighbourhood across England and Wales has named, contactable officers to tackle crime in our communities.
Our Plan for Change in action
You would prefer Donald Trump? Here's his latest Truth Social post:
GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS. They will be announced Wednesday. Tremendous work is being done, and money being spent, on bringing it back to the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment. It had fallen on hard times, physically, BUT WILL SOON BE MAKING A MAJOR COMEBACK!!! President DJT
At least he dictates his own posts !
Does he ? It's got to the point where he's so easy to parody his staffers probably do it too.
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
They had 14 years in opposition and came to power appearing clueless
And their predecessors, with all the advantages of government, left power even more clueless.
Anne is quite right to suggest that all our politicians seem far more interested in power than they do in policy.
Quite frankly it’s not really about the last government as they were booted for very good reasons. It’s about this one. They’re in charge and we’re living with it.
They plot for power, get it, don’t know what to do with it. They cannot even get legislation through with a large majority. Part of the problem is in opposition they don’t really want to develop policy until close to the election for fear of scrutiny.
Two important caveats there, though.
One is that a Labour win didn't look at all on the cards until 2022 or so. Planning a manifesto to lose with dignity is different to planning a project for government.
The other is the boots-on-the ground practicalities of government. Getting to talk to civil servants and suchlike. Prior to 1997 and 2010, those access talks started about sixteen months before the election. Starmer had less than five months. It shows.
Yes, the political impact of Covid was far reaching and unpredictable. A popular Prime Minister, elected with a large majority in December 2019, who could and (many people thought) would be in office for a decade, was swept away, the Party which had led the Government for nearly a decade and a half reduced to a rump.
Sadiq Khan decided to run for Mayor of London again because he didn't think Labour would get back to Government - he was wrong and that has destroyed him politically.
Starmer might have thought the enormous poll leads were a chimera - some on here did - and when it came to it, people would head for the blue rosette again but instead the election was won for Labour as much by those who stayed at home as by those who came out and voted against the Conservatives.
The trouble in the British system is, unlike other countries where you either have a designated interregnum or coalition building which can take some time, the new Government has to hit the ground (whether it does that running or otherwise depends).
That's not to exonerate Starmer who should have had at minimum a 90 day plan of action and of course eventualities like Southport which couldn't be foreseen have to be dealt with (and to be honest I thought after a faltering start the new Government did well). On that point, I note the pressure to reveal the ethnicity of those arrested in regard to serious offences - note ethnicity NOT immigration status. I can see the public order pressure to do this but it cannot compromise the right of either the presumption of innocence or the right to a fair trial.
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
They had 14 years in opposition and came to power appearing clueless
Maybe all their thought & energy went into planning how to get elected, and they forgot to think about what to do when they were elected.
The only way to square that circle is to break election promises.
From today, every neighbourhood across England and Wales has named, contactable officers to tackle crime in our communities.
Our Plan for Change in action
You would prefer Donald Trump? Here's his latest Truth Social post:
GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS. They will be announced Wednesday. Tremendous work is being done, and money being spent, on bringing it back to the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment. It had fallen on hard times, physically, BUT WILL SOON BE MAKING A MAJOR COMEBACK!!! President DJT
Well at least he’s writing them himself, even if they are crazy!
Starmer’s Twitter account comes across as being written by some AI policy bot.
I'd rather a bland AI policy bot than crazy narcissism.
Let's look at some other world leaders. Here's Viktor Orbán's most recent tweet:
Many European leaders cling to the fantasy that a prolonged war will bring regime change in Moscow. Instead of facing reality and negotiating, they demonise President Putin and block the only path to peace. Europe’s self-sabotage leaves us powerless while others decide our fate. Enough is enough!
Here's Georgia Meloni's:
Ritengo vergognoso che, pur di attaccare il Governo, certa opposizione diffonda notizie false, danneggiando l’immagine e gli interessi dell’Italia. Negli ultimi giorni, tra le diverse uscite, anche la segretaria del PD Elly Schlein ha lasciato intendere che il turismo italiano fosse in crisi. Peccato che, poche ore dopo la sua uscita, i dati ufficiali del Viminale – tratti dalla banca dati ‘Alloggiati web’ della Polizia di Stato – abbiano certificato l’esatto contrario, con arrivi in crescita e milioni di visitatori nelle nostre strutture ricettive.
Alle mistificazioni e alle falsità costruite a tavolino rispondono i numeri e la verità.
Chi ama davvero la propria Nazione non la scredita davanti al mondo per convenienza politica.
Noi continueremo a lavorare per renderla ogni giorno più forte, attrattiva e orgogliosa di sé.
Twitter offers this translation:
I consider it shameful that, just to attack the Government, certain opposition members spread false news, damaging Italy's image and interests. In recent days, among various statements, even the PD secretary Elly Schlein suggested that Italian tourism was in crisis. Too bad that, just a few hours after her statement, official data from the Viminale – drawn from the ‘Alloggiati web’ database of the State Police – certified the exact opposite, with growing arrivals and millions of visitors to our hospitality facilities.
Numbers and truth respond to fabrications and deliberately constructed falsehoods.
Those who truly love their Nation do not discredit it before the world for political convenience.
We will continue to work to make it stronger, more attractive, and prouder of itself every day.
If you want an inspiring, not crazy Tweeter, I suggest Emmanuel Macron. His last three tweets were in English, French and Armenian!
A 2024 massive majority on a "favourable" view that was an inch deep and a mile wide.
Now about a quarter of an inch deep and six feet wide.
"We're not the Tories" isn't going to do you any good when the response is "No, you're even more useless..."
Starmer needs a Cabinet reshuffle. That includes a new Chancellor - before the Budget.
Perhaps.
But he also needs a vision, and people who can sell that vision to the public. Because he can not.
I cannot tell you what Kemi's Conservative Party stands for: they seem to have no vision. But the same is true for the government, who seem not only to lack vision, but also be just reacting to events.
But the odd thing is that the Farage Party does not have much of a vision either: they just seem to think the country's shit (despite their own acts in making it so), and that the shittiness is down to immigrants and people trying to be be nice to other people.
I think one of Kemi's problems is that ... a little like Starmer but more so ... she is dancing to the Farage agenda.
Unfortunately for her, Farage is a bull-shitter in a china shop, and is just seeking power doing whatever he thinks he needs to do. Hence we get the developing sequence of Farage reverse ferrets.
The issue as I see it is the same for both main parties, but more so for the cons because get are in opposition - their political positioning dominates too much their need to decide what they are and be themselves.
From today, every neighbourhood across England and Wales has named, contactable officers to tackle crime in our communities.
Our Plan for Change in action
You would prefer Donald Trump? Here's his latest Truth Social post:
GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS. They will be announced Wednesday. Tremendous work is being done, and money being spent, on bringing it back to the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment. It had fallen on hard times, physically, BUT WILL SOON BE MAKING A MAJOR COMEBACK!!! President DJT
At least he dictates his own posts !
Does he ? It's got to the point where he's so easy to parody his staffers probably do it too.
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
The problem I see it is that Starmer is built for a sort of managerial role when the country doesn’t need it. He might have been a decently average (or even average to good) PM conceivably, in 2015, or in the 1960s, or in the John Major role. He just isn’t the “cometh the hour” person.
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
Ah, yes, the "strong" leader. The "radical" leader. It's seductive I know to think all our problems could be dealt with by such an individual - we could vote them in and then they would lead us from the valley of the shadow to the sunlit uplands...
Blah, blah, blah - that's how authoritarianism starts. I'd rather our imperfect, bumbling democracy than a "strong" leader. The truth probably is we could solve a lot of our problems ourselves with some changes in our personal behaviour and within our communities - that would be really radical.
The problem with top-down solutions is they create bottom-up problems. Somebody suggested yesterday it was all the fault of "fatties" as he called them and said everyone who was overweight should be given free Mounjaro. Well, setting aside the economics, the practicalities and the legalities (but they aren't that individual's strong suit), Mounjaro isn't side effect free as I know from a friend who has used it.
The other consequence is if you have a significant portion (sorry) of the population on appetite suppressing drugs, what happens to the catering and hospitality industries? Do the non-"fatties" have to become "fatties" in order to keep every cafe and restaurant from my cafe in the Barking Road to the top three Michelin star eaterie going? Will we see Gordon Ramsey begging on the streets as his restaurant empire collapses from lack of demand?
VAT on schools: 1) It will cost the state more money than it raises 2) Most people don't care because they see this as fair 3) Schools are using VAT to cover all number of things
I can understand the frustration of parents affected - it is unfair. Then again there are so many things which are egregiously unfair and this isn't anywhere near the top of the unfairness chart. Carers losing their entire allowance for going £1 over the earnings cap? More unfair. And there's stacks of examples of things done by merciless ministers to make the lives of the poor and sick practically unliveable which are more unfair.
This explains point 2 above.
Process State meets populist policy.
Sure! But for many of the people in point 2, they here the people complaining and consider that they largely are the people who support all of the egregious merciless stuff which hurts people at an existential level.
Sam Freedman (yes I know) was good on that in his piece on the anti-VAT campaign;
The TLDR is that campaigns against government policy work best when you have a back channel negotiation to come up with a mutually-acceptable deal. The Independent Schools Council went straight for berating the policy in the press, and only that, which was never going to work.
Yes, VAT on school fees is another version of "Do it to Julia"; accept that there needs to be pain to balance the books, but that pain should be experienced by other people. A lot of the anger was because people used to getting their way didn't.
(And whilst there will be some blowback from this policy, it will need a massive exodus to be a net negative for the government. There is no sign of that right now. In large part because British private schools are mostly fishing in the global elite market, which isn't very price-sensitive. Hard on those who have gone from just about affording school fees to not affording them, but they're a minority of a minority.)
Is that true? Would like to see some figures to back that up. My gut is that it’s true for the Public Schools and the London private schools but the vast majority of private schools aren’t them, they are private schools in towns and cities with good local reputations attracting the children of local professionals or they are the only alternative to failing state schools in an area where people decide to make a financial sacrifice to pay for their childrens’ education.
These are the schools that will suffer - the public schools with international or national reputation and big endowments alongside the London private day schools with a big global wealthy community to fill places who would never dream of sending their children off to board will largely be fine.
Excluding international schools, about 5% of private school pupils are non-British with parents living abroad. The largest group are from China (both mainland and Hong Kong).
Another 5% are non-British but with parents who live in Britain.
So British private schools really are not fishing in the global elite market and so are sensitive to price moves and not damaging a minority of a minority.
No they’re not. But government thinks that every private school is just like Eton.
Even Eton is only about 15% overseas students. I sometimes teach postgrad classes which are 100% overseas students.
One thing that the government doesn't get with its tightening of immigration rules and VAT on school fees is how important Education and Universities are to our economy, service exports in particular.
And that's before the soft power of Anglicising foreign elites.
VAT on schools: 1) It will cost the state more money than it raises 2) Most people don't care because they see this as fair 3) Schools are using VAT to cover all number of things
I can understand the frustration of parents affected - it is unfair. Then again there are so many things which are egregiously unfair and this isn't anywhere near the top of the unfairness chart. Carers losing their entire allowance for going £1 over the earnings cap? More unfair. And there's stacks of examples of things done by merciless ministers to make the lives of the poor and sick practically unliveable which are more unfair.
This explains point 2 above.
Process State meets populist policy.
Sure! But for many of the people in point 2, they here the people complaining and consider that they largely are the people who support all of the egregious merciless stuff which hurts people at an existential level.
Sam Freedman (yes I know) was good on that in his piece on the anti-VAT campaign;
The TLDR is that campaigns against government policy work best when you have a back channel negotiation to come up with a mutually-acceptable deal. The Independent Schools Council went straight for berating the policy in the press, and only that, which was never going to work.
Yes, VAT on school fees is another version of "Do it to Julia"; accept that there needs to be pain to balance the books, but that pain should be experienced by other people. A lot of the anger was because people used to getting their way didn't.
(And whilst there will be some blowback from this policy, it will need a massive exodus to be a net negative for the government. There is no sign of that right now. In large part because British private schools are mostly fishing in the global elite market, which isn't very price-sensitive. Hard on those who have gone from just about affording school fees to not affording them, but they're a minority of a minority.)
Is that true? Would like to see some figures to back that up. My gut is that it’s true for the Public Schools and the London private schools but the vast majority of private schools aren’t them, they are private schools in towns and cities with good local reputations attracting the children of local professionals or they are the only alternative to failing state schools in an area where people decide to make a financial sacrifice to pay for their childrens’ education.
These are the schools that will suffer - the public schools with international or national reputation and big endowments alongside the London private day schools with a big global wealthy community to fill places who would never dream of sending their children off to board will largely be fine.
Excluding international schools, about 5% of private school pupils are non-British with parents living abroad. The largest group are from China (both mainland and Hong Kong).
Another 5% are non-British but with parents who live in Britain.
So British private schools really are not fishing in the global elite market and so are sensitive to price moves and not damaging a minority of a minority.
No they’re not. But government thinks that every private school is just like Eton.
Private school educated Starmer and Lammy should know different
VAT on schools: 1) It will cost the state more money than it raises 2) Most people don't care because they see this as fair 3) Schools are using VAT to cover all number of things
I can understand the frustration of parents affected - it is unfair. Then again there are so many things which are egregiously unfair and this isn't anywhere near the top of the unfairness chart. Carers losing their entire allowance for going £1 over the earnings cap? More unfair. And there's stacks of examples of things done by merciless ministers to make the lives of the poor and sick practically unliveable which are more unfair.
This explains point 2 above.
Process State meets populist policy.
Sure! But for many of the people in point 2, they here the people complaining and consider that they largely are the people who support all of the egregious merciless stuff which hurts people at an existential level.
Sam Freedman (yes I know) was good on that in his piece on the anti-VAT campaign;
The TLDR is that campaigns against government policy work best when you have a back channel negotiation to come up with a mutually-acceptable deal. The Independent Schools Council went straight for berating the policy in the press, and only that, which was never going to work.
Yes, VAT on school fees is another version of "Do it to Julia"; accept that there needs to be pain to balance the books, but that pain should be experienced by other people. A lot of the anger was because people used to getting their way didn't.
(And whilst there will be some blowback from this policy, it will need a massive exodus to be a net negative for the government. There is no sign of that right now. In large part because British private schools are mostly fishing in the global elite market, which isn't very price-sensitive. Hard on those who have gone from just about affording school fees to not affording them, but they're a minority of a minority.)
Is that true? Would like to see some figures to back that up. My gut is that it’s true for the Public Schools and the London private schools but the vast majority of private schools aren’t them, they are private schools in towns and cities with good local reputations attracting the children of local professionals or they are the only alternative to failing state schools in an area where people decide to make a financial sacrifice to pay for their childrens’ education.
These are the schools that will suffer - the public schools with international or national reputation and big endowments alongside the London private day schools with a big global wealthy community to fill places who would never dream of sending their children off to board will largely be fine.
Excluding international schools, about 5% of private school pupils are non-British with parents living abroad. The largest group are from China (both mainland and Hong Kong).
Another 5% are non-British but with parents who live in Britain.
So British private schools really are not fishing in the global elite market and so are sensitive to price moves and not damaging a minority of a minority.
No they’re not. But government thinks that every private school is just like Eton.
Private school educated Starmer and Lammy should know different
They do know that every private school isn’t Eton, they just need potential voters not to know.
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
The problem I see it is that Starmer is built for a sort of managerial role when the country doesn’t need it. He might have been a decently average (or even average to good) PM conceivably, in 2015, or in the 1960s, or in the John Major role. He just isn’t the “cometh the hour” person.
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
Ah, yes, the "strong" leader. The "radical" leader. It's seductive I know to think all our problems could be dealt with by such an individual - we could vote them in and then they would lead us from the valley of the shadow to the sunlit uplands...
Blah, blah, blah - that's how authoritarianism starts. I'd rather our imperfect, bumbling democracy than a "strong" leader. The truth probably is we could solve a lot of our problems ourselves with some changes in our personal behaviour and within our communities - that would be really radical.
The problem with top-down solutions is they create bottom-up problems. Somebody suggested yesterday it was all the fault of "fatties" as he called them and said everyone who was overweight should be given free Mounjaro. Well, setting aside the economics, the practicalities and the legalities (but they aren't that individual's strong suit), Mounjaro isn't side effect free as I know from a friend who has used it.
The other consequence is if you have a significant portion (sorry) of the population on appetite suppressing drugs, what happens to the catering and hospitality industries? Do the non-"fatties" have to become "fatties" in order to keep every cafe and restaurant from my cafe in the Barking Road to the top three Michelin star eaterie going? Will we see Gordon Ramsey begging on the streets as his restaurant empire collapses from lack of demand?
The claim that radical change in a democracy is dictatorship or something is an old, old cry.
The problem is that, in many areas, the government is not doing much, if anything.
On health in the community - why not some trials? Pick an area. Vitality style rewards for health indicators. You wouldn’t need legislation for that.
This is not a zero sum game. I'd have given Labour the same low scores on almost all the questions asked but would still vote for them or Lib Dem to stop Farages racists doing more damage to the country than they have already done. Unless something new turns up Labour look in a reasonable position with nearly four years to go
Morning all. Saw some thoughts on socials yesterday about Your Party and Wales/Scotland next year. I think they stand a chance at getting some representation in Holyrood - 6% in a region might do it? But i think they will struggle in Wales - you need ca 10-12% to have a shot at seat 6 in any given pair (you might do it on 8.5% or so with a veey fortuitous spread). I think there just arent the votes in Wales unless Labour completely implode - Ref/PC look a lock for at least 50%, Labour probably high teens at worst, Tories 10-15% and LD/Grn 10-15% between them. So London councils and Holyrood for Your Party progress.......
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
The problem I see it is that Starmer is built for a sort of managerial role when the country doesn’t need it. He might have been a decently average (or even average to good) PM conceivably, in 2015, or in the 1960s, or in the John Major role. He just isn’t the “cometh the hour” person.
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
Ah, yes, the "strong" leader. The "radical" leader. It's seductive I know to think all our problems could be dealt with by such an individual - we could vote them in and then they would lead us from the valley of the shadow to the sunlit uplands...
Blah, blah, blah - that's how authoritarianism starts. I'd rather our imperfect, bumbling democracy than a "strong" leader. The truth probably is we could solve a lot of our problems ourselves with some changes in our personal behaviour and within our communities - that would be really radical.
The problem with top-down solutions is they create bottom-up problems. Somebody suggested yesterday it was all the fault of "fatties" as he called them and said everyone who was overweight should be given free Mounjaro. Well, setting aside the economics, the practicalities and the legalities (but they aren't that individual's strong suit), Mounjaro isn't side effect free as I know from a friend who has used it.
The other consequence is if you have a significant portion (sorry) of the population on appetite suppressing drugs, what happens to the catering and hospitality industries? Do the non-"fatties" have to become "fatties" in order to keep every cafe and restaurant from my cafe in the Barking Road to the top three Michelin star eaterie going? Will we see Gordon Ramsey begging on the streets as his restaurant empire collapses from lack of demand?
The claim that radical change in a democracy is dictatorship or something is an old, old cry.
The problem is that, in many areas, the government is not doing much, if anything.
On health in the community - why not some trials? Pick an area. Vitality style rewards for health indicators. You wouldn’t need legislation for that.
We're getting trials like that, and indeed were under the previous government too.
Just an upper end poll for the Tories with this pollster, they had a 22 with them a few weeks ago too, usually 20 or 21, last week was an outlier at the low end thus far. Nothing for Kemi to grass us up about yet!
That said, her personal ratings with them are better now than the May post LE trough
Morning all. Saw some thoughts on socials yesterday about Your Party and Wales/Scotland next year. I think they stand a chance at getting some representation in Holyrood - 6% in a region might do it? But i think they will struggle in Wales - you need ca 10-12% to have a shot at seat 6 in any given pair (you might do it on 8.5% or so with a veey fortuitous spread). I think there just arent the votes in Wales unless Labour completely implode - Ref/PC look a lock for at least 50%, Labour probably high teens at worst, Tories 10-15% and LD/Grn 10-15% between them. So London councils and Holyrood for Your Party progress.......
Will be interesting to see how the non Tommy Sheridan wing of the SSP turn in relation to Your Party, after all they had 6 seats in the 2003 election. I imagine their positions align in most areas.
Morning all. Saw some thoughts on socials yesterday about Your Party and Wales/Scotland next year. I think they stand a chance at getting some representation in Holyrood - 6% in a region might do it? But i think they will struggle in Wales - you need ca 10-12% to have a shot at seat 6 in any given pair (you might do it on 8.5% or so with a veey fortuitous spread). I think there just arent the votes in Wales unless Labour completely implode - Ref/PC look a lock for at least 50%, Labour probably high teens at worst, Tories 10-15% and LD/Grn 10-15% between them. So London councils and Holyrood for Your Party progress.......
Will be interesting to see how the non Tommy Sheridan wing of the SSP turn in relation to Your Party, after all they had 6 seats in the 2003 election. I imagine their positions align in most areas.
I wonder if GG is also hoping for a pact - YP back WPGB in Glasgow, WPGB back YP everywhere else? Tommys lot should probably back YP, yeah
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
The problem I see it is that Starmer is built for a sort of managerial role when the country doesn’t need it. He might have been a decently average (or even average to good) PM conceivably, in 2015, or in the 1960s, or in the John Major role. He just isn’t the “cometh the hour” person.
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
Ah, yes, the "strong" leader. The "radical" leader. It's seductive I know to think all our problems could be dealt with by such an individual - we could vote them in and then they would lead us from the valley of the shadow to the sunlit uplands...
Blah, blah, blah - that's how authoritarianism starts. I'd rather our imperfect, bumbling democracy than a "strong" leader. The truth probably is we could solve a lot of our problems ourselves with some changes in our personal behaviour and within our communities - that would be really radical.
The problem with top-down solutions is they create bottom-up problems. Somebody suggested yesterday it was all the fault of "fatties" as he called them and said everyone who was overweight should be given free Mounjaro. Well, setting aside the economics, the practicalities and the legalities (but they aren't that individual's strong suit), Mounjaro isn't side effect free as I know from a friend who has used it.
The other consequence is if you have a significant portion (sorry) of the population on appetite suppressing drugs, what happens to the catering and hospitality industries? Do the non-"fatties" have to become "fatties" in order to keep every cafe and restaurant from my cafe in the Barking Road to the top three Michelin star eaterie going? Will we see Gordon Ramsey begging on the streets as his restaurant empire collapses from lack of demand?
The claim that radical change in a democracy is dictatorship or something is an old, old cry.
The problem is that, in many areas, the government is not doing much, if anything.
On health in the community - why not some trials? Pick an area. Vitality style rewards for health indicators. You wouldn’t need legislation for that.
£100 off income tax (or added to your UC or State Pension) if you have a healthy BMI or can run 5K in less than 30 minutes.
Morning all. Saw some thoughts on socials yesterday about Your Party and Wales/Scotland next year. I think they stand a chance at getting some representation in Holyrood - 6% in a region might do it? But i think they will struggle in Wales - you need ca 10-12% to have a shot at seat 6 in any given pair (you might do it on 8.5% or so with a veey fortuitous spread). I think there just arent the votes in Wales unless Labour completely implode - Ref/PC look a lock for at least 50%, Labour probably high teens at worst, Tories 10-15% and LD/Grn 10-15% between them. So London councils and Holyrood for Your Party progress.......
Will be interesting to see how the non Tommy Sheridan wing of the SSP turn in relation to Your Party, after all they had 6 seats in the 2003 election. I imagine their positions align in most areas.
I wonder if GG is also hoping for a pact - YP back WPGB in Glasgow, WPGB back YP everywhere else? Tommys lot should probably back YP, yeah
I think Tommy is Alba atm. Of course that may change..
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
The problem I see it is that Starmer is built for a sort of managerial role when the country doesn’t need it. He might have been a decently average (or even average to good) PM conceivably, in 2015, or in the 1960s, or in the John Major role. He just isn’t the “cometh the hour” person.
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
Ah, yes, the "strong" leader. The "radical" leader. It's seductive I know to think all our problems could be dealt with by such an individual - we could vote them in and then they would lead us from the valley of the shadow to the sunlit uplands...
Blah, blah, blah - that's how authoritarianism starts. I'd rather our imperfect, bumbling democracy than a "strong" leader. The truth probably is we could solve a lot of our problems ourselves with some changes in our personal behaviour and within our communities - that would be really radical.
The problem with top-down solutions is they create bottom-up problems. Somebody suggested yesterday it was all the fault of "fatties" as he called them and said everyone who was overweight should be given free Mounjaro. Well, setting aside the economics, the practicalities and the legalities (but they aren't that individual's strong suit), Mounjaro isn't side effect free as I know from a friend who has used it.
The other consequence is if you have a significant portion (sorry) of the population on appetite suppressing drugs, what happens to the catering and hospitality industries? Do the non-"fatties" have to become "fatties" in order to keep every cafe and restaurant from my cafe in the Barking Road to the top three Michelin star eaterie going? Will we see Gordon Ramsey begging on the streets as his restaurant empire collapses from lack of demand?
The claim that radical change in a democracy is dictatorship or something is an old, old cry.
The problem is that, in many areas, the government is not doing much, if anything.
On health in the community - why not some trials? Pick an area. Vitality style rewards for health indicators. You wouldn’t need legislation for that.
You're not wrong in stating local solutions often work best and especially trialling a proposed change in a small area can be very helpful in terms of dealing with the likely challenges.
The problem in dealing with individuals is they are individuals - everyone is unique. You catch more flies with honey than with flypaper so you would need to incentivise the process.
You can no more force people to be healthy than you can force them to be tolerant.
Morning all. Saw some thoughts on socials yesterday about Your Party and Wales/Scotland next year. I think they stand a chance at getting some representation in Holyrood - 6% in a region might do it? But i think they will struggle in Wales - you need ca 10-12% to have a shot at seat 6 in any given pair (you might do it on 8.5% or so with a veey fortuitous spread). I think there just arent the votes in Wales unless Labour completely implode - Ref/PC look a lock for at least 50%, Labour probably high teens at worst, Tories 10-15% and LD/Grn 10-15% between them. So London councils and Holyrood for Your Party progress.......
Will be interesting to see how the non Tommy Sheridan wing of the SSP turn in relation to Your Party, after all they had 6 seats in the 2003 election. I imagine their positions align in most areas.
I wonder if GG is also hoping for a pact - YP back WPGB in Glasgow, WPGB back YP everywhere else? Tommys lot should probably back YP, yeah
I think Tommy is Alba atm. Of course that may change..
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
The problem I see it is that Starmer is built for a sort of managerial role when the country doesn’t need it. He might have been a decently average (or even average to good) PM conceivably, in 2015, or in the 1960s, or in the John Major role. He just isn’t the “cometh the hour” person.
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
Ah, yes, the "strong" leader. The "radical" leader. It's seductive I know to think all our problems could be dealt with by such an individual - we could vote them in and then they would lead us from the valley of the shadow to the sunlit uplands...
Blah, blah, blah - that's how authoritarianism starts. I'd rather our imperfect, bumbling democracy than a "strong" leader. The truth probably is we could solve a lot of our problems ourselves with some changes in our personal behaviour and within our communities - that would be really radical.
The problem with top-down solutions is they create bottom-up problems. Somebody suggested yesterday it was all the fault of "fatties" as he called them and said everyone who was overweight should be given free Mounjaro. Well, setting aside the economics, the practicalities and the legalities (but they aren't that individual's strong suit), Mounjaro isn't side effect free as I know from a friend who has used it.
The other consequence is if you have a significant portion (sorry) of the population on appetite suppressing drugs, what happens to the catering and hospitality industries? Do the non-"fatties" have to become "fatties" in order to keep every cafe and restaurant from my cafe in the Barking Road to the top three Michelin star eaterie going? Will we see Gordon Ramsey begging on the streets as his restaurant empire collapses from lack of demand?
The claim that radical change in a democracy is dictatorship or something is an old, old cry.
The problem is that, in many areas, the government is not doing much, if anything.
On health in the community - why not some trials? Pick an area. Vitality style rewards for health indicators. You wouldn’t need legislation for that.
£100 off income tax (or added to your UC or State Pension) if you have a healthy BMI or can run 5K in less than 30 minutes.
First, we know BMI isn't the be all and end all as a measure of health. Second, physical exercise tests - seriously? Third, £100 - a lot of people will see it as not worth the effort (make it £10,000 a year and you;d get more takers).
Just an upper end poll for the Tories with this pollster, they had a 22 with them a few weeks ago too, usually 20 or 21, last week was an outlier at the low end thus far. Nothing for Kemi to grass us up about yet!
That said, her personal ratings with them are better now than the May post LE trough
Don't worry - @HYUFD will run with this outlier poll for the next six months as a measure of Badenoch's popularity.
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
The problem I see it is that Starmer is built for a sort of managerial role when the country doesn’t need it. He might have been a decently average (or even average to good) PM conceivably, in 2015, or in the 1960s, or in the John Major role. He just isn’t the “cometh the hour” person.
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
Ah, yes, the "strong" leader. The "radical" leader. It's seductive I know to think all our problems could be dealt with by such an individual - we could vote them in and then they would lead us from the valley of the shadow to the sunlit uplands...
Blah, blah, blah - that's how authoritarianism starts. I'd rather our imperfect, bumbling democracy than a "strong" leader. The truth probably is we could solve a lot of our problems ourselves with some changes in our personal behaviour and within our communities - that would be really radical.
The problem with top-down solutions is they create bottom-up problems. Somebody suggested yesterday it was all the fault of "fatties" as he called them and said everyone who was overweight should be given free Mounjaro. Well, setting aside the economics, the practicalities and the legalities (but they aren't that individual's strong suit), Mounjaro isn't side effect free as I know from a friend who has used it.
The other consequence is if you have a significant portion (sorry) of the population on appetite suppressing drugs, what happens to the catering and hospitality industries? Do the non-"fatties" have to become "fatties" in order to keep every cafe and restaurant from my cafe in the Barking Road to the top three Michelin star eaterie going? Will we see Gordon Ramsey begging on the streets as his restaurant empire collapses from lack of demand?
The claim that radical change in a democracy is dictatorship or something is an old, old cry.
The problem is that, in many areas, the government is not doing much, if anything.
On health in the community - why not some trials? Pick an area. Vitality style rewards for health indicators. You wouldn’t need legislation for that.
£100 off income tax (or added to your UC or State Pension) if you have a healthy BMI or can run 5K in less than 30 minutes.
Financial incentives are known to work to change health behaviours, but they may not be the most cost effective way of doing so.
If you just did healthy BMI figures (as I couldn't find figures for the 5k requirement), you're looking at ~£2.4 billion being handed out. More complicated would be how you would check eligibility!
Room temperature Harvey's doesn't sound pleasant, especially at this time of year. I'd hope it was a bit cooler than that, if warmer than the Ambassador is used to
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
They had 14 years in opposition and came to power appearing clueless
And their predecessors, with all the advantages of government, left power even more clueless.
Anne is quite right to suggest that all our politicians seem far more interested in power than they do in policy.
Quite frankly it’s not really about the last government as they were booted for very good reasons. It’s about this one. They’re in charge and we’re living with it.
They plot for power, get it, don’t know what to do with it. They cannot even get legislation through with a large majority. Part of the problem is in opposition they don’t really want to develop policy until close to the election for fear of scrutiny.
Two important caveats there, though.
One is that a Labour win didn't look at all on the cards until 2022 or so. Planning a manifesto to lose with dignity is different to planning a project for government.
The other is the boots-on-the ground practicalities of government. Getting to talk to civil servants and suchlike. Prior to 1997 and 2010, those access talks started about sixteen months before the election. Starmer had less than five months. It shows.
Yes, the political impact of Covid was far reaching and unpredictable. A popular Prime Minister, elected with a large majority in December 2019, who could and (many people thought) would be in office for a decade, was swept away, the Party which had led the Government for nearly a decade and a half reduced to a rump.
Sadiq Khan decided to run for Mayor of London again because he didn't think Labour would get back to Government - he was wrong and that has destroyed him politically.
Starmer might have thought the enormous poll leads were a chimera - some on here did - and when it came to it, people would head for the blue rosette again but instead the election was won for Labour as much by those who stayed at home as by those who came out and voted against the Conservatives.
The trouble in the British system is, unlike other countries where you either have a designated interregnum or coalition building which can take some time, the new Government has to hit the ground (whether it does that running or otherwise depends).
That's not to exonerate Starmer who should have had at minimum a 90 day plan of action and of course eventualities like Southport which couldn't be foreseen have to be dealt with (and to be honest I thought after a faltering start the new Government did well). On that point, I note the pressure to reveal the ethnicity of those arrested in regard to serious offences - note ethnicity NOT immigration status. I can see the public order pressure to do this but it cannot compromise the right of either the presumption of innocence or the right to a fair trial.
Liverpool police didn’t seem to care about protecting a suspects right to a fair trial when the chap was white.
Have we done the illegal asylum seeking Scottish Scouts who set up their refugee community at the Scout Camp in Caerphilly and were targeted by locals ? It must have been the incomprehensible accents. Heaven help them if the next lot are from Birmingham or Newcastle.
(Note: Telegraph.)
Police have launched an investigation into online abuse after Welsh villagers mistook a group of Scouts for an influx of illegal immigrants.
The Newbridge residents confused the Scouts’ Scottish accents for asylum seekers after the party of more than 30 teenagers travelled to Wales for a summer camping trip.
Police were forced to address rumours after an online video claimed to show “immigrants” being moved into the camp and scout leaders were warned of the “racially aggravated incident targeting under-18s”.
A video circulated on Facebook with people posting abusive comments, alongside false claims that Gwent Police were guarding the area. Police confirmed some of the abuse online was now being investigated by officers.
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
The problem I see it is that Starmer is built for a sort of managerial role when the country doesn’t need it. He might have been a decently average (or even average to good) PM conceivably, in 2015, or in the 1960s, or in the John Major role. He just isn’t the “cometh the hour” person.
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
Ah, yes, the "strong" leader. The "radical" leader. It's seductive I know to think all our problems could be dealt with by such an individual - we could vote them in and then they would lead us from the valley of the shadow to the sunlit uplands...
Blah, blah, blah - that's how authoritarianism starts. I'd rather our imperfect, bumbling democracy than a "strong" leader. The truth probably is we could solve a lot of our problems ourselves with some changes in our personal behaviour and within our communities - that would be really radical.
The problem with top-down solutions is they create bottom-up problems. Somebody suggested yesterday it was all the fault of "fatties" as he called them and said everyone who was overweight should be given free Mounjaro. Well, setting aside the economics, the practicalities and the legalities (but they aren't that individual's strong suit), Mounjaro isn't side effect free as I know from a friend who has used it.
The other consequence is if you have a significant portion (sorry) of the population on appetite suppressing drugs, what happens to the catering and hospitality industries? Do the non-"fatties" have to become "fatties" in order to keep every cafe and restaurant from my cafe in the Barking Road to the top three Michelin star eaterie going? Will we see Gordon Ramsey begging on the streets as his restaurant empire collapses from lack of demand?
The claim that radical change in a democracy is dictatorship or something is an old, old cry.
The problem is that, in many areas, the government is not doing much, if anything.
On health in the community - why not some trials? Pick an area. Vitality style rewards for health indicators. You wouldn’t need legislation for that.
You're not wrong in stating local solutions often work best and especially trialling a proposed change in a small area can be very helpful in terms of dealing with the likely challenges.
The problem in dealing with individuals is they are individuals - everyone is unique. You catch more flies with honey than with flypaper so you would need to incentivise the process.
You can no more force people to be healthy than you can force them to be tolerant.
No, but we do have decades of research into how to encourage people to be healthy. We have many successful interventions that have worked and some big success stories (e.g., smoking rates). The solutions are not always palatable to politicians, however.
Big problems include how public health responsibilities were handed over to councils, who have been hit the hardest by austerity. We also saw Public Health England broken up, with its partial successor UKHSA focusing on health threats like pandemics, leading health promotion to get less prominence by being within the DHSC (as OHID). There are lots of apps to promote healthier behaviours that work, but there is very little central commissioning of these in England and challenges around regulation.
The public health grant is allocated to local authorities for public health service delivery, including prevention. Since 2015/16 it has been cut by more than a quarter (26%) per person in real terms.
This February 2024 BMJ piece notes:
Last week, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) made big staff reductions at the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) as part of an internal restructuring. According to reports,1 this includes the loss of several senior and experienced officials—and some reports claim that OHID has been “decimated,” with up to 50% of the central workforce now cut.2 Concerns about these further reductions in England’s public health capacity post-covid have been expressed by sector leaders and by former health ministers James Bethell and Philip Hunt.2
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
The problem I see it is that Starmer is built for a sort of managerial role when the country doesn’t need it. He might have been a decently average (or even average to good) PM conceivably, in 2015, or in the 1960s, or in the John Major role. He just isn’t the “cometh the hour” person.
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
Ah, yes, the "strong" leader. The "radical" leader. It's seductive I know to think all our problems could be dealt with by such an individual - we could vote them in and then they would lead us from the valley of the shadow to the sunlit uplands...
Blah, blah, blah - that's how authoritarianism starts. I'd rather our imperfect, bumbling democracy than a "strong" leader. The truth probably is we could solve a lot of our problems ourselves with some changes in our personal behaviour and within our communities - that would be really radical.
The problem with top-down solutions is they create bottom-up problems. Somebody suggested yesterday it was all the fault of "fatties" as he called them and said everyone who was overweight should be given free Mounjaro. Well, setting aside the economics, the practicalities and the legalities (but they aren't that individual's strong suit), Mounjaro isn't side effect free as I know from a friend who has used it.
The other consequence is if you have a significant portion (sorry) of the population on appetite suppressing drugs, what happens to the catering and hospitality industries? Do the non-"fatties" have to become "fatties" in order to keep every cafe and restaurant from my cafe in the Barking Road to the top three Michelin star eaterie going? Will we see Gordon Ramsey begging on the streets as his restaurant empire collapses from lack of demand?
The claim that radical change in a democracy is dictatorship or something is an old, old cry.
The problem is that, in many areas, the government is not doing much, if anything.
On health in the community - why not some trials? Pick an area. Vitality style rewards for health indicators. You wouldn’t need legislation for that.
You're not wrong in stating local solutions often work best and especially trialling a proposed change in a small area can be very helpful in terms of dealing with the likely challenges.
The problem in dealing with individuals is they are individuals - everyone is unique. You catch more flies with honey than with flypaper so you would need to incentivise the process.
You can no more force people to be healthy than you can force them to be tolerant.
The thing I noticed about the Vitality scheme was that even the No Exercise types started walking everywhere.
Have we done the illegal asylum seeking Scottish Scouts who set up their refugee community at the Scout Camp in Caerphilly and were targeted by locals ? It must have been the incomprehensible accents. Heaven help them if the next lot are from Birmingham or Newcastle.
(Note: Telegraph.)
Police have launched an investigation into online abuse after Welsh villagers mistook a group of Scouts for an influx of illegal immigrants.
The Newbridge residents confused the Scouts’ Scottish accents for asylum seekers after the party of more than 30 teenagers travelled to Wales for a summer camping trip.
Police were forced to address rumours after an online video claimed to show “immigrants” being moved into the camp and scout leaders were warned of the “racially aggravated incident targeting under-18s”.
A video circulated on Facebook with people posting abusive comments, alongside false claims that Gwent Police were guarding the area. Police confirmed some of the abuse online was now being investigated by officers.
Big swing to the Tories there and with Reform and the LDs the main losers not Labour, perhaps a few Thatcherites coming home after Kemi's promise of Milei style spending cuts and looking to leave the ECHR?
From today, every neighbourhood across England and Wales has named, contactable officers to tackle crime in our communities.
Our Plan for Change in action
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GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS. They will be announced Wednesday. Tremendous work is being done, and money being spent, on bringing it back to the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment. It had fallen on hard times, physically, BUT WILL SOON BE MAKING A MAJOR COMEBACK!!! President DJT
Great point because it’s clearly a choice between either extreme. 😂
Big swing to the Tories there and with Reform and the LDs the main losers not Labour, perhaps a few Thatcherites coming home after Kemi's promise of Milei style spending cuts and looking to leave the ECHR?
Nobody is paying any attention to Tory policy yet.
Would be funny though if this trend continues - and in six months we have the Conservatives leading Reform, with Labour well adrift in a rubber dinghy in the middle of the Channel....
Have we done the illegal asylum seeking Scottish Scouts who set up their refugee community at the Scout Camp in Caerphilly and were targeted by locals ? It must have been the incomprehensible accents. Heaven help them if the next lot are from Birmingham or Newcastle.
(Note: Telegraph.)
Police have launched an investigation into online abuse after Welsh villagers mistook a group of Scouts for an influx of illegal immigrants.
The Newbridge residents confused the Scouts’ Scottish accents for asylum seekers after the party of more than 30 teenagers travelled to Wales for a summer camping trip.
Police were forced to address rumours after an online video claimed to show “immigrants” being moved into the camp and scout leaders were warned of the “racially aggravated incident targeting under-18s”.
A video circulated on Facebook with people posting abusive comments, alongside false claims that Gwent Police were guarding the area. Police confirmed some of the abuse online was now being investigated by officers.
Interesting set of numbers. Individually, I'm not sure they mean all that much (does anyone actually give much real consideration to "key metrics" ?); it's simply that around two thirds of the country really don't like this government.
Without significant economic progress, that is not going to change. Stagnation plus higher taxes certainly won't do it.
Given the current govt is looking to tax their way out of the mess we are in we’re doomed to it.
I actually think this govt has improved this year, but from a very low base, but we are in 1975 not 1998 and the worst is yet to come.
Where Reform could really offer an alternative is with fiscal discipline. However they won’t as many of their supporters are social conservative but fiscally liberal.
Kemi is offering Milei style slashed spending alongside lower tax anyway, fiscal conservatives may as well stay Tory now
Is she ?
She’s spoken about means testing the triple lock, which is stupid and would be needlessly bureaucratic.
What Millei style spending cuts is she offering. What is she proposing to cut ?
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
They had 14 years in opposition and came to power appearing clueless
Soon as we can get rid of these duffers teh better, I would vote for anyone but them.
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
The problem I see it is that Starmer is built for a sort of managerial role when the country doesn’t need it. He might have been a decently average (or even average to good) PM conceivably, in 2015, or in the 1960s, or in the John Major role. He just isn’t the “cometh the hour” person.
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
Ah, yes, the "strong" leader. The "radical" leader. It's seductive I know to think all our problems could be dealt with by such an individual - we could vote them in and then they would lead us from the valley of the shadow to the sunlit uplands...
Blah, blah, blah - that's how authoritarianism starts. I'd rather our imperfect, bumbling democracy than a "strong" leader. The truth probably is we could solve a lot of our problems ourselves with some changes in our personal behaviour and within our communities - that would be really radical.
The problem with top-down solutions is they create bottom-up problems. Somebody suggested yesterday it was all the fault of "fatties" as he called them and said everyone who was overweight should be given free Mounjaro. Well, setting aside the economics, the practicalities and the legalities (but they aren't that individual's strong suit), Mounjaro isn't side effect free as I know from a friend who has used it.
The other consequence is if you have a significant portion (sorry) of the population on appetite suppressing drugs, what happens to the catering and hospitality industries? Do the non-"fatties" have to become "fatties" in order to keep every cafe and restaurant from my cafe in the Barking Road to the top three Michelin star eaterie going? Will we see Gordon Ramsey begging on the streets as his restaurant empire collapses from lack of demand?
The claim that radical change in a democracy is dictatorship or something is an old, old cry.
The problem is that, in many areas, the government is not doing much, if anything.
On health in the community - why not some trials? Pick an area. Vitality style rewards for health indicators. You wouldn’t need legislation for that.
£100 off income tax (or added to your UC or State Pension) if you have a healthy BMI or can run 5K in less than 30 minutes.
First, we know BMI isn't the be all and end all as a measure of health. Second, physical exercise tests - seriously? Third, £100 - a lot of people will see it as not worth the effort (make it £10,000 a year and you;d get more takers).
Tough. The NHS is going to collapse under the weight of the population and we already have the classic insurance issues of moral hazard and adverse selection.
Health inequality is enormous. We have a group of well paid, healthy and active people paying a huge amount of tax for a service they rarely use because it's been overwhelmed by the old and inactive.
That's completely unsustainable, a breach of the social contract. And this is coming from someone who is instinctively generous with government support for those who need it.
Big swing to the Tories there and with Reform and the LDs the main losers not Labour, perhaps a few Thatcherites coming home after Kemi's promise of Milei style spending cuts and looking to leave the ECHR?
Still makes me chuckle that the LDs are floundering whilst another 3rd party takes a massive lead.
Big swing to the Tories there and with Reform and the LDs the main losers not Labour, perhaps a few Thatcherites coming home after Kemi's promise of Milei style spending cuts and looking to leave the ECHR?
Nobody is paying any attention to Tory policy yet.
Would be funny though if this trend continues - and in six months we have the Conservatives leading Reform, with Labour well adrift in a rubber dinghy in the middle of the Channel....
In the range of outcomes this is relatively low, but I am now visualising a situation where Magic Grandpa splits the Labour vote and you get Reform largest party with Tories as the official opposition.
The realignment would be quite bizarre and probably make the parties move in all sorts of strange ideological directions.
Trump downgrades his discussion with Putin as "fact finding".
How long before he discovers the fact that Putin is a land-grabbing c*** who uses terror as his one and only tactic, destroying homes, hospitals, schools to get his way? And discovers that hundreds, thousands of innocent Ukrainians have died whilst Trump keeps cutting Vlad some more weeks and months of slack?
They should tell him he can build as many seaside resorts as he likes once they have their land back and he will have the missiles flowing by lunch time.
Have we done the illegal asylum seeking Scottish Scouts who set up their refugee community at the Scout Camp in Caerphilly and were targeted by locals ? It must have been the incomprehensible accents. Heaven help them if the next lot are from Birmingham or Newcastle.
(Note: Telegraph.)
Police have launched an investigation into online abuse after Welsh villagers mistook a group of Scouts for an influx of illegal immigrants.
The Newbridge residents confused the Scouts’ Scottish accents for asylum seekers after the party of more than 30 teenagers travelled to Wales for a summer camping trip.
Police were forced to address rumours after an online video claimed to show “immigrants” being moved into the camp and scout leaders were warned of the “racially aggravated incident targeting under-18s”.
A video circulated on Facebook with people posting abusive comments, alongside false claims that Gwent Police were guarding the area. Police confirmed some of the abuse online was now being investigated by officers.
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
Good morning
So true and so depressing
I have no idea how any of the parties provide a solution and that includes the Lib Dems and Greens
However, it is fair to say Starmer is not PM material and Reeves certainly is not COE material either, and with huge tax increases on the horizon I cannot see how labour recovers, and that is without Magic Grandpa and Sultana getting their act together
My granddaughter, fresh with her degree from Leeds, has applied for 60 jobs with no success and is now on UC
How the next government will cope is for discussion but I would be amazed if labour were part of it
It's all very well saying Starmer and Reeves aren't up to the job. (I don't think the vacancy for Labour leader in 2020 was about being a PM in waiting, but there you go.) The real question is twofold;
1 Is there anyone else on the political scene who would be doing better? Badenoch is worse. Farage is worse. If you think (as I do) that Sunak and Hunt spent their final year laying traps for their successors, they are worse.
2 If the Prime Ministers we have had in recent decades have all been horribly flawed, maybe the problem is the role and our expectations, not the people who have done it.
Laying traps? Citation required.
I'd swap back Sunak and Hunt in a heartbeat for what replaced them. They were dealt the shittiest hand of any post-war Government, but at least looked like they knew what needed doing.
You mean apart from the almost completely full prisons, 2024 pay negotiations hidden under the mattress, wing-and-a-prayer NI cuts, councils collapsing under social care, the Afghan refugee scandal...
Yes, a fair few of the problems that the incoming govt faced were caused by the last govt salting the ground.
However you’d think the incoming govt would know this, know these are the challenges and have a plan to tackle them as a priority and, quite frankly, they should have simply said ‘no plans’ when challenged on tax rises.
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
Good morning
So true and so depressing
I have no idea how any of the parties provide a solution and that includes the Lib Dems and Greens
However, it is fair to say Starmer is not PM material and Reeves certainly is not COE material either, and with huge tax increases on the horizon I cannot see how labour recovers, and that is without Magic Grandpa and Sultana getting their act together
My granddaughter, fresh with her degree from Leeds, has applied for 60 jobs with no success and is now on UC
How the next government will cope is for discussion but I would be amazed if labour were part of it
It's all very well saying Starmer and Reeves aren't up to the job. (I don't think the vacancy for Labour leader in 2020 was about being a PM in waiting, but there you go.) The real question is twofold;
1 Is there anyone else on the political scene who would be doing better? Badenoch is worse. Farage is worse. If you think (as I do) that Sunak and Hunt spent their final year laying traps for their successors, they are worse.
2 If the Prime Ministers we have had in recent decades have all been horribly flawed, maybe the problem is the role and our expectations, not the people who have done it.
Don't be stupid, it just shows we have thick parasites in politics who could not run a bath and get there due to the stupidity of the voting public. Bring out the tumbrils.
Big swing to the Tories there and with Reform and the LDs the main losers not Labour, perhaps a few Thatcherites coming home after Kemi's promise of Milei style spending cuts and looking to leave the ECHR?
Nobody is paying any attention to Tory policy yet.
Would be funny though if this trend continues - and in six months we have the Conservatives leading Reform, with Labour well adrift in a rubber dinghy in the middle of the Channel....
Staying on the pitch and trying to limit the damage in Wales/Scotland and try and find a win or two in London (Barnet or Westminster most likely) are the onky games in town for the blues right now. Throw everything at 6 Holyrood seats and keep their fingers crossed for the list, try and get as near to 15% as possible in Wales (and therefore as close to 15 or so seats as possible) and hope nobody notices them losing councils and councillors or notices them losing fewer than this year. Policy can wait till conference 2027 and beyond Would be my advice if they asked
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
"The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution" - Intercept them militarily and return them to their point of departure in cheap disposable boats. It really isn't rocket science.
"At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy" - I'm rereading Steve Richards's "Turning Points" and he points out that the 70's Prime Ministers - Heath, Wilson, Callaghan - all struggled with the problems of the time and were eventually replaced with Thatcher who implemented solutions. Government cannot throw up its hands and go "well, it's all really difficult". If they don't fix things they are eventually replaced by those who do.
"You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction." - Indeed. "East answers" are glib and populist but they are also answers. If the progressive left cannot provide answers, the public will choose the populist right ones, regardless of plausibility.
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
They had 14 years in opposition and came to power appearing clueless
And their predecessors, with all the advantages of government, left power even more clueless.
Anne is quite right to suggest that all our politicians seem far more interested in power than they do in policy.
The only question that should worry Labour is the final one '65% of Britons are unclear what they stand for'. Selling a pig in a poke is notoriously difficult. This is really the fault of Starmer himself. He's made some crass decisions when looking like he was aping Farage then some even worse ones with Trump.
He needs to find a path and stick to it. Getting close to the EU is a good start and reminding himself that he was a distinguished human rights lawyer would be a good follow up. Despite what the media might have us believe the public respect politicians with firm and decent principles even if they don't necessarily share them themselves.
The cost of sending children to private school will almost double after the introduction of VAT on fees, analysis suggests.
The parents of a privately educated child leaving school this year after A-levels are likely to have spent an average of £204,622 on fees, according to Weatherbys Private Bank. The cost of putting a child of the same age through boarding school is estimated to have been £413,471. However, costs vary widely with the Good Schools Guide putting the highest annual fees at £75,000.
Weatherbys says that for a child starting in reception at a private school this September the cost could ultimately reach £377,000 — £763,000 if they were boarding. This assumed annual inflation of 3 per cent, which accounts for two thirds of the increase, with VAT responsible for the rest.
Last September private schools put up fees by an average 6.7 per cent. When 20 per cent VAT was imposed in January, many schools initially cut fees by 5 per cent to cushion parents from the immediate impact, but overall, the average fee rose by about 22 per cent.
OTOH, spending per pupil in the state secondary sector - which nearly everyone uses including my family - is about £7500 per pupil. The private sector could, if it wanted, still have enormous 'advantages' (as they see it) over us oiks at much lower cost than they charge.
And, BTW, the idea that private schools, except those that have admission policies that take no regard of ability to pay, should be charities has always been nonsense.
No, it hasnt. Education is a core charitable objective that's widely recognised by the charities commission, and has been for centuries, and the charity schools make no profit and enrich no shareholders.
Yes, they have to charge a fee - which prices many people out, because employing people and running a school isn't free - but that doesn't mean they're no longer charitable.
Big swing to the Tories there and with Reform and the LDs the main losers not Labour, perhaps a few Thatcherites coming home after Kemi's promise of Milei style spending cuts and looking to leave the ECHR?
More likely the last poll was at the bottom of the MoE and this one is at the top but the Tories are on about 20% in both.
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
Good morning
So true and so depressing
I have no idea how any of the parties provide a solution and that includes the Lib Dems and Greens
However, it is fair to say Starmer is not PM material and Reeves certainly is not COE material either, and with huge tax increases on the horizon I cannot see how labour recovers, and that is without Magic Grandpa and Sultana getting their act together
My granddaughter, fresh with her degree from Leeds, has applied for 60 jobs with no success and is now on UC
How the next government will cope is for discussion but I would be amazed if labour were part of it
It's all very well saying Starmer and Reeves aren't up to the job. (I don't think the vacancy for Labour leader in 2020 was about being a PM in waiting, but there you go.) The real question is twofold;
1 Is there anyone else on the political scene who would be doing better? Badenoch is worse. Farage is worse. If you think (as I do) that Sunak and Hunt spent their final year laying traps for their successors, they are worse.
2 If the Prime Ministers we have had in recent decades have all been horribly flawed, maybe the problem is the role and our expectations, not the people who have done it.
Laying traps? Citation required.
I'd swap back Sunak and Hunt in a heartbeat for what replaced them. They were dealt the shittiest hand of any post-war Government, but at least looked like they knew what needed doing.
You mean apart from the almost completely full prisons, 2024 pay negotiations hidden under the mattress, wing-and-a-prayer NI cuts, councils collapsing under social care, the Afghan refugee scandal...
Yes, a fair few of the problems that the incoming govt faced were caused by the last govt salting the ground.
However you’d think the incoming govt would know this, know these are the challenges and have a plan to tackle them as a priority and, quite frankly, they should have simply said ‘no plans’ when challenged on tax rises.
Labour are offering nothing. The Tories at least ran the economy well, Labour have run it into the ground in a year and we've got four left.
Big swing to the Tories there and with Reform and the LDs the main losers not Labour, perhaps a few Thatcherites coming home after Kemi's promise of Milei style spending cuts and looking to leave the ECHR?
More likely the last poll was at the bottom of the MoE and this one is at the top but the Tories are on about 20% in both.
Very much so, the Tory average with MiC since the LEs is 20 and in the 18 to 22 range bracket. Breaking out of that either way would be more interesting
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
The problem I see it is that Starmer is built for a sort of managerial role when the country doesn’t need it. He might have been a decently average (or even average to good) PM conceivably, in 2015, or in the 1960s, or in the John Major role. He just isn’t the “cometh the hour” person.
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
Ah, yes, the "strong" leader. The "radical" leader. It's seductive I know to think all our problems could be dealt with by such an individual - we could vote them in and then they would lead us from the valley of the shadow to the sunlit uplands...
Blah, blah, blah - that's how authoritarianism starts. I'd rather our imperfect, bumbling democracy than a "strong" leader. The truth probably is we could solve a lot of our problems ourselves with some changes in our personal behaviour and within our communities - that would be really radical.
The problem with top-down solutions is they create bottom-up problems. Somebody suggested yesterday it was all the fault of "fatties" as he called them and said everyone who was overweight should be given free Mounjaro. Well, setting aside the economics, the practicalities and the legalities (but they aren't that individual's strong suit), Mounjaro isn't side effect free as I know from a friend who has used it.
The other consequence is if you have a significant portion (sorry) of the population on appetite suppressing drugs, what happens to the catering and hospitality industries? Do the non-"fatties" have to become "fatties" in order to keep every cafe and restaurant from my cafe in the Barking Road to the top three Michelin star eaterie going? Will we see Gordon Ramsey begging on the streets as his restaurant empire collapses from lack of demand?
An odd take. We have had plenty of strong leaders in the past, and this hasn’t led to a dictatorship. Is the fact that someone has a vision and a purpose so wrong? I think our system is showing exactly what happens when you get weak and ineffective leadership for too long. Every system needs periods of change and renewal, to combat inertia and stagnation.
VAT on schools: 1) It will cost the state more money than it raises 2) Most people don't care because they see this as fair 3) Schools are using VAT to cover all number of things
I can understand the frustration of parents affected - it is unfair. Then again there are so many things which are egregiously unfair and this isn't anywhere near the top of the unfairness chart. Carers losing their entire allowance for going £1 over the earnings cap? More unfair. And there's stacks of examples of things done by merciless ministers to make the lives of the poor and sick practically unliveable which are more unfair.
This explains point 2 above.
Process State meets populist policy.
Sure! But for many of the people in point 2, they here the people complaining and consider that they largely are the people who support all of the egregious merciless stuff which hurts people at an existential level.
Sam Freedman (yes I know) was good on that in his piece on the anti-VAT campaign;
The TLDR is that campaigns against government policy work best when you have a back channel negotiation to come up with a mutually-acceptable deal. The Independent Schools Council went straight for berating the policy in the press, and only that, which was never going to work.
Yes, VAT on school fees is another version of "Do it to Julia"; accept that there needs to be pain to balance the books, but that pain should be experienced by other people. A lot of the anger was because people used to getting their way didn't.
(And whilst there will be some blowback from this policy, it will need a massive exodus to be a net negative for the government. There is no sign of that right now. In large part because British private schools are mostly fishing in the global elite market, which isn't very price-sensitive. Hard on those who have gone from just about affording school fees to not affording them, but they're a minority of a minority.)
Is that true? Would like to see some figures to back that up. My gut is that it’s true for the Public Schools and the London private schools but the vast majority of private schools aren’t them, they are private schools in towns and cities with good local reputations attracting the children of local professionals or they are the only alternative to failing state schools in an area where people decide to make a financial sacrifice to pay for their childrens’ education.
These are the schools that will suffer - the public schools with international or national reputation and big endowments alongside the London private day schools with a big global wealthy community to fill places who would never dream of sending their children off to board will largely be fine.
Excluding international schools, about 5% of private school pupils are non-British with parents living abroad. The largest group are from China (both mainland and Hong Kong).
Another 5% are non-British but with parents who live in Britain.
So British private schools really are not fishing in the global elite market and so are sensitive to price moves and not damaging a minority of a minority.
No they’re not. But government thinks that every private school is just like Eton.
Even Eton is only about 15% overseas students. I sometimes teach postgrad classes which are 100% overseas students.
Well, the immigration clampdown on student visas should fix that for you.
I'm sure there'll still be a strong domestic market for your teaching services.
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
Good morning
So true and so depressing
I have no idea how any of the parties provide a solution and that includes the Lib Dems and Greens
However, it is fair to say Starmer is not PM material and Reeves certainly is not COE material either, and with huge tax increases on the horizon I cannot see how labour recovers, and that is without Magic Grandpa and Sultana getting their act together
My granddaughter, fresh with her degree from Leeds, has applied for 60 jobs with no success and is now on UC
How the next government will cope is for discussion but I would be amazed if labour were part of it
It's all very well saying Starmer and Reeves aren't up to the job. (I don't think the vacancy for Labour leader in 2020 was about being a PM in waiting, but there you go.) The real question is twofold;
1 Is there anyone else on the political scene who would be doing better? Badenoch is worse. Farage is worse. If you think (as I do) that Sunak and Hunt spent their final year laying traps for their successors, they are worse.
2 If the Prime Ministers we have had in recent decades have all been horribly flawed, maybe the problem is the role and our expectations, not the people who have done it.
Laying traps? Citation required.
I'd swap back Sunak and Hunt in a heartbeat for what replaced them. They were dealt the shittiest hand of any post-war Government, but at least looked like they knew what needed doing.
You mean apart from the almost completely full prisons, 2024 pay negotiations hidden under the mattress, wing-and-a-prayer NI cuts, councils collapsing under social care, the Afghan refugee scandal...
Yes, a fair few of the problems that the incoming govt faced were caused by the last govt salting the ground.
However you’d think the incoming govt would know this, know these are the challenges and have a plan to tackle them as a priority and, quite frankly, they should have simply said ‘no plans’ when challenged on tax rises.
Labour are offering nothing.
They’re offering tax increases, increases in the cost and bureaucracy of employing people and economic contraction.
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
Good morning
So true and so depressing
I have no idea how any of the parties provide a solution and that includes the Lib Dems and Greens
However, it is fair to say Starmer is not PM material and Reeves certainly is not COE material either, and with huge tax increases on the horizon I cannot see how labour recovers, and that is without Magic Grandpa and Sultana getting their act together
My granddaughter, fresh with her degree from Leeds, has applied for 60 jobs with no success and is now on UC
How the next government will cope is for discussion but I would be amazed if labour were part of it
It's all very well saying Starmer and Reeves aren't up to the job. (I don't think the vacancy for Labour leader in 2020 was about being a PM in waiting, but there you go.) The real question is twofold;
1 Is there anyone else on the political scene who would be doing better? Badenoch is worse. Farage is worse. If you think (as I do) that Sunak and Hunt spent their final year laying traps for their successors, they are worse.
2 If the Prime Ministers we have had in recent decades have all been horribly flawed, maybe the problem is the role and our expectations, not the people who have done it.
Laying traps? Citation required.
I'd swap back Sunak and Hunt in a heartbeat for what replaced them. They were dealt the shittiest hand of any post-war Government, but at least looked like they knew what needed doing.
You mean apart from the almost completely full prisons, 2024 pay negotiations hidden under the mattress, wing-and-a-prayer NI cuts, councils collapsing under social care, the Afghan refugee scandal...
Yes, a fair few of the problems that the incoming govt faced were caused by the last govt salting the ground.
However you’d think the incoming govt would know this, know these are the challenges and have a plan to tackle them as a priority and, quite frankly, they should have simply said ‘no plans’ when challenged on tax rises.
Labour are offering nothing.
They’re offering tax increases, increases in the cost and bureaucracy of employing people and economic contraction.
Admittedly it’s not a great offer but it’s theirs
Strikes me that this govt may be the last hurrah for Unions and bureaucracy.
Whether it is through IMF stipulations or or a future effective government, just can't see vested interests getting more influence....
I don’t think I’ve seen such relentless bad press for any other government. Of course not helped by the right wing media deciding that a lot of the problems caused mainly by the Tories is now to be owned by Labour alone . It’s pretty clear that had the Tories duped enough voters the country would still be in a mess .
Labour's problem is that, while it's entirely fair to blame the previous government for our present mess, they appear barely to have started thinking about how to address it.
The country's problem is that it's very far from clear that anyone other party has, either.
Good morning
So true and so depressing
I have no idea how any of the parties provide a solution and that includes the Lib Dems and Greens
However, it is fair to say Starmer is not PM material and Reeves certainly is not COE material either, and with huge tax increases on the horizon I cannot see how labour recovers, and that is without Magic Grandpa and Sultana getting their act together
My granddaughter, fresh with her degree from Leeds, has applied for 60 jobs with no success and is now on UC
How the next government will cope is for discussion but I would be amazed if labour were part of it
It's all very well saying Starmer and Reeves aren't up to the job. (I don't think the vacancy for Labour leader in 2020 was about being a PM in waiting, but there you go.) The real question is twofold;
1 Is there anyone else on the political scene who would be doing better? Badenoch is worse. Farage is worse. If you think (as I do) that Sunak and Hunt spent their final year laying traps for their successors, they are worse.
2 If the Prime Ministers we have had in recent decades have all been horribly flawed, maybe the problem is the role and our expectations, not the people who have done it.
I repeat Starmer and Reeves are not upto the job and that is obvious by the poll ratings
Now who is is a separate question, but not an excuse to give Starmer and Reeves aa pass by suggesting everyone else is worse
I doubt Rayner is up to it too and she’s the favourite to replace him if he goes
Although favourites in next leader markets often fail to succeed.
Up to the point that they become certain.
Leader markets are all about timing.
I think Rayner is good value. She ticks many of the boxes that Starmer does not (colourful, good campaigner, tickles the right Labour erogenous zones, female) and is Deputy Leader. She is the only real coronation possibility, and an open contest may well go her way too. It is very unlikely to go Streetings way.
Sure, it's a bit of a hospital pass, but she always seems up for a scrap, and has a great deal of political cunning.
she is fecking useless, a windbag at best. Only good point is she could not be as bad as Cooper or Starmer for that matter.
The only question that should worry Labour is the final one '65% of Britons are unclear what they stand for'. Selling a pig in a poke is notoriously difficult. This is really the fault of Starmer himself. He's made some crass decisions when looking like he was aping Farage then some even worse ones with Trump.
He needs to find a path and stick to it. Getting close to the EU is a good start and reminding himself that he was a distinguished human rights lawyer would be a good follow up. Despite what the media might have us believe the public respect politicians with firm and decent principles even if they don't necessarily share them themselves.
'He needs to find a path and stick to it. Getting close to the EU is a good start and reminding himself that he was a distinguished human rights lawyer would be a good follow up. Despite what the media might have us believe the public respect politicians with firm and decent principles even if they don't necessarily share them themselves.'
I have no idea who you have in mind but that description is many miles away from Starmer !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Interesting set of numbers. Individually, I'm not sure they mean all that much (does anyone actually give much real consideration to "key metrics" ?); it's simply that around two thirds of the country really don't like this government.
Without significant economic progress, that is not going to change. Stagnation plus higher taxes certainly won't do it.
Given the current govt is looking to tax their way out of the mess we are in we’re doomed to it.
I actually think this govt has improved this year, but from a very low base, but we are in 1975 not 1998 and the worst is yet to come.
Where Reform could really offer an alternative is with fiscal discipline. However they won’t as many of their supporters are social conservative but fiscally liberal.
Kemi is offering Milei style slashed spending alongside lower tax anyway, fiscal conservatives may as well stay Tory now
Is she ?
She’s spoken about means testing the triple lock, which is stupid and would be needlessly bureaucratic.
What Millei style spending cuts is she offering. What is she proposing to cut ?
VAT on schools: 1) It will cost the state more money than it raises 2) Most people don't care because they see this as fair 3) Schools are using VAT to cover all number of things
I can understand the frustration of parents affected - it is unfair. Then again there are so many things which are egregiously unfair and this isn't anywhere near the top of the unfairness chart. Carers losing their entire allowance for going £1 over the earnings cap? More unfair. And there's stacks of examples of things done by merciless ministers to make the lives of the poor and sick practically unliveable which are more unfair.
This explains point 2 above.
Process State meets populist policy.
Sure! But for many of the people in point 2, they here the people complaining and consider that they largely are the people who support all of the egregious merciless stuff which hurts people at an existential level.
Sam Freedman (yes I know) was good on that in his piece on the anti-VAT campaign;
The TLDR is that campaigns against government policy work best when you have a back channel negotiation to come up with a mutually-acceptable deal. The Independent Schools Council went straight for berating the policy in the press, and only that, which was never going to work.
Yes, VAT on school fees is another version of "Do it to Julia"; accept that there needs to be pain to balance the books, but that pain should be experienced by other people. A lot of the anger was because people used to getting their way didn't.
(And whilst there will be some blowback from this policy, it will need a massive exodus to be a net negative for the government. There is no sign of that right now. In large part because British private schools are mostly fishing in the global elite market, which isn't very price-sensitive. Hard on those who have gone from just about affording school fees to not affording them, but they're a minority of a minority.)
Is that true? Would like to see some figures to back that up. My gut is that it’s true for the Public Schools and the London private schools but the vast majority of private schools aren’t them, they are private schools in towns and cities with good local reputations attracting the children of local professionals or they are the only alternative to failing state schools in an area where people decide to make a financial sacrifice to pay for their childrens’ education.
These are the schools that will suffer - the public schools with international or national reputation and big endowments alongside the London private day schools with a big global wealthy community to fill places who would never dream of sending their children off to board will largely be fine.
Excluding international schools, about 5% of private school pupils are non-British with parents living abroad. The largest group are from China (both mainland and Hong Kong).
Another 5% are non-British but with parents who live in Britain.
My old school's proudest boast was that it had students from 70 different countries. It really is a terrible reflection on us all that we have allowed that slimy toad Farage to corrupt us into seeing foreigners as people to be feared
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
The problem I see it is that Starmer is built for a sort of managerial role when the country doesn’t need it. He might have been a decently average (or even average to good) PM conceivably, in 2015, or in the 1960s, or in the John Major role. He just isn’t the “cometh the hour” person.
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
Ah, yes, the "strong" leader. The "radical" leader. It's seductive I know to think all our problems could be dealt with by such an individual - we could vote them in and then they would lead us from the valley of the shadow to the sunlit uplands...
Blah, blah, blah - that's how authoritarianism starts. I'd rather our imperfect, bumbling democracy than a "strong" leader. The truth probably is we could solve a lot of our problems ourselves with some changes in our personal behaviour and within our communities - that would be really radical.
The problem with top-down solutions is they create bottom-up problems. Somebody suggested yesterday it was all the fault of "fatties" as he called them and said everyone who was overweight should be given free Mounjaro. Well, setting aside the economics, the practicalities and the legalities (but they aren't that individual's strong suit), Mounjaro isn't side effect free as I know from a friend who has used it.
The other consequence is if you have a significant portion (sorry) of the population on appetite suppressing drugs, what happens to the catering and hospitality industries? Do the non-"fatties" have to become "fatties" in order to keep every cafe and restaurant from my cafe in the Barking Road to the top three Michelin star eaterie going? Will we see Gordon Ramsey begging on the streets as his restaurant empire collapses from lack of demand?
The claim that radical change in a democracy is dictatorship or something is an old, old cry.
The problem is that, in many areas, the government is not doing much, if anything.
On health in the community - why not some trials? Pick an area. Vitality style rewards for health indicators. You wouldn’t need legislation for that.
£100 off income tax (or added to your UC or State Pension) if you have a healthy BMI or can run 5K in less than 30 minutes.
Financial incentives are known to work to change health behaviours, but they may not be the most cost effective way of doing so.
If you just did healthy BMI figures (as I couldn't find figures for the 5k requirement), you're looking at ~£2.4 billion being handed out. More complicated would be how you would check eligibility!
Need to get real BMI data as well rather than the made up bullshit scale. Same with their pathetic alcohol units mince. Fecking killjoy arseholes who want everyone to pay all their wages in tax and be miserable barstewards eating lettuce and drinking water.
Interesting set of numbers. Individually, I'm not sure they mean all that much (does anyone actually give much real consideration to "key metrics" ?); it's simply that around two thirds of the country really don't like this government.
Without significant economic progress, that is not going to change. Stagnation plus higher taxes certainly won't do it.
Given the current govt is looking to tax their way out of the mess we are in we’re doomed to it.
I actually think this govt has improved this year, but from a very low base, but we are in 1975 not 1998 and the worst is yet to come.
Where Reform could really offer an alternative is with fiscal discipline. However they won’t as many of their supporters are social conservative but fiscally liberal.
Kemi is offering Milei style slashed spending alongside lower tax anyway, fiscal conservatives may as well stay Tory now
Is she ?
She’s spoken about means testing the triple lock, which is stupid and would be needlessly bureaucratic.
What Millei style spending cuts is she offering. What is she proposing to cut ?
And not giving the doctors and the train drivers those increases would hardly make a dent in the black hole.
As for the Guardian article there is no substance just a name check of Millei.
As the Starmer reforms did not go far enough
Surely partial implementation is better than none. You can always go further when I'm power. And would have embarrassed the government by getting its policy implemented with Tory support
Interesting set of numbers. Individually, I'm not sure they mean all that much (does anyone actually give much real consideration to "key metrics" ?); it's simply that around two thirds of the country really don't like this government.
Without significant economic progress, that is not going to change. Stagnation plus higher taxes certainly won't do it.
Given the current govt is looking to tax their way out of the mess we are in we’re doomed to it.
I actually think this govt has improved this year, but from a very low base, but we are in 1975 not 1998 and the worst is yet to come.
Where Reform could really offer an alternative is with fiscal discipline. However they won’t as many of their supporters are social conservative but fiscally liberal.
Kemi is offering Milei style slashed spending alongside lower tax anyway, fiscal conservatives may as well stay Tory now
Is she ?
She’s spoken about means testing the triple lock, which is stupid and would be needlessly bureaucratic.
What Millei style spending cuts is she offering. What is she proposing to cut ?
VAT on schools: 1) It will cost the state more money than it raises 2) Most people don't care because they see this as fair 3) Schools are using VAT to cover all number of things
I can understand the frustration of parents affected - it is unfair. Then again there are so many things which are egregiously unfair and this isn't anywhere near the top of the unfairness chart. Carers losing their entire allowance for going £1 over the earnings cap? More unfair. And there's stacks of examples of things done by merciless ministers to make the lives of the poor and sick practically unliveable which are more unfair.
This explains point 2 above.
Process State meets populist policy.
Sure! But for many of the people in point 2, they here the people complaining and consider that they largely are the people who support all of the egregious merciless stuff which hurts people at an existential level.
Sam Freedman (yes I know) was good on that in his piece on the anti-VAT campaign;
The TLDR is that campaigns against government policy work best when you have a back channel negotiation to come up with a mutually-acceptable deal. The Independent Schools Council went straight for berating the policy in the press, and only that, which was never going to work.
Yes, VAT on school fees is another version of "Do it to Julia"; accept that there needs to be pain to balance the books, but that pain should be experienced by other people. A lot of the anger was because people used to getting their way didn't.
(And whilst there will be some blowback from this policy, it will need a massive exodus to be a net negative for the government. There is no sign of that right now. In large part because British private schools are mostly fishing in the global elite market, which isn't very price-sensitive. Hard on those who have gone from just about affording school fees to not affording them, but they're a minority of a minority.)
Is that true? Would like to see some figures to back that up. My gut is that it’s true for the Public Schools and the London private schools but the vast majority of private schools aren’t them, they are private schools in towns and cities with good local reputations attracting the children of local professionals or they are the only alternative to failing state schools in an area where people decide to make a financial sacrifice to pay for their childrens’ education.
These are the schools that will suffer - the public schools with international or national reputation and big endowments alongside the London private day schools with a big global wealthy community to fill places who would never dream of sending their children off to board will largely be fine.
Excluding international schools, about 5% of private school pupils are non-British with parents living abroad. The largest group are from China (both mainland and Hong Kong).
Another 5% are non-British but with parents who live in Britain.
My old school's proudest boast was that it had students from 70 different countries. It really is a terrible reflection on us all that we have allowed that slimy toad Farage to corrupt us into seeing foreigners as people to be feared
We travelled home from York yesterday and an Indian family were in the seats in front
They consisted of a father and mother, three children aged 8, 4 and a babe in arms, and his 2 sisters
As we approached Colwyn Bay he came next to us to take photos of the lovely coast and I spoke to him and he said he was a taxi driver in Manchester and hadn't been to Llandudno. He was using the train as his taxi was limited to 5
I said he should really enjoy our home town and pointed out lots of things he could do with his family
They were impeccably dressed and polite and each tooks turns to look after the baby
The vast majority welcome everyone to our Country, but it is also something the left seem to overlook that like our wonderful Indian family the vast majority contribute enormousy, but it is not helping to suggest that anyone who objects to the boats, asylum hotels, and some crimes comitted by those arriving to our shores are rascists
The only way to assauge Farage is to stop the boats, control immigation and deal firmly with those committing crimes
Yes, poor numbers for Labour but I think we know if any other party were in Government at this time their numbers would be as bad if not worse.
It's often said some elections are "bad ones to win" - 1992 being a good example - but 2024 would be right up there it seems. I'll be honest (and this seems a peculiarly London-centric view) - I don't think Starmer is doing too badly. At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy - as has been said, there were probably only three really radical Governments in the 20th century - Asquith, Attlee and Thatcher.
In a globally interconnected world, doing something radical isn't easy and even within Britain one decision impacts on others. Cuts in public spending on the scale some here would seem to want don't end at the balance sheet - they would impact real people in their daily lives, perhaps not the individuals and their families urging the deep cuts but nonetheless.
Government is difficult especially at a time of weak economic growth - however you try to slice the cake someone complains about their share or lack of it. I do agree some of the initial ideas of the new Government were implemented in a hamfisted way - removing Winter Fuel Allowance from higher rate taxpayers while retaining it for those on basic rate would probably have been sellable. The "boats" defy all attempts at a solution for now though I suspect autumn and winter will slow things down a bit.
Cutting Peter's benefits to ensure Paul pays less tax isn't the answer and nor is raising Paul's taxes so Peter can keep all his benefits so it becomes dancing on a pinhead in terms of what you can and can't do.
It also becomes easier to look for scapegoats - blame the migrants, blame the scroungers, blame those with mental and physical challenges, blame those with long Covid, blame the last Government, blame this Government etc.
You can see the attraction of masterly inactivity and the destiny of the poor can as it gets propelled once more down the road. You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction.
The problem I see it is that Starmer is built for a sort of managerial role when the country doesn’t need it. He might have been a decently average (or even average to good) PM conceivably, in 2015, or in the 1960s, or in the John Major role. He just isn’t the “cometh the hour” person.
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
Ah, yes, the "strong" leader. The "radical" leader. It's seductive I know to think all our problems could be dealt with by such an individual - we could vote them in and then they would lead us from the valley of the shadow to the sunlit uplands...
Blah, blah, blah - that's how authoritarianism starts. I'd rather our imperfect, bumbling democracy than a "strong" leader. The truth probably is we could solve a lot of our problems ourselves with some changes in our personal behaviour and within our communities - that would be really radical.
The problem with top-down solutions is they create bottom-up problems. Somebody suggested yesterday it was all the fault of "fatties" as he called them and said everyone who was overweight should be given free Mounjaro. Well, setting aside the economics, the practicalities and the legalities (but they aren't that individual's strong suit), Mounjaro isn't side effect free as I know from a friend who has used it.
The other consequence is if you have a significant portion (sorry) of the population on appetite suppressing drugs, what happens to the catering and hospitality industries? Do the non-"fatties" have to become "fatties" in order to keep every cafe and restaurant from my cafe in the Barking Road to the top three Michelin star eaterie going? Will we see Gordon Ramsey begging on the streets as his restaurant empire collapses from lack of demand?
The claim that radical change in a democracy is dictatorship or something is an old, old cry.
The problem is that, in many areas, the government is not doing much, if anything.
On health in the community - why not some trials? Pick an area. Vitality style rewards for health indicators. You wouldn’t need legislation for that.
£100 off income tax (or added to your UC or State Pension) if you have a healthy BMI or can run 5K in less than 30 minutes.
First, we know BMI isn't the be all and end all as a measure of health. Second, physical exercise tests - seriously? Third, £100 - a lot of people will see it as not worth the effort (make it £10,000 a year and you;d get more takers).
Tough. The NHS is going to collapse under the weight of the population and we already have the classic insurance issues of moral hazard and adverse selection.
Health inequality is enormous. We have a group of well paid, healthy and active people paying a huge amount of tax for a service they rarely use because it's been overwhelmed by the old and inactive.
That's completely unsustainable, a breach of the social contract. And this is coming from someone who is instinctively generous with government support for those who need it.
Most of the redistribution done by the NHS is over time. If you're healthy and active, you are paying for your future care more than you are paying for inactive others'. Even if you eat well and do lots of physical activity, you're going to die at some point and most of the average person's health costs are at the end of life.
Now, that doesn't argue against the importance of health promotion. Health promotion is very cost effective. We should be doing more to encourage physical activity and healthy diets. What's the best way of doing that? Giving people £100 for being fit, or spending £4 billion on council gyms and good quality health promotion apps?
RIP and commiserations to his wife who is also an MS. Latest polling modelled suggests a split in Blaenau/Caerphilly the joint seat Ref 30 PC 28 Lab 23 Con 8 Grn 6 LD 5
The projected Caerphilly Westminster seat is Ref 30 PC 30 Lab 20 Con 8 LD 6 Grn 6
Note the Caerphilly 2021 seat this will be fought on is slightly smaller than the 2024 Westminster seat and the 2026 Senedd half seat
VAT on schools: 1) It will cost the state more money than it raises 2) Most people don't care because they see this as fair 3) Schools are using VAT to cover all number of things
I can understand the frustration of parents affected - it is unfair. Then again there are so many things which are egregiously unfair and this isn't anywhere near the top of the unfairness chart. Carers losing their entire allowance for going £1 over the earnings cap? More unfair. And there's stacks of examples of things done by merciless ministers to make the lives of the poor and sick practically unliveable which are more unfair.
This explains point 2 above.
Process State meets populist policy.
Sure! But for many of the people in point 2, they here the people complaining and consider that they largely are the people who support all of the egregious merciless stuff which hurts people at an existential level.
Sam Freedman (yes I know) was good on that in his piece on the anti-VAT campaign;
The TLDR is that campaigns against government policy work best when you have a back channel negotiation to come up with a mutually-acceptable deal. The Independent Schools Council went straight for berating the policy in the press, and only that, which was never going to work.
Yes, VAT on school fees is another version of "Do it to Julia"; accept that there needs to be pain to balance the books, but that pain should be experienced by other people. A lot of the anger was because people used to getting their way didn't.
(And whilst there will be some blowback from this policy, it will need a massive exodus to be a net negative for the government. There is no sign of that right now. In large part because British private schools are mostly fishing in the global elite market, which isn't very price-sensitive. Hard on those who have gone from just about affording school fees to not affording them, but they're a minority of a minority.)
Is that true? Would like to see some figures to back that up. My gut is that it’s true for the Public Schools and the London private schools but the vast majority of private schools aren’t them, they are private schools in towns and cities with good local reputations attracting the children of local professionals or they are the only alternative to failing state schools in an area where people decide to make a financial sacrifice to pay for their childrens’ education.
These are the schools that will suffer - the public schools with international or national reputation and big endowments alongside the London private day schools with a big global wealthy community to fill places who would never dream of sending their children off to board will largely be fine.
Excluding international schools, about 5% of private school pupils are non-British with parents living abroad. The largest group are from China (both mainland and Hong Kong).
Another 5% are non-British but with parents who live in Britain.
My old school's proudest boast was that it had students from 70 different countries. It really is a terrible reflection on us all that we have allowed that slimy toad Farage to corrupt us into seeing foreigners as people to be feared
We travelled home from York yesterday and an Indian family were in the seats in front
They consisted of a father and mother, three children aged 8, 4 and a babe in arms, and his 2 sisters
As we approached Colwyn Bay he came next to us to take photos of the lovely coast and I spoke to him and he said he was a taxi driver in Manchester and hadn't been to Llandudno. He was using the train as his taxi was limited to 5
I said he should really enjoy our home town and pointed out lots of things he could do with his family
They were impeccably dressed and polite and each tooks turns to look after the baby
The vast majority welcome everyone to our Country, but it is also something the left seem to overlook that like our wonderful Indian family the vast majority contribute enormousy, but it is not helping to suggest that anyone who objects to the boats, asylum hotels, and some crimes comitted by those arriving to our shores are rascists
The only way to assauge Farage is to stop the boats, control immigation and deal firmly with those committing crimes
Since Starmer took office, total immigration is down a lot, deportations are up, and deportations of foreign criminals are up. However, boat numbers are up.
I would suggest that the problem is at least as much those on the radical right who object to all immigrants (or all Muslims, etc.). There are several regulars here who voice such views.
RIP and commiserations to his wife who is also an MS. Latest polling modelled suggests a split in Blaenau/Caerphilly the joint seat Ref 30 PC 28 Lab 23 Con 8 Grn 6 LD 5
The projected Caerphilly Westminster seat is Ref 30 PC 30 Lab 20 Con 8 LD 6 Grn 6
Note the Caerphilly 2021 seat this will be fought on is slightly smaller than the 2024 Westminster seat and the 2026 Senedd half seat
Probably the last ever devolved by-election in Wales. I don't think the new PR system allows for them.
Comments
For every other election in many, many decades, the party coming into power would be compared with the one they'd just beaten. Most still did unpleasant stuff, or made mistakes early on, and were often behind in the polls after 12-24 months - but they were still ultimately compared to the defeated party.
This time around Labour simply don't have any bonus at all for being the party of 'change'. In many ways they're not just suffering from their own mistakes, but with another, more obvious, 'change' party, they're seen as a continuation of everything the Tories did wrong too.
Leader markets are all about timing.
I think Rayner is good value. She ticks many of the boxes that Starmer does not (colourful, good campaigner, tickles the right Labour erogenous zones, female) and is Deputy Leader. She is the only real coronation possibility, and an open contest may well go her way too. It is very unlikely to go Streetings way.
Sure, it's a bit of a hospital pass, but she always seems up for a scrap, and has a great deal of political cunning.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/24/kemi-badenoch-argentinian-president-javier-milei-template-conservatives-tory-government
The Atlees, Thatchers, Asquiths of this world are rare but they’re precisely what we need right now - a purpose, a radical sense of mission, and a party firmly behind them. Farage play-acts as one of those people, but isnt the real deal.
Only Bucks and Tunbridge Wells are areas with grammar schools which are still expensive even by home counties standards
Starmer’s Twitter account comes across as being written by some AI policy bot.
It's got to the point where he's so easy to parody his staffers probably do it too.
Sadiq Khan decided to run for Mayor of London again because he didn't think Labour would get back to Government - he was wrong and that has destroyed him politically.
Starmer might have thought the enormous poll leads were a chimera - some on here did - and when it came to it, people would head for the blue rosette again but instead the election was won for Labour as much by those who stayed at home as by those who came out and voted against the Conservatives.
The trouble in the British system is, unlike other countries where you either have a designated interregnum or coalition building which can take some time, the new Government has to hit the ground (whether it does that running or otherwise depends).
That's not to exonerate Starmer who should have had at minimum a 90 day plan of action and of course eventualities like Southport which couldn't be foreseen have to be dealt with (and to be honest I thought after a faltering start the new Government did well). On that point, I note the pressure to reveal the ethnicity of those arrested in regard to serious offences - note ethnicity NOT immigration status. I can see the public order pressure to do this but it cannot compromise the right of either the presumption of innocence or the right to a fair trial.
Let's look at some other world leaders. Here's Viktor Orbán's most recent tweet:
Many European leaders cling to the fantasy that a prolonged war will bring regime change in Moscow. Instead of facing reality and negotiating, they demonise President Putin and block the only path to peace. Europe’s self-sabotage leaves us powerless while others decide our fate. Enough is enough!
Here's Georgia Meloni's:
Ritengo vergognoso che, pur di attaccare il Governo, certa opposizione diffonda notizie false, danneggiando l’immagine e gli interessi dell’Italia.
Negli ultimi giorni, tra le diverse uscite, anche la segretaria del PD Elly Schlein ha lasciato intendere che il turismo italiano fosse in crisi. Peccato che, poche ore dopo la sua uscita, i dati ufficiali del Viminale – tratti dalla banca dati ‘Alloggiati web’ della Polizia di Stato – abbiano certificato l’esatto contrario, con arrivi in crescita e milioni di visitatori nelle nostre strutture ricettive.
Alle mistificazioni e alle falsità costruite a tavolino rispondono i numeri e la verità.
Chi ama davvero la propria Nazione non la scredita davanti al mondo per convenienza politica.
Noi continueremo a lavorare per renderla ogni giorno più forte, attrattiva e orgogliosa di sé.
Twitter offers this translation:
I consider it shameful that, just to attack the Government, certain opposition members spread false news, damaging Italy's image and interests.
In recent days, among various statements, even the PD secretary Elly Schlein suggested that Italian tourism was in crisis. Too bad that, just a few hours after her statement, official data from the Viminale – drawn from the ‘Alloggiati web’ database of the State Police – certified the exact opposite, with growing arrivals and millions of visitors to our hospitality facilities.
Numbers and truth respond to fabrications and deliberately constructed falsehoods.
Those who truly love their Nation do not discredit it before the world for political convenience.
We will continue to work to make it stronger, more attractive, and prouder of itself every day.
If you want an inspiring, not crazy Tweeter, I suggest Emmanuel Macron. His last three tweets were in English, French and Armenian!
Unfortunately for her, Farage is a bull-shitter in a china shop, and is just seeking power doing whatever he thinks he needs to do. Hence we get the developing sequence of Farage reverse ferrets.
The issue as I see it is the same for both main parties, but more so for the cons because get are in opposition - their political positioning dominates too much their need to decide what they are and be themselves.
..Ms Westerhout was forced to resign from the White House in 2019 after leaking private information about his family...
Blah, blah, blah - that's how authoritarianism starts. I'd rather our imperfect, bumbling democracy than a "strong" leader. The truth probably is we could solve a lot of our problems ourselves with some changes in our personal behaviour and within our communities - that would be really radical.
The problem with top-down solutions is they create bottom-up problems. Somebody suggested yesterday it was all the fault of "fatties" as he called them and said everyone who was overweight should be given free Mounjaro. Well, setting aside the economics, the practicalities and the legalities (but they aren't that individual's strong suit), Mounjaro isn't side effect free as I know from a friend who has used it.
The other consequence is if you have a significant portion (sorry) of the population on appetite suppressing drugs, what happens to the catering and hospitality industries? Do the non-"fatties" have to become "fatties" in order to keep every cafe and restaurant from my cafe in the Barking Road to the top three Michelin star eaterie going? Will we see Gordon Ramsey begging on the streets as his restaurant empire collapses from lack of demand?
And that's before the soft power of Anglicising foreign elites.
Enjoyed delicious fish &chips 🍽️and room temperature local ale🍺at pub in Ditchling!! 😋https://visitditchling.co.uk 👍
https://x.com/AmbJapanUK/status/1955530166291386489
The problem is that, in many areas, the government is not doing much, if anything.
On health in the community - why not some trials? Pick an area. Vitality style rewards for health indicators. You wouldn’t need legislation for that.
Saw some thoughts on socials yesterday about Your Party and Wales/Scotland next year.
I think they stand a chance at getting some representation in Holyrood - 6% in a region might do it? But i think they will struggle in Wales - you need ca 10-12% to have a shot at seat 6 in any given pair (you might do it on 8.5% or so with a veey fortuitous spread). I think there just arent the votes in Wales unless Labour completely implode - Ref/PC look a lock for at least 50%, Labour probably high teens at worst, Tories 10-15% and LD/Grn 10-15% between them.
So London councils and Holyrood for Your Party progress.......
Ref 30 (-1)
Lab 22 (=)
Con 22 (+4)
LD 13 (-1)
Grn 6 (-1)
That said, her personal ratings with them are better now than the May post LE trough
Premier League to test Ref Cams on first weekend with view to permanent rollout
Clubs, Sky Sports and TNT Sports support innovation
Cameras can provide near-instant replays of incidents
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/aug/13/premier-league-to-test-ref-cams-permanent-rollout
Tommys lot should probably back YP, yeah
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25080147.tommy-sheridan-elected-alba-governing-body/
The problem in dealing with individuals is they are individuals - everyone is unique. You catch more flies with honey than with flypaper so you would need to incentivise the process.
You can no more force people to be healthy than you can force them to be tolerant.
If you just did healthy BMI figures (as I couldn't find figures for the 5k requirement), you're looking at ~£2.4 billion being handed out. More complicated would be how you would check eligibility!
It will be interesting to see inbound Japanese tourism figures next year, because he’s doing a great job of selling the UK.
(Note: Telegraph.)
Police have launched an investigation into online abuse after Welsh villagers mistook a group of Scouts for an influx of illegal immigrants.
The Newbridge residents confused the Scouts’ Scottish accents for asylum seekers after the party of more than 30 teenagers travelled to Wales for a summer camping trip.
Police were forced to address rumours after an online video claimed to show “immigrants” being moved into the camp and scout leaders were warned of the “racially aggravated incident targeting under-18s”.
A video circulated on Facebook with people posting abusive comments, alongside false claims that Gwent Police were guarding the area. Police confirmed some of the abuse online was now being investigated by officers.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/11/villagers-verbally-abuse-scouts-mistook-for-migrants/
Big problems include how public health responsibilities were handed over to councils, who have been hit the hardest by austerity. We also saw Public Health England broken up, with its partial successor UKHSA focusing on health threats like pandemics, leading health promotion to get less prominence by being within the DHSC (as OHID). There are lots of apps to promote healthier behaviours that work, but there is very little central commissioning of these in England and challenges around regulation.
https://www.ohe.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/OHE_Reimagining_Prevention_whitepaper-FINAL.pdf is a 2023 report discussing the matter. I quote:
The public health grant is allocated to local authorities for public health service delivery, including prevention. Since 2015/16 it has been cut by more than a quarter (26%) per person in real terms.
This February 2024 BMJ piece notes:
Last week, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) made big staff reductions at the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) as part of an internal restructuring. According to reports,1 this includes the loss of several senior and experienced officials—and some reports claim that OHID has been “decimated,” with up to 50% of the central workforce now cut.2 Concerns about these further reductions in England’s public health capacity post-covid have been expressed by sector leaders and by former health ministers James Bethell and Philip Hunt.2
Proscribe NIMBYs as a terror group
Now there for all to see.
Would be funny though if this trend continues - and in six months we have the Conservatives leading Reform, with Labour well adrift in a rubber dinghy in the middle of the Channel....
...then the likes of Sky News and the Daily Heil poke the wasps nests then retire and watch from a safe distance.
https://conservativehome.com/2025/07/01/why-the-tories-wont-be-voting-for-welfare-reform/
Pathetic.
And not giving the doctors and the train drivers those increases would hardly make a dent in the black hole.
As for the Guardian article there is no substance just a name check of Millei.
Health inequality is enormous. We have a group of well paid, healthy and active people paying a huge amount of tax for a service they rarely use because it's been overwhelmed by the old and inactive.
That's completely unsustainable, a breach of the social contract. And this is coming from someone who is instinctively generous with government support for those who need it.
The realignment would be quite bizarre and probably make the parties move in all sorts of strange ideological directions.
It's been in the Daily Mail since 1896.
However you’d think the incoming govt would know this, know these are the challenges and have a plan to tackle them as a priority and, quite frankly, they should have simply said ‘no plans’ when challenged on tax rises.
Policy can wait till conference 2027 and beyond
Would be my advice if they asked
- Intercept them militarily and return them to their point of departure in cheap disposable boats. It really isn't rocket science.
"At worst he's Continuity Sunak but big shifts in governance aren't easy"
- I'm rereading Steve Richards's "Turning Points" and he points out that the 70's Prime Ministers - Heath, Wilson, Callaghan - all struggled with the problems of the time and were eventually replaced with Thatcher who implemented solutions. Government cannot throw up its hands and go "well, it's all really difficult". If they don't fix things they are eventually replaced by those who do.
"You can also see why those peddling "easy answers" get traction."
- Indeed. "East answers" are glib and populist but they are also answers. If the progressive left cannot provide answers, the public will choose the populist right ones, regardless of plausibility.
He needs to find a path and stick to it. Getting close to the EU is a good start and reminding himself that he was a distinguished human rights lawyer would be a good follow up. Despite what the media might have us believe the public respect politicians with firm and decent principles even if they don't necessarily share them themselves.
Yes, they have to charge a fee - which prices many people out, because employing people and running a school isn't free - but that doesn't mean they're no longer charitable.
https://x.com/meidastouch/status/1955383262387621936?s=46&t=fJymV-V84rexmlQMLXHHJQ
I'm sure there'll still be a strong domestic market for your teaching services.
Admittedly it’s not a great offer but it’s theirs
Whether it is through IMF stipulations or or a future effective government, just can't see vested interests getting more influence....
I have no idea who you have in mind but that description is many miles away from Starmer !!!!!!!!!!!!!
https://www.millfieldschool.com/admissions/overseas
Imagine it'll be a Reform/Plaid Tussle.
BBC News - Welsh Labour politician dies suddenly
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq58j18w32no
Your lot will be out of power for a long time. Deservedly so.
They consisted of a father and mother, three children aged 8, 4 and a babe in arms, and his 2 sisters
As we approached Colwyn Bay he came next to us to take photos of the lovely coast and I spoke to him and he said he was a taxi driver in Manchester and hadn't been to Llandudno. He was using the train as his taxi was limited to 5
I said he should really enjoy our home town and pointed out lots of things he could do with his family
They were impeccably dressed and polite and each tooks turns to look after the baby
The vast majority welcome everyone to our Country, but it is also something the left seem to overlook that like our wonderful Indian family the vast majority contribute enormousy, but it is not helping to suggest that anyone who objects to the boats, asylum hotels, and some crimes comitted by those arriving to our shores are rascists
The only way to assauge Farage is to stop the boats, control immigation and deal firmly with those committing crimes
Now, that doesn't argue against the importance of health promotion. Health promotion is very cost effective. We should be doing more to encourage physical activity and healthy diets. What's the best way of doing that? Giving people £100 for being fit, or spending £4 billion on council gyms and good quality health promotion apps?
The cones hotline de nos jours.
Latest polling modelled suggests a split in Blaenau/Caerphilly the joint seat
Ref 30
PC 28
Lab 23
Con 8
Grn 6
LD 5
The projected Caerphilly Westminster seat is
Ref 30
PC 30
Lab 20
Con 8
LD 6
Grn 6
Note the Caerphilly 2021 seat this will be fought on is slightly smaller than the 2024 Westminster seat and the 2026 Senedd half seat
It’s like Cones Hotline - The Social Media Account.
I would suggest that the problem is at least as much those on the radical right who object to all immigrants (or all Muslims, etc.). There are several regulars here who voice such views.