I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Agree we are not quite at peak Reform. As to Kinabalu's blinding flash, a couple of points, though I have no idea what will happen.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
How the 45-50% right wing vote splits, is entirely outside of Labour’s control. Maybe they’ll get lucky, and the Conservatives will recover to the mid twenties. Maybe they won’t.
The good news for Reform/bad news for the Conservatives, is that each round of local elections will deliver big headline gains for Reform. By 2028, we could have 4,000 Reform councillors, dozens of members of devolved assemblies and Parliaments. That gives the impression of unstoppable momentum, and in all likelihood, the Conservatives will have fewer elected representatives. That fuels the belief that the Conservatives are a wasted vote.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Agree we are not quite at peak Reform. As to Kinabalu's blinding flash, a couple of points, though I have no idea what will happen.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
I think another crucial factor for Labour will be perceived delivery of benefit.
We already have money hitting bank accounts (eg minimum wage uplift) and things coming around job security / restrictions on zero hours contracts (about which I am in two minds - I keep seeing surveys saying that they are liked), and maybe upticks in economic growth but not enough evidence yet that it will sustain.
But I still think it will be the second half of 2026 before we can see clearly.
And there are still massively too many unforced errors.
If a large proportion of Reform voters are either unemployed or retired, minimum wage and zero hours contracts won’t affect them.
If Jenrick takes over as Tory leader, it will either take votes away from Reform, as their voters return to the Tories, or will take votes away from the Tories to the Lib Dems. The two movements may cancel each other out. Neither, however, will benefit Labour.
A more successful Tory party may well benefit Labour. If Reform or Tory party get 40%+ of the the vote, it's curtain for everyuone else. If they get 22% each then Labour are right in the mix. IMHO that is their best plan.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
I disagree.
Absent some huge scandal blowing up, the time that Reform will be most vulnerable will be in the last 12 months of this parliament. That’s when most people will make the judgement call of how viable they feel as a government, and what impact they could have.
Up until then, I think they are the NOTA option of choice for most. Labour and the Tories are just so widely disliked, it’s hard to see either of them mount such a meaningful recovery mid-term (Starmer resigning could be a wildcard).
I still think we’ll see Reform polling 40% in this Parliament.
I keep thinking Reform will roll back, and they might, but I think both main parties are now held in such contempt that they might just do it.
The Tories seem intent on casting themselves into irrelevance by their attempt to out-Reform Reform.
They appear to have missed the fact that there is a gap in the market on economic restructuring/radical reform of the state literally crying out for someone to fill it, and instead are majoring on who can announce the most authoritarian policy/say the most dubious comment.
It is a desperate strategy I believe is doomed to fail. I am not even saying they shouldn’t tack to the right on certain topics, but that should not have been their emphasis. Anyone who wants a strong border policy and wants a culture war is already deserting them for Farage. They cannot offer anything different in that space.
There may be a gap in the market, but how big is it? It's like the post earlier bemoaning the LD's not being Orange Book enough. There's plenty on here up for it. But few in the general population.
And most of us who accept the patriotic need for economic restructuring shuffle away a bit nervously when its consequences look like getting too near us. If you want to know why Mel Stride is planning to not touch the triple lock, look at who votes for his party. Same goes for those who want to leave taxes unraised and those who want to leave public spending uncut.
The politics were hard enough in 2008-10, they are harder still now.
Indeed. There's a good reason why the "economic restructuring" which is wildly popular on PB is exclusively a tax cuts for the well off, benefits and service cuts for the rest kind.
Why should all parties inhabit a space that requires high taxes and high spending in perpetuity? Why is there not a space for a party arguing for a smaller state, lower taxes, and working better with public expenditure?
This is not a message that is just the preserve of the “well off”, as you term it.
The State has shrunk, in many ways.
Let's break down government spending - education, healthcare, defence, pensions etc - and look at how much they were as a percentage of GDP in both 2007 and 2024:
2007/8 2024/5 Change Health 7.1% 9.2% +2.1pp Education 5.6% 4.1% -1.5pp Defence 2.4% 2.1% -0.3pp State pensions 3.5% 5.1% +1.6pp Interest 2.0% 3.1% +1.1pp Pulic order 2.1% 1.9% -0.2pp
As a percentage of GDP, the amount we spend on justice (police, prisons and courts) has fallen by a tenth, defence has dropped more. While education spending has sharply contracted.
By contrast what we spend on oldies has risen shaply. Spending on health has risen by as much as we spend in total on defence! Spending on state pensions has increased by the equivalent of 40% of the education budget.
There is genuine austerity in government. We just don't see it, because we're spending ever more on oldies. (And bear in mind, this excludes all the local government spending on oldies.)
Do you have a number for local government to hand, @rcs1000 ?
(Judging by my local area in Streetview 2024 vs 2009, it's shrunk.)
Education is interesting - standards are allegedly up, but what about investment? Even with the various new schools programmes, it was still at a building replacement rate of every couple of hundred years iirc.
Is there an easy way to do such tables, short of an edit in a separate app? eg how do I flip it to a monospaced font?
You use the "pre" tag.
In the old days of PB, there was a man called (I believe) Avery Lynch Pole, who was very big on it.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Agree we are not quite at peak Reform. As to Kinabalu's blinding flash, a couple of points, though I have no idea what will happen.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
How the 45-50% right wing vote splits, is entirely outside of Labour’s control. Maybe they’ll get lucky, and the Conservatives will recover to the mid twenties. Maybe they won’t.
The good news for Reform/bad news for the Conservatives, is that each round of local elections will deliver big headline gains for Reform. By 2028, we could have 4,000 Reform councillors, dozens of members of devolved assemblies and Parliaments. That gives the impression of unstoppable momentum, and in all likelihood, the Conservatives will have fewer elected representatives. That fuels the belief that the Conservatives are a wasted vote.
Reform will, eventually I think, become economically sensible and subsume the Conservatives because it's willing to go places on sociocultural policy it never was and doesn't have the same class hang-ups.
There's probably a risk of too much attention being paid to the triple lock. It's a useful indicator of whether a party is remotely serious, but it's far from being the be-all and end-all.
Subscribe needs to do some serious thinking that goes a bit deeper than that.
It's pointless discussing the triple lock if every party endorse it for fear of the electorate
They are all as bad as each other
Which is why the way out is taxation.
The basic pension, at approx the IT threshold, isnt a lot.
The issue is, people on 50k pensions sticking that on top.
So
1) merge employee NI and IT. 2) Pensioners on the basic rate of tax continue with the old rate of tax. 3) Pensioners on the higher rate pay the new rate of tax (old IT + NI) 4) Quadruple lock - the state pension sets the tax free allowance for everyone.
This means that everyone pays NI (in effect) on all income. Except poorer pensioners.
And you can boast of improving the triple lock to a quadruple lock.
Not sure doubling down on the triple lock problem by applying the same ratchet to personal allowance to further hollow out the already extremely narrow tax base is the way forward unless you want to work towards a UBI by stealth with obscene tax rates on 50k+ to help fund a free ride for most people.
It’s effectively a limit condition on the triple lock
But clever disguised with *my* branding
Nope, I was there first and invented the Quadruple Lock
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
We're not baited by it though, we just laugh or cringe.
Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party, so its not all bad...
Nah. Doesn't work.
What, Brexit or the Conservative Party?
They will share a common grave, unmourned.
The Tories chose to divide the country on an issue where they, too, were divided, and now they command neither one side nor the other. A quite elementary mistake, you would think?
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
Weren't the voters of Port Talbot and Scunthorpe strongly Leave?
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Agree we are not quite at peak Reform. As to Kinabalu's blinding flash, a couple of points, though I have no idea what will happen.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
How the 45-50% right wing vote splits, is entirely outside of Labour’s control. Maybe they’ll get lucky, and the Conservatives will recover to the mid twenties. Maybe they won’t.
The good news for Reform/bad news for the Conservatives, is that each round of local elections will deliver big headline gains for Reform. By 2028, we could have 4,000 Reform councillors, dozens of members of devolved assemblies and Parliaments. That gives the impression of unstoppable momentum, and in all likelihood, the Conservatives will have fewer elected representatives. That fuels the belief that the Conservatives are a wasted vote.
A third of current Conservative voters though would vote LD over Reform on a forced choice.
More LDs and Greens would tactically vote Labour to beat Reform in Labour held seats. In Tory held seats nearly half of Labour and LD voters would even vote Tory to beat Reform Yougov found, likely even more if Cleverly led the Tories at the next general election and even nearly a quarter of Greens said they would hold their noses in a Tory seat and vote Tory if the alternative was a Reform MP
Farage on GB News just said 'I agree very strongly with Robert and his remarks in his speech today.'
Confirming again Jenrick is not the man to take on Farage, even if he might be a successor to Farage as a leader of the right
Jenrick's comments were of course vile racist crap and illustrate what a thoroughly nasty man he is. But they were also astonishingly stupid even on his own terms. The area of Birmingham he was so critical of is actually extremely diverse rather than being some kind of ghetto populated by a single insular community. Only some "they all look the same to me" moron like Jenrick could have got it as wrong as he did. If white British people have chosen not to live there maybe that's something he could consider taking up with them. It does make me wonder whether Britain is in danger of becoming a dangerous place to live for anyone who isn't a "white face". That's the path we are on if supposedly mainstream politicians are now casually tossing out this kind of pig ignorant bile.
The Tories seem intent on casting themselves into irrelevance by their attempt to out-Reform Reform.
They appear to have missed the fact that there is a gap in the market on economic restructuring/radical reform of the state literally crying out for someone to fill it, and instead are majoring on who can announce the most authoritarian policy/say the most dubious comment.
It is a desperate strategy I believe is doomed to fail. I am not even saying they shouldn’t tack to the right on certain topics, but that should not have been their emphasis. Anyone who wants a strong border policy and wants a culture war is already deserting them for Farage. They cannot offer anything different in that space.
There may be a gap in the market, but how big is it? It's like the post earlier bemoaning the LD's not being Orange Book enough. There's plenty on here up for it. But few in the general population.
And most of us who accept the patriotic need for economic restructuring shuffle away a bit nervously when its consequences look like getting too near us. If you want to know why Mel Stride is planning to not touch the triple lock, look at who votes for his party. Same goes for those who want to leave taxes unraised and those who want to leave public spending uncut.
The politics were hard enough in 2008-10, they are harder still now.
Indeed. There's a good reason why the "economic restructuring" which is wildly popular on PB is exclusively a tax cuts for the well off, benefits and service cuts for the rest kind.
Why should all parties inhabit a space that requires high taxes and high spending in perpetuity? Why is there not a space for a party arguing for a smaller state, lower taxes, and working better with public expenditure?
This is not a message that is just the preserve of the “well off”, as you term it.
The State has shrunk, in many ways.
Let's break down government spending - education, healthcare, defence, pensions etc - and look at how much they were as a percentage of GDP in both 2007 and 2024:
2007/8 2024/5 Change Health 7.1% 9.2% +2.1pp Education 5.6% 4.1% -1.5pp Defence 2.4% 2.1% -0.3pp State pensions 3.5% 5.1% +1.6pp Interest 2.0% 3.1% +1.1pp Pulic order 2.1% 1.9% -0.2pp
As a percentage of GDP, the amount we spend on justice (police, prisons and courts) has fallen by a tenth, defence has dropped more. While education spending has sharply contracted.
By contrast what we spend on oldies has risen shaply. Spending on health has risen by as much as we spend in total on defence! Spending on state pensions has increased by the equivalent of 40% of the education budget.
There is genuine austerity in government. We just don't see it, because we're spending ever more on oldies. (And bear in mind, this excludes all the local government spending on oldies.)
Do you have a number for local government to hand, @rcs1000 ?
(Judging by my local area in Streetview 2024 vs 2009, it's shrunk.)
Education is interesting - standards are allegedly up, but what about investment? Even with the various new schools programmes, it was still at a building replacement rate of every couple of hundred years iirc.
Is there an easy way to do such tables, short of an edit in a separate app? eg how do I flip it to a monospaced font?
You use the "pre" tag.
In the old days of PB, there was a man called (I believe) Avery Lynch Pole, who was very big on it.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
I agree.
I feel they are one fumble away from a Your Party style implosion and there's no guarantee Farage won't get bored before 2029.
In addition, my brother-in-law has recently declared him as 'not the answer' despite having attended a conference or two here in the Flatlands and previously being enthusiastic, like many in this district. Whether this means a return to 'none of the above' or something else I haven't dared to ask.
The question that's still at the back of my mind is... What does Nigel want to happen? I mean, really want to happen.
OK, I'm sure he would like the power and glory of being PM. And I'm sure he thinks he is planning to do the right thing. But does he want to spend his (relative) twilight years of 2029-34 doing that? Does he want to be seriously unpopular, not just with lefty crusties but right-thinking Britons? The sort who will flip from hailing him to hating him? Is he prepared to share the party and government with anyone else, let alone 100 of them?
And , assuming for a moment that he doesn't want that, that this is turning into a game that is getting out of hand, what does he do about it?
Maybe I'm doing him an injustice, and I'm sure some people will want to point that out to me. But something doesn't smell right. The pieces of the jigsaw don't quite fit together.
No. He doesn't look like someone who would enjoy being PM. He seems to enjoy the noise and attention but not the actual job of being a politician.
It is almost like he made a very large bet 20 years ago that he could destroy the Tories and is going about winning it by any means possible - like an out of hand game, as you say. It doesn't seem to be wholly serious.
I think at some point people in his party who are serious will notice, and attempt to do something about it, at which point you would hope the implosion occurs.
The only problem is that Trump also did not appear to be serious, and yet here we are. But for all Farage's faults, I don't think he's quite as unhinged.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Agree we are not quite at peak Reform. As to Kinabalu's blinding flash, a couple of points, though I have no idea what will happen.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
How the 45-50% right wing vote splits, is entirely outside of Labour’s control. Maybe they’ll get lucky, and the Conservatives will recover to the mid twenties. Maybe they won’t.
The good news for Reform/bad news for the Conservatives, is that each round of local elections will deliver big headline gains for Reform. By 2028, we could have 4,000 Reform councillors, dozens of members of devolved assemblies and Parliaments. That gives the impression of unstoppable momentum, and in all likelihood, the Conservatives will have fewer elected representatives. That fuels the belief that the Conservatives are a wasted vote.
Reform will, eventually I think, become economically sensible and subsume the Conservatives because it's willing to go places on sociocultural policy it never was and doesn't have the same class hang-ups.
The question of what happens when Reform has to be economically sensible is important. The populist votes don't like anyone else's sensible economics; why would they like a high tax Reform party much better? And when reality emerges, the voters will know they have been lied to by Reform (DOGE and all that) than by all the others.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Agree we are not quite at peak Reform. As to Kinabalu's blinding flash, a couple of points, though I have no idea what will happen.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
How the 45-50% right wing vote splits, is entirely outside of Labour’s control. Maybe they’ll get lucky, and the Conservatives will recover to the mid twenties. Maybe they won’t.
The good news for Reform/bad news for the Conservatives, is that each round of local elections will deliver big headline gains for Reform. By 2028, we could have 4,000 Reform councillors, dozens of members of devolved assemblies and Parliaments. That gives the impression of unstoppable momentum, and in all likelihood, the Conservatives will have fewer elected representatives. That fuels the belief that the Conservatives are a wasted vote.
Indeed. But doesn't that also mean Reform will have plenty of time to display their competence in running Councils?
The Tories seem intent on casting themselves into irrelevance by their attempt to out-Reform Reform.
They appear to have missed the fact that there is a gap in the market on economic restructuring/radical reform of the state literally crying out for someone to fill it, and instead are majoring on who can announce the most authoritarian policy/say the most dubious comment.
It is a desperate strategy I believe is doomed to fail. I am not even saying they shouldn’t tack to the right on certain topics, but that should not have been their emphasis. Anyone who wants a strong border policy and wants a culture war is already deserting them for Farage. They cannot offer anything different in that space.
There may be a gap in the market, but how big is it? It's like the post earlier bemoaning the LD's not being Orange Book enough. There's plenty on here up for it. But few in the general population.
And most of us who accept the patriotic need for economic restructuring shuffle away a bit nervously when its consequences look like getting too near us. If you want to know why Mel Stride is planning to not touch the triple lock, look at who votes for his party. Same goes for those who want to leave taxes unraised and those who want to leave public spending uncut.
The politics were hard enough in 2008-10, they are harder still now.
Indeed. There's a good reason why the "economic restructuring" which is wildly popular on PB is exclusively a tax cuts for the well off, benefits and service cuts for the rest kind.
Why should all parties inhabit a space that requires high taxes and high spending in perpetuity? Why is there not a space for a party arguing for a smaller state, lower taxes, and working better with public expenditure?
This is not a message that is just the preserve of the “well off”, as you term it.
The State has shrunk, in many ways.
Let's break down government spending - education, healthcare, defence, pensions etc - and look at how much they were as a percentage of GDP in both 2007 and 2024:
2007/8 2024/5 Change Health 7.1% 9.2% +2.1pp Education 5.6% 4.1% -1.5pp Defence 2.4% 2.1% -0.3pp State pensions 3.5% 5.1% +1.6pp Interest 2.0% 3.1% +1.1pp Pulic order 2.1% 1.9% -0.2pp
As a percentage of GDP, the amount we spend on justice (police, prisons and courts) has fallen by a tenth, defence has dropped more. While education spending has sharply contracted.
By contrast what we spend on oldies has risen shaply. Spending on health has risen by as much as we spend in total on defence! Spending on state pensions has increased by the equivalent of 40% of the education budget.
There is genuine austerity in government. We just don't see it, because we're spending ever more on oldies. (And bear in mind, this excludes all the local government spending on oldies.)
Do you have a number for local government to hand, @rcs1000 ?
(Judging by my local area in Streetview 2024 vs 2009, it's shrunk.)
Education is interesting - standards are allegedly up, but what about investment? Even with the various new schools programmes, it was still at a building replacement rate of every couple of hundred years iirc.
Is there an easy way to do such tables, short of an edit in a separate app? eg how do I flip it to a monospaced font?
You use the "pre" tag.
In the old days of PB, there was a man called (I believe) Avery Lynch Pole, who was very big on it.
Avery Lymp-Pole I believe.
It is possible that it was a pseudonym.
He denied it when former PBer @Patrick asked him directly. ALP was an amusing and erudite poster
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
I disagree.
Absent some huge scandal blowing up, the time that Reform will be most vulnerable will be in the last 12 months of this parliament. That’s when most people will make the judgement call of how viable they feel as a government, and what impact they could have.
Up until then, I think they are the NOTA option of choice for most. Labour and the Tories are just so widely disliked, it’s hard to see either of them mount such a meaningful recovery mid-term (Starmer resigning could be a wildcard).
I still think we’ll see Reform polling 40% in this Parliament.
I keep thinking Reform will roll back, and they might, but I think both main parties are now held in such contempt that they might just do it.
The government seems to be focused on doubling down on this gs that are unpopular, like the ID cards business, which is just stoking the fires. Even if Nigel Farage got fed up & stepped down, it would surprise me if the Reform party fizzled out. There seems to be a sense in which Reform are holding off anarchy.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Agree we are not quite at peak Reform. As to Kinabalu's blinding flash, a couple of points, though I have no idea what will happen.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
How the 45-50% right wing vote splits, is entirely outside of Labour’s control. Maybe they’ll get lucky, and the Conservatives will recover to the mid twenties. Maybe they won’t.
The good news for Reform/bad news for the Conservatives, is that each round of local elections will deliver big headline gains for Reform. By 2028, we could have 4,000 Reform councillors, dozens of members of devolved assemblies and Parliaments. That gives the impression of unstoppable momentum, and in all likelihood, the Conservatives will have fewer elected representatives. That fuels the belief that the Conservatives are a wasted vote.
Reform will, eventually I think, become economically sensible and subsume the Conservatives because it's willing to go places on sociocultural policy it never was and doesn't have the same class hang-ups.
The question of what happens when Reform has to be economically sensible is important. The populist votes don't like anyone else's sensible economics; why would they like a high tax Reform party much better? And when reality emerges, the voters will know they have been lied to by Reform (DOGE and all that) than by all the others.
This is where it gets interesting on the right. Reform voters are more "socially conservative*" than conservative voters, but much more left wing on tax and spend (albeit taxes on others and spend on them), yet Farage and Tice are much more keen to slash the state and tax cuts for millionaires. It's not a very stable coalition.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
I agree.
I feel they are one fumble away from a Your Party style implosion and there's no guarantee Farage won't get bored before 2029.
In addition, my brother-in-law has recently declared him as 'not the answer' despite having attended a conference or two here in the Flatlands and previously being enthusiastic, like many in this district. Whether this means a return to 'none of the above' or something else I haven't dared to ask.
The question that's still at the back of my mind is... What does Nigel want to happen? I mean, really want to happen.
OK, I'm sure he would like the power and glory of being PM. And I'm sure he thinks he is planning to do the right thing. But does he want to spend his (relative) twilight years of 2029-34 doing that? Does he want to be seriously unpopular, not just with lefty crusties but right-thinking Britons? The sort who will flip from hailing him to hating him? Is he prepared to share the party and government with anyone else, let alone 100 of them?
And , assuming for a moment that he doesn't want that, that this is turning into a game that is getting out of hand, what does he do about it?
Maybe I'm doing him an injustice, and I'm sure some people will want to point that out to me. But something doesn't smell right. The pieces of the jigsaw don't quite fit together.
Similar views were ascribed to one Donald J Trump. And look where that led us.
As you say, the jigsaw certainly doesn't fit together and it will buckle and crack apart - let's just hope the jigsaw isn't the British Govt when it happens.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
We're not baited by it though, we just laugh or cringe.
Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party, so its not all bad...
Nah. Doesn't work.
What, Brexit or the Conservative Party?
They will share a common grave, unmourned.
The Tories chose to divide the country on an issue where they, too, were divided, and now they command neither one side nor the other. A quite elementary mistake, you would think?
It was a gamble by Dave. Probably about 50:50 odds, but the consequences for winning and losing were horribly asymmetric.
You know that verse in Kipling's "If" about a game of pitch and toss? It's balls.
The Tories seem intent on casting themselves into irrelevance by their attempt to out-Reform Reform.
They appear to have missed the fact that there is a gap in the market on economic restructuring/radical reform of the state literally crying out for someone to fill it, and instead are majoring on who can announce the most authoritarian policy/say the most dubious comment.
It is a desperate strategy I believe is doomed to fail. I am not even saying they shouldn’t tack to the right on certain topics, but that should not have been their emphasis. Anyone who wants a strong border policy and wants a culture war is already deserting them for Farage. They cannot offer anything different in that space.
There may be a gap in the market, but how big is it? It's like the post earlier bemoaning the LD's not being Orange Book enough. There's plenty on here up for it. But few in the general population.
And most of us who accept the patriotic need for economic restructuring shuffle away a bit nervously when its consequences look like getting too near us. If you want to know why Mel Stride is planning to not touch the triple lock, look at who votes for his party. Same goes for those who want to leave taxes unraised and those who want to leave public spending uncut.
The politics were hard enough in 2008-10, they are harder still now.
Indeed. There's a good reason why the "economic restructuring" which is wildly popular on PB is exclusively a tax cuts for the well off, benefits and service cuts for the rest kind.
Why should all parties inhabit a space that requires high taxes and high spending in perpetuity? Why is there not a space for a party arguing for a smaller state, lower taxes, and working better with public expenditure?
This is not a message that is just the preserve of the “well off”, as you term it.
The State has shrunk, in many ways.
Let's break down government spending - education, healthcare, defence, pensions etc - and look at how much they were as a percentage of GDP in both 2007 and 2024:
2007/8 2024/5 Change Health 7.1% 9.2% +2.1pp Education 5.6% 4.1% -1.5pp Defence 2.4% 2.1% -0.3pp State pensions 3.5% 5.1% +1.6pp Interest 2.0% 3.1% +1.1pp Pulic order 2.1% 1.9% -0.2pp
As a percentage of GDP, the amount we spend on justice (police, prisons and courts) has fallen by a tenth, defence has dropped more. While education spending has sharply contracted.
By contrast what we spend on oldies has risen shaply. Spending on health has risen by as much as we spend in total on defence! Spending on state pensions has increased by the equivalent of 40% of the education budget.
There is genuine austerity in government. We just don't see it, because we're spending ever more on oldies. (And bear in mind, this excludes all the local government spending on oldies.)
Do you have a number for local government to hand, @rcs1000 ?
(Judging by my local area in Streetview 2024 vs 2009, it's shrunk.)
Education is interesting - standards are allegedly up, but what about investment? Even with the various new schools programmes, it was still at a building replacement rate of every couple of hundred years iirc.
Is there an easy way to do such tables, short of an edit in a separate app? eg how do I flip it to a monospaced font?
You use the "pre" tag.
In the old days of PB, there was a man called (I believe) Avery Lynch Pole, who was very big on it.
Avery Lymp-Pole I believe.
It is possible that it was a pseudonym.
He denied it when former PBer @Patrick asked him directly. ALP was an amusing and erudite poster
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Agree we are not quite at peak Reform. As to Kinabalu's blinding flash, a couple of points, though I have no idea what will happen.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
How the 45-50% right wing vote splits, is entirely outside of Labour’s control. Maybe they’ll get lucky, and the Conservatives will recover to the mid twenties. Maybe they won’t.
The good news for Reform/bad news for the Conservatives, is that each round of local elections will deliver big headline gains for Reform. By 2028, we could have 4,000 Reform councillors, dozens of members of devolved assemblies and Parliaments. That gives the impression of unstoppable momentum, and in all likelihood, the Conservatives will have fewer elected representatives. That fuels the belief that the Conservatives are a wasted vote.
Reform will, eventually I think, become economically sensible and subsume the Conservatives because it's willing to go places on sociocultural policy it never was and doesn't have the same class hang-ups.
The question of what happens when Reform has to be economically sensible is important. The populist votes don't like anyone else's sensible economics; why would they like a high tax Reform party much better? And when reality emerges, the voters will know they have been lied to by Reform (DOGE and all that) than by all the others.
This is where it gets interesting on the right. Reform voters are more "socially conservative*" than conservative voters, but much more left wing on tax and spend (albeit taxes on others and spend on them), yet Farage and Tice are much more keen to slash the state and tax cuts for millionaires. It's not a very stable coalition.
*one of the great euphemisms of our times.
First line correct.
Second line more mixed, Thatcherite Tories who have gone Reform are economic libertarians who will hate Reform controlled KCC raising council tax to fund social care.
Redwall ex Labour voters who have gone Reform though are much more pro spending on public services and social care and don't mind higher tax on the wealthy and high earners as long as not them. Remember the only Tory they ever voted for was Boris
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
I agree.
I feel they are one fumble away from a Your Party style implosion and there's no guarantee Farage won't get bored before 2029.
In addition, my brother-in-law has recently declared him as 'not the answer' despite having attended a conference or two here in the Flatlands and previously being enthusiastic, like many in this district. Whether this means a return to 'none of the above' or something else I haven't dared to ask.
The question that's still at the back of my mind is... What does Nigel want to happen? I mean, really want to happen.
OK, I'm sure he would like the power and glory of being PM. And I'm sure he thinks he is planning to do the right thing. But does he want to spend his (relative) twilight years of 2029-34 doing that? Does he want to be seriously unpopular, not just with lefty crusties but right-thinking Britons? The sort who will flip from hailing him to hating him? Is he prepared to share the party and government with anyone else, let alone 100 of them?
And , assuming for a moment that he doesn't want that, that this is turning into a game that is getting out of hand, what does he do about it?
Maybe I'm doing him an injustice, and I'm sure some people will want to point that out to me. But something doesn't smell right. The pieces of the jigsaw don't quite fit together.
No. He doesn't look like someone who would enjoy being PM. He seems to enjoy the noise and attention but not the actual job of being a politician.
It is almost like he made a very large bet 20 years ago that he could destroy the Tories and is going about winning it by any means possible - like an out of hand game, as you say. It doesn't seem to be wholly serious.
I think at some point people in his party who are serious will notice, and attempt to do something about it, at which point you would hope the implosion occurs.
The only problem is that Trump also did not appear to be serious, and yet here we are. But for all Farage's faults, I don't think he's quite as unhinged.
Agree. There will be a short time maybe about September 2027 when the dynamic changes, and the wisdom of crowds starts wondering who is competent to form the next government and how is that wisdom going to arrange it. It is quite possible that by then the Tory party will have a new leader, and even possible that Labour will look better than they do now. (Can't be much much worse surely?)
In my view the wisdom of crowds has not yet decided against Labour forming the next government. Though I suspect the verdict is already in about the Tories.
The Tories seem intent on casting themselves into irrelevance by their attempt to out-Reform Reform.
They appear to have missed the fact that there is a gap in the market on economic restructuring/radical reform of the state literally crying out for someone to fill it, and instead are majoring on who can announce the most authoritarian policy/say the most dubious comment.
It is a desperate strategy I believe is doomed to fail. I am not even saying they shouldn’t tack to the right on certain topics, but that should not have been their emphasis. Anyone who wants a strong border policy and wants a culture war is already deserting them for Farage. They cannot offer anything different in that space.
There may be a gap in the market, but how big is it? It's like the post earlier bemoaning the LD's not being Orange Book enough. There's plenty on here up for it. But few in the general population.
And most of us who accept the patriotic need for economic restructuring shuffle away a bit nervously when its consequences look like getting too near us. If you want to know why Mel Stride is planning to not touch the triple lock, look at who votes for his party. Same goes for those who want to leave taxes unraised and those who want to leave public spending uncut.
The politics were hard enough in 2008-10, they are harder still now.
Indeed. There's a good reason why the "economic restructuring" which is wildly popular on PB is exclusively a tax cuts for the well off, benefits and service cuts for the rest kind.
Why should all parties inhabit a space that requires high taxes and high spending in perpetuity? Why is there not a space for a party arguing for a smaller state, lower taxes, and working better with public expenditure?
This is not a message that is just the preserve of the “well off”, as you term it.
The State has shrunk, in many ways.
Let's break down government spending - education, healthcare, defence, pensions etc - and look at how much they were as a percentage of GDP in both 2007 and 2024:
2007/8 2024/5 Change Health 7.1% 9.2% +2.1pp Education 5.6% 4.1% -1.5pp Defence 2.4% 2.1% -0.3pp State pensions 3.5% 5.1% +1.6pp Interest 2.0% 3.1% +1.1pp Pulic order 2.1% 1.9% -0.2pp
As a percentage of GDP, the amount we spend on justice (police, prisons and courts) has fallen by a tenth, defence has dropped more. While education spending has sharply contracted.
By contrast what we spend on oldies has risen shaply. Spending on health has risen by as much as we spend in total on defence! Spending on state pensions has increased by the equivalent of 40% of the education budget.
There is genuine austerity in government. We just don't see it, because we're spending ever more on oldies. (And bear in mind, this excludes all the local government spending on oldies.)
Do you have a number for local government to hand, @rcs1000 ?
(Judging by my local area in Streetview 2024 vs 2009, it's shrunk.)
Education is interesting - standards are allegedly up, but what about investment? Even with the various new schools programmes, it was still at a building replacement rate of every couple of hundred years iirc.
Is there an easy way to do such tables, short of an edit in a separate app? eg how do I flip it to a monospaced font?
You use the "pre" tag.
In the old days of PB, there was a man called (I believe) Avery Lynch Pole, who was very big on it.
Avery Lymp-Pole I believe.
It is possible that it was a pseudonym.
He denied it when former PBer @Patrick asked him directly. ALP was an amusing and erudite poster
So, under the Conservatives, our policy is simple: one knife and you are out. If you assault a teacher then you are out. If you sexually assault someone then you are out. If you’ve been expelled from not just one but two mainstream schools, then it’s clear, mainstream classrooms aren’t for you. If children bring knives into the classroom, then they shouldn’t be there. If they are violent, then they shouldn’t be there.
And under the Conservatives, they won’t be there.
Raising the obvious question where will they be? And why did you allow such a dysfunctional Hell to develop over 14 years? Does nowt to dispel the idea that young people are to be feared. Why should someone you're clearly terrified of vote for you?
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
I agree.
I feel they are one fumble away from a Your Party style implosion and there's no guarantee Farage won't get bored before 2029.
In addition, my brother-in-law has recently declared him as 'not the answer' despite having attended a conference or two here in the Flatlands and previously being enthusiastic, like many in this district. Whether this means a return to 'none of the above' or something else I haven't dared to ask.
The question that's still at the back of my mind is... What does Nigel want to happen? I mean, really want to happen.
OK, I'm sure he would like the power and glory of being PM. And I'm sure he thinks he is planning to do the right thing. But does he want to spend his (relative) twilight years of 2029-34 doing that? Does he want to be seriously unpopular, not just with lefty crusties but right-thinking Britons? The sort who will flip from hailing him to hating him? Is he prepared to share the party and government with anyone else, let alone 100 of them?
And , assuming for a moment that he doesn't want that, that this is turning into a game that is getting out of hand, what does he do about it?
Maybe I'm doing him an injustice, and I'm sure some people will want to point that out to me. But something doesn't smell right. The pieces of the jigsaw don't quite fit together.
Similar views were ascribed to one Donald J Trump. And look where that led us.
As you say, the jigsaw certainly doesn't fit together and it will buckle and crack apart - let's just hope the jigsaw isn't the British Govt when it happens.
Farage is not Trump, and the UK population is not the USA's. The UK's racists are amateurs compared to the USA's. The USA is allowing itself to be treated to Stephen Miller, Pam Bondi and the Nazi Barbie on their screens nightly. We would not.
So, under the Conservatives, our policy is simple: one knife and you are out. If you assault a teacher then you are out. If you sexually assault someone then you are out. If you’ve been expelled from not just one but two mainstream schools, then it’s clear, mainstream classrooms aren’t for you. If children bring knives into the classroom, then they shouldn’t be there. If they are violent, then they shouldn’t be there.
And under the Conservatives, they won’t be there.
Raising the obvious question where will they be? And why did you allow such a dysfunctional Hell to develop over 14 years? Does nowt to dispel the idea that young people are to be feared. Why should someone you're clearly terrified of vote for you?
That'll be an attractive set of proposals for those who remember being trapped in classes with people like that. Unless they remember being in those classrooms under the Tories.
So, under the Conservatives, our policy is simple: one knife and you are out. If you assault a teacher then you are out. If you sexually assault someone then you are out. If you’ve been expelled from not just one but two mainstream schools, then it’s clear, mainstream classrooms aren’t for you. If children bring knives into the classroom, then they shouldn’t be there. If they are violent, then they shouldn’t be there.
And under the Conservatives, they won’t be there.
Raising the obvious question where will they be? And why did you allow such a dysfunctional Hell to develop over 14 years? Does nowt to dispel the idea that young people are to be feared. Why should someone you're clearly terrified of vote for you?
You're right, the juvenile knifers probably won't vote Conservative, if at all
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
Agree we are not quite at peak Reform. As to Kinabalu's blinding flash, a couple of points, though I have no idea what will happen.
Yes, Reform will have to come up with a more or less coherent package on the big issues of the state, and expose it to critical scrutiny. Which means at some point accepting a little bit of the truth that we are a high spend western state with high spend, social democratic expectations and the voters of Clacton are no different. How reform fare with this is a critical question.
The other critical question is the Tories. If in the election the right vote is split fairly evenly - say 23% each then the right can't win and must lose.
If either Reform or Tories swept the board, that party wiins.
So will they form a pact to not stand in each other's way?
FWIW I think Labour's plan includes splitting the right vote if they can. At the moment they need the Tory vote higher and Reform lower to succeed, in addition of course to sorting themselves out.
To put figures on it, I think the chance of a Reform led government are about 30%, Labour led about 55%, Tories and Black Swans 15%.
How the 45-50% right wing vote splits, is entirely outside of Labour’s control. Maybe they’ll get lucky, and the Conservatives will recover to the mid twenties. Maybe they won’t.
The good news for Reform/bad news for the Conservatives, is that each round of local elections will deliver big headline gains for Reform. By 2028, we could have 4,000 Reform councillors, dozens of members of devolved assemblies and Parliaments. That gives the impression of unstoppable momentum, and in all likelihood, the Conservatives will have fewer elected representatives. That fuels the belief that the Conservatives are a wasted vote.
Reform will, eventually I think, become economically sensible and subsume the Conservatives because it's willing to go places on sociocultural policy it never was and doesn't have the same class hang-ups.
The question of what happens when Reform has to be economically sensible is important. The populist votes don't like anyone else's sensible economics; why would they like a high tax Reform party much better? And when reality emerges, the voters will know they have been lied to by Reform (DOGE and all that) than by all the others.
This is where it gets interesting on the right. Reform voters are more "socially conservative*" than conservative voters, but much more left wing on tax and spend (albeit taxes on others and spend on them), yet Farage and Tice are much more keen to slash the state and tax cuts for millionaires. It's not a very stable coalition.
*one of the great euphemisms of our times.
First line correct.
Second line more mixed, Thatcherite Tories who have gone Reform are economic libertarians who will hate Reform controlled KCC raising council tax to fund social care.
Redwall ex Labour voters who have gone Reform though are much more pro spending on public services and social care and don't mind higher tax on the wealthy and high earners as long as not them. Remember the only Tory they ever voted for was Boris
Yes, there is a massive gulf between the Reform leadership and councillors and those that vote for them, united only by the desire to be beastly to foreigners.
There are some great graphs in this substack to substantiate this:
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
Why can’t the Illinois national guard be used to stop the Texas national guard in Chicago? It seems like democratic governors just do nothing but complain.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
I agree.
I feel they are one fumble away from a Your Party style implosion and there's no guarantee Farage won't get bored before 2029.
In addition, my brother-in-law has recently declared him as 'not the answer' despite having attended a conference or two here in the Flatlands and previously being enthusiastic, like many in this district. Whether this means a return to 'none of the above' or something else I haven't dared to ask.
The question that's still at the back of my mind is... What does Nigel want to happen? I mean, really want to happen.
OK, I'm sure he would like the power and glory of being PM. And I'm sure he thinks he is planning to do the right thing. But does he want to spend his (relative) twilight years of 2029-34 doing that? Does he want to be seriously unpopular, not just with lefty crusties but right-thinking Britons? The sort who will flip from hailing him to hating him? Is he prepared to share the party and government with anyone else, let alone 100 of them?
And , assuming for a moment that he doesn't want that, that this is turning into a game that is getting out of hand, what does he do about it?
Maybe I'm doing him an injustice, and I'm sure some people will want to point that out to me. But something doesn't smell right. The pieces of the jigsaw don't quite fit together.
No. He doesn't look like someone who would enjoy being PM. He seems to enjoy the noise and attention but not the actual job of being a politician.
It is almost like he made a very large bet 20 years ago that he could destroy the Tories and is going about winning it by any means possible - like an out of hand game, as you say. It doesn't seem to be wholly serious.
I think at some point people in his party who are serious will notice, and attempt to do something about it, at which point you would hope the implosion occurs.
The only problem is that Trump also did not appear to be serious, and yet here we are. But for all Farage's faults, I don't think he's quite as unhinged.
Agree. There will be a short time maybe about September 2027 when the dynamic changes, and the wisdom of crowds starts wondering who is competent to form the next government and how is that wisdom going to arrange it. It is quite possible that by then the Tory party will have a new leader, and even possible that Labour will look better than they do now. (Can't be much much worse surely?)
In my view the wisdom of crowds has not yet decided against Labour forming the next government. Though I suspect the verdict is already in about the Tories.
It won't be dull.
I think the wisdom of crowds is seriously underestimated.
When was the last election where you could make an argument that the electorate got it totally wrong (as opposed to the government)?
The elevated risk of that error happening is coming from social media, of course.
So, under the Conservatives, our policy is simple: one knife and you are out. If you assault a teacher then you are out. If you sexually assault someone then you are out. If you’ve been expelled from not just one but two mainstream schools, then it’s clear, mainstream classrooms aren’t for you. If children bring knives into the classroom, then they shouldn’t be there. If they are violent, then they shouldn’t be there.
And under the Conservatives, they won’t be there.
Raising the obvious question where will they be? And why did you allow such a dysfunctional Hell to develop over 14 years? Does nowt to dispel the idea that young people are to be feared. Why should someone you're clearly terrified of vote for you?
You're right, the juvenile knifers probably won't vote Conservative, if at all
Not quite the point, though.
Partly, there's the whole "how did it get so bad before 2024?" thing, that will dog the Conservatives for a bit longer.
More importantly, where are we going to put these children? Dixiedean has told us of the mess that the referral system is in. It would be a morally good thing to have enough capacity that young people who do terrible things can rapidly go somewhere more appropriate, and it's worth spending money on... but it ain't going to be cheap.
If Trott hasn't got any further than "not here", that's pretty useless. But then again, this is what her leader said about deportation flights; Asked where the people being deported would be sent to, Badenoch said: "I'm tired of us asking all of these irrelevant questions about where should they go. "They will go back to where they should do or another country, but they should not be here."
In a world made of actual places, that doesn't work.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
Tariffs damage both our country and the EU.
80% of our steel exports go there, or used to.
But Brexit put us in this bad place.
We do, however, buy more of their steel than they do ours.
Being out has tariff advantages too: not paying 25% tariffs on Chinese EVs like our EU cousins, for example.
I wonder what, if anything, we will tariff in response to these steel tariffs.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
Tariffs damage both our country and the EU.
80% of our steel exports go there, or used to.
But Brexit put us in this bad place.
We do, however, buy more of their steel than they do ours.
Being out has tariff advantages too: not paying 25% tariffs on Chinese EVs like our EU cousins, for example.
I wonder what, if anything, we will tariff in response to these steel tariffs.
Yes, so a tariff war damages us from both sides.
Putting up trade barriers to our largest and closest market was supreme folly.
Indeed if we were still in the EU we may have been able to stop a tariff war with other producers too.
Why can’t the Illinois national guard be used to stop the Texas national guard in Chicago? It seems like democratic governors just do nothing but complain.
I think if two different bits of the national guard end up fighting each other we could probably call that a civil war. I don't think the situation is that far gone just yet.
Two very different polls from Freshwater and YouGov.
Jenrick's antics made sure the defection of 20 councillors from the Conservatives to Reform (moving Reform ahead of the Greens in councillor numbers) didn't get the attention it might otherwise have received.
As someone who lives in an area with few "white British" faces currently (though I sense that's starting to change as new housing is bringing people into the area), I can't say it bothers me all that much. It may bother others - the main people speaking English are the children who mingle together indifferent to ethnicity, gender and creed.
Once again, we see from another Badenoch interview the debate has moved from immigration to integration. I'm not sure what it is people want or expect - do I feel any less British surrounded by Muslims and Hindus? In truth, no. Britain isn't about the colour of your skin or the God to whom you pray - never has been. It is about people living and working together and the fact we have a family of Catholics from the Phillipines on one side and a young Indian couple on the other side makes no odds.
The Anglican church houses both a Tamil Christian congregation and a couple of groups of evangelicals from sub-saharan Africa. Up the road, I see the older Muslim men walking toward the mosque to pray - it may not be the Vicar cycling past the village green as cricket is being played but it's my community and I see no problem with it.
So, under the Conservatives, our policy is simple: one knife and you are out. If you assault a teacher then you are out. If you sexually assault someone then you are out. If you’ve been expelled from not just one but two mainstream schools, then it’s clear, mainstream classrooms aren’t for you. If children bring knives into the classroom, then they shouldn’t be there. If they are violent, then they shouldn’t be there.
And under the Conservatives, they won’t be there.
Raising the obvious question where will they be? And why did you allow such a dysfunctional Hell to develop over 14 years? Does nowt to dispel the idea that young people are to be feared. Why should someone you're clearly terrified of vote for you?
You're right, the juvenile knifers probably won't vote Conservative, if at all
Not quite the point, though.
Partly, there's the whole "how did it get so bad before 2024?" thing, that will dog the Conservatives for a bit longer.
More importantly, where are we going to put these children? Dixiedean has told us of the mess that the referral system is in. It would be a morally good thing to have enough capacity that young people who do terrible things can rapidly go somewhere more appropriate, and it's worth spending money on... but it ain't going to be cheap.
If Trott hasn't got any further than "not here", that's pretty useless. But then again, this is what her leader said about deportation flights; Asked where the people being deported would be sent to, Badenoch said: "I'm tired of us asking all of these irrelevant questions about where should they go. "They will go back to where they should do or another country, but they should not be here."
In a world made of actual places, that doesn't work.
That is precisely my point. Not in mainstream. So where?
It is redolent of those who bemoaned the effect lockdown would have on mental health. Then when millions report poor mental health the solution is cut off their benefits then they'll get better.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
They affect both, quite obviously. And overall they inhibit trade and growth; that's quite a simple and clear proposition.
But effects will vary greatly depending on circumstances.
The UK, as a trading economy which is no longer part of a trade block, is quite poorly placed to deal with the shocks inherent in the introduction of very high tariffs - and our steel industry particularly so.
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
I agree.
I feel they are one fumble away from a Your Party style implosion and there's no guarantee Farage won't get bored before 2029.
In addition, my brother-in-law has recently declared him as 'not the answer' despite having attended a conference or two here in the Flatlands and previously being enthusiastic, like many in this district. Whether this means a return to 'none of the above' or something else I haven't dared to ask.
The question that's still at the back of my mind is... What does Nigel want to happen? I mean, really want to happen.
OK, I'm sure he would like the power and glory of being PM. And I'm sure he thinks he is planning to do the right thing. But does he want to spend his (relative) twilight years of 2029-34 doing that? Does he want to be seriously unpopular, not just with lefty crusties but right-thinking Britons? The sort who will flip from hailing him to hating him? Is he prepared to share the party and government with anyone else, let alone 100 of them?
And , assuming for a moment that he doesn't want that, that this is turning into a game that is getting out of hand, what does he do about it?
Maybe I'm doing him an injustice, and I'm sure some people will want to point that out to me. But something doesn't smell right. The pieces of the jigsaw don't quite fit together.
No. He doesn't look like someone who would enjoy being PM. He seems to enjoy the noise and attention but not the actual job of being a politician.
It is almost like he made a very large bet 20 years ago that he could destroy the Tories and is going about winning it by any means possible - like an out of hand game, as you say. It doesn't seem to be wholly serious.
I think at some point people in his party who are serious will notice, and attempt to do something about it, at which point you would hope the implosion occurs.
The only problem is that Trump also did not appear to be serious, and yet here we are. But for all Farage's faults, I don't think he's quite as unhinged.
Agree. There will be a short time maybe about September 2027 when the dynamic changes, and the wisdom of crowds starts wondering who is competent to form the next government and how is that wisdom going to arrange it. It is quite possible that by then the Tory party will have a new leader, and even possible that Labour will look better than they do now. (Can't be much much worse surely?)
In my view the wisdom of crowds has not yet decided against Labour forming the next government. Though I suspect the verdict is already in about the Tories.
It won't be dull.
If the Tories install Jenrick, Reform voters may decide there is so little difference between Reform and the Tories that there’s no point changing their vote from a party that may be incompetent to one that has already proved they are incompetent. I believe the Tories are better sticking with Badenoch.
Why can’t the Illinois national guard be used to stop the Texas national guard in Chicago? It seems like democratic governors just do nothing but complain.
I think if two different bits of the national guard end up fighting each other we could probably call that a civil war. I don't think the situation is that far gone just yet.
Yeah but at what point do you say enough is enough?
I've had a blinding flash. Hasn't happened for a while but just now - fizz bang wallop - I've had one. It's this. Reform will not be able to win the next general election on immigration. The space is getting too crowded and the issue is close to peaking in salience. So to win they are going to have convince people across the board on things like the economy, health, education, defence, taxation and the public finances. They might succeed in this but it'll be a huge challenge for what is essentially a one man band. They are a lay at current prices imo.
I'm considering that it's nearly time to call peak Reform UK.
But I'm not quite there yet. Their coalition will not hold imo - it's too wide and too shallow.
I agree.
I feel they are one fumble away from a Your Party style implosion and there's no guarantee Farage won't get bored before 2029.
In addition, my brother-in-law has recently declared him as 'not the answer' despite having attended a conference or two here in the Flatlands and previously being enthusiastic, like many in this district. Whether this means a return to 'none of the above' or something else I haven't dared to ask.
The question that's still at the back of my mind is... What does Nigel want to happen? I mean, really want to happen.
OK, I'm sure he would like the power and glory of being PM. And I'm sure he thinks he is planning to do the right thing. But does he want to spend his (relative) twilight years of 2029-34 doing that? Does he want to be seriously unpopular, not just with lefty crusties but right-thinking Britons? The sort who will flip from hailing him to hating him? Is he prepared to share the party and government with anyone else, let alone 100 of them?
And , assuming for a moment that he doesn't want that, that this is turning into a game that is getting out of hand, what does he do about it?
Maybe I'm doing him an injustice, and I'm sure some people will want to point that out to me. But something doesn't smell right. The pieces of the jigsaw don't quite fit together.
No. He doesn't look like someone who would enjoy being PM. He seems to enjoy the noise and attention but not the actual job of being a politician.
It is almost like he made a very large bet 20 years ago that he could destroy the Tories and is going about winning it by any means possible - like an out of hand game, as you say. It doesn't seem to be wholly serious.
I think at some point people in his party who are serious will notice, and attempt to do something about it, at which point you would hope the implosion occurs.
The only problem is that Trump also did not appear to be serious, and yet here we are. But for all Farage's faults, I don't think he's quite as unhinged.
Agree. There will be a short time maybe about September 2027 when the dynamic changes, and the wisdom of crowds starts wondering who is competent to form the next government and how is that wisdom going to arrange it. It is quite possible that by then the Tory party will have a new leader, and even possible that Labour will look better than they do now. (Can't be much much worse surely?)
In my view the wisdom of crowds has not yet decided against Labour forming the next government. Though I suspect the verdict is already in about the Tories.
It won't be dull.
I think the wisdom of crowds is seriously underestimated.
When was the last election where you could make an argument that the electorate got it totally wrong (as opposed to the government)?
The elevated risk of that error happening is coming from social media, of course.
Agree. The wisdom of crowds has been tested a bit in recent times but its most serious test was the EU referendum. How does the wisdom of crowds deal with the referendum question when the wisdom of crowds knows perfectly well that when we are in it we want to be out, and when out of it we want to be in, and when the crowd's wisdom on the Norway option never got asked.
But the wisdom of crowds was demonstrated in 2024. In a single swoop to destroy Tory pretensions, give Labour a huge majority but tell Labour is lacked the credibility of a popular mandate by only giving it 34% of the vote. Genius.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
Tariffs damage both our country and the EU.
80% of our steel exports go there, or used to.
But Brexit put us in this bad place.
We do, however, buy more of their steel than they do ours.
Being out has tariff advantages too: not paying 25% tariffs on Chinese EVs like our EU cousins, for example.
I wonder what, if anything, we will tariff in response to these steel tariffs.
Why can’t the Illinois national guard be used to stop the Texas national guard in Chicago? It seems like democratic governors just do nothing but complain.
Can’t the President “federalise” the National Guard thus “trumping” the relevant state governor? I’ve no idea.
Why can’t the Illinois national guard be used to stop the Texas national guard in Chicago? It seems like democratic governors just do nothing but complain.
I think if two different bits of the national guard end up fighting each other we could probably call that a civil war. I don't think the situation is that far gone just yet.
And how much of the Illinois national guard world side with Trump?
Why can’t the Illinois national guard be used to stop the Texas national guard in Chicago? It seems like democratic governors just do nothing but complain.
The National Guard is not the private army of the state governor, they are under joint control of state and federal authorities. So Trump can order the Texas National Guard to mobilise, but the governor of Illinois cannot on his own.
Just seen the full clip of Bob Jenrick's final few seconds of his speech.
OMG.
He actually said "let's build this new order"!!
And everyone is freaking over "take our country back"???
If Bobby J is Tory leader or in a senior position at the next election then for the first time in my life I will work to defeat the Tory party at a general election.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
Tariffs damage both our country and the EU.
80% of our steel exports go there, or used to.
But Brexit put us in this bad place.
We do, however, buy more of their steel than they do ours.
Being out has tariff advantages too: not paying 25% tariffs on Chinese EVs like our EU cousins, for example.
I wonder what, if anything, we will tariff in response to these steel tariffs.
Please, not the good Brie!
It's a shame really, because Starmer may have to press pause on his "EU reset" - which has some useful stuff in - while we play games on tariffs.
Maybe we just threaten to tariff their cars and hope they back off?
Just seen the full clip of Bob Jenrick's final few seconds of his speech.
OMG.
He actually said "let's build this new order"!!
And everyone is freaking over "take our country back"???
If Bobby J is Tory leader or in a senior position at the next election then for the first time in my life I will work to defeat the Tory party at a general election.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
So what about this deal we negotiated with the Eu…
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
So what about this deal we negotiated with the Eu…
These tariffs, if they come in, also affect Switzerland. So apparently a soft brexit would not have helped...
Just seen the full clip of Bob Jenrick's final few seconds of his speech.
OMG.
He actually said "let's build this new order"!!
And everyone is freaking over "take our country back"???
If Bobby J is Tory leader or in a senior position at the next election then for the first time in my life I will work to defeat the Tory party at a general election.
There's probably a risk of too much attention being paid to the triple lock. It's a useful indicator of whether a party is remotely serious, but it's far from being the be-all and end-all.
Subscribe needs to do some serious thinking that goes a bit deeper than that.
It's pointless discussing the triple lock if every party endorse it for fear of the electorate
They are all as bad as each other
Which is why the way out is taxation.
The basic pension, at approx the IT threshold, isnt a lot.
The issue is, people on 50k pensions sticking that on top.
So
1) merge employee NI and IT. 2) Pensioners on the basic rate of tax continue with the old rate of tax. 3) Pensioners on the higher rate pay the new rate of tax (old IT + NI) 4) Quadruple lock - the state pension sets the tax free allowance for everyone.
This means that everyone pays NI (in effect) on all income. Except poorer pensioners.
And you can boast of improving the triple lock to a quadruple lock.
Not sure doubling down on the triple lock problem by applying the same ratchet to personal allowance to further hollow out the already extremely narrow tax base is the way forward unless you want to work towards a UBI by stealth with obscene tax rates on 50k+ to help fund a free ride for most people.
It’s effectively a limit condition on the triple lock
But clever disguised with *my* branding
Nope, I was there first and invented the Quadruple Lock
The Quintuple Lock is in pre release testing
Prove it… so far you have threatened me and now are denying the truth. All very Trumpian of you
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
Tariffs damage both our country and the EU.
80% of our steel exports go there, or used to.
But Brexit put us in this bad place.
We do, however, buy more of their steel than they do ours.
Being out has tariff advantages too: not paying 25% tariffs on Chinese EVs like our EU cousins, for example.
I wonder what, if anything, we will tariff in response to these steel tariffs.
Please, not the good Brie!
It's a shame really, because Starmer may have to press pause on his "EU reset" - which has some useful stuff in - while we play games on tariffs.
Maybe we just threaten to tariff their cars and hope they back off?
Perhaps there is some merit by just asserting that we are fully wedded to free trade, don't bother responding, and continue to import BYDs faster than we do Renaults, Skodas and Volkswagens.
Just seen the full clip of Bob Jenrick's final few seconds of his speech.
OMG.
He actually said "let's build this new order"!!
And everyone is freaking over "take our country back"???
If Bobby J is Tory leader or in a senior position at the next election then for the first time in my life I will work to defeat the Tory party at a general election.
Does Justice Sec count as "senior position"?
Yes.
One of the reasons I am a Conservative is I strongly believe in the rule of law, as Mrs T said without it there's anarchy, his attacks on the judiciary are inflammatory.
The other thing that annoys me about that snivelling little shit is that he espoused these policies whilst in government.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
Tariffs damage both our country and the EU.
80% of our steel exports go there, or used to.
But Brexit put us in this bad place.
We do, however, buy more of their steel than they do ours.
Being out has tariff advantages too: not paying 25% tariffs on Chinese EVs like our EU cousins, for example.
I wonder what, if anything, we will tariff in response to these steel tariffs.
Please, not the good Brie!
It's a shame really, because Starmer may have to press pause on his "EU reset" - which has some useful stuff in - while we play games on tariffs.
Maybe we just threaten to tariff their cars and hope they back off?
Perhaps there is some merit by just asserting that we are fully wedded to free trade, don't bother responding, and continue to import BYDs faster than we do Renaults, Skodas and Volkswagens.
Perhaps.
I found out today we don't give EV credits on Chinese EVs on the theory their factories are too dirty. Anyone know if that's a legitimate reason or if it's political?
Just seen the full clip of Bob Jenrick's final few seconds of his speech.
OMG.
He actually said "let's build this new order"!!
And everyone is freaking over "take our country back"???
If Bobby J is Tory leader or in a senior position at the next election then for the first time in my life I will work to defeat the Tory party at a general election.
During the pandemic, if Jenrick was doing the 5pm briefing I would hide behind the sofa. Deeply scary.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
Tariffs damage both our country and the EU.
80% of our steel exports go there, or used to.
But Brexit put us in this bad place.
We do, however, buy more of their steel than they do ours.
Being out has tariff advantages too: not paying 25% tariffs on Chinese EVs like our EU cousins, for example.
I wonder what, if anything, we will tariff in response to these steel tariffs.
Yes, so a tariff war damages us from both sides.
Putting up trade barriers to our largest and closest market was supreme folly.
Indeed if we were still in the EU we may have been able to stop a tariff war with other producers too.
May be we could have a common trading area without all the politics stuff? Wouldn’t that be grand.
There's probably a risk of too much attention being paid to the triple lock. It's a useful indicator of whether a party is remotely serious, but it's far from being the be-all and end-all.
Subscribe needs to do some serious thinking that goes a bit deeper than that.
It's pointless discussing the triple lock if every party endorse it for fear of the electorate
They are all as bad as each other
Which is why the way out is taxation.
The basic pension, at approx the IT threshold, isnt a lot.
The issue is, people on 50k pensions sticking that on top.
So
1) merge employee NI and IT. 2) Pensioners on the basic rate of tax continue with the old rate of tax. 3) Pensioners on the higher rate pay the new rate of tax (old IT + NI) 4) Quadruple lock - the state pension sets the tax free allowance for everyone.
This means that everyone pays NI (in effect) on all income. Except poorer pensioners.
And you can boast of improving the triple lock to a quadruple lock.
Not sure doubling down on the triple lock problem by applying the same ratchet to personal allowance to further hollow out the already extremely narrow tax base is the way forward unless you want to work towards a UBI by stealth with obscene tax rates on 50k+ to help fund a free ride for most people.
It’s effectively a limit condition on the triple lock
But clever disguised with *my* branding
Nope, I was there first and invented the Quadruple Lock
The Quintuple Lock is in pre release testing
Prove it… so far you have threatened me and now are denying the truth. All very Trumpian of you
Oh, do a search on the term of it bothers you so much.
Just seen the full clip of Bob Jenrick's final few seconds of his speech.
OMG.
He actually said "let's build this new order"!!
And everyone is freaking over "take our country back"???
He's showing he has True Faith.
Shame he didn't say it on Blue Monday.
New Order's second album was called Power, Corruption and Lies. It got to 4th place in the charts; at this rate, that may be more than the Conservatives can manage next time.
And no Nigel this is not another idea for your manifesto.
The irony of him saying there can be no compromise with those who want us dead while, in effect, talking about killing people for not sharing his views is clearly lost on the drunken old fool.
Isn't he the one trying to unseat the incumbent Republican senator, or is that another Trump-deluded weirdo?
So, under the Conservatives, our policy is simple: one knife and you are out. If you assault a teacher then you are out. If you sexually assault someone then you are out. If you’ve been expelled from not just one but two mainstream schools, then it’s clear, mainstream classrooms aren’t for you. If children bring knives into the classroom, then they shouldn’t be there. If they are violent, then they shouldn’t be there.
And under the Conservatives, they won’t be there.
Raising the obvious question where will they be? And why did you allow such a dysfunctional Hell to develop over 14 years? Does nowt to dispel the idea that young people are to be feared. Why should someone you're clearly terrified of vote for you?
That'll be an attractive set of proposals for those who remember being trapped in classes with people like that. Unless they remember being in those classrooms under the Tories.
Or those who went to private schooling, where the knifers etc. were soon dumped on other schools and finally the state system.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
Tariffs damage both our country and the EU.
80% of our steel exports go there, or used to.
But Brexit put us in this bad place.
We do, however, buy more of their steel than they do ours.
Being out has tariff advantages too: not paying 25% tariffs on Chinese EVs like our EU cousins, for example.
I wonder what, if anything, we will tariff in response to these steel tariffs.
Please, not the good Brie!
It's a shame really, because Starmer may have to press pause on his "EU reset" - which has some useful stuff in - while we play games on tariffs.
Maybe we just threaten to tariff their cars and hope they back off?
Perhaps there is some merit by just asserting that we are fully wedded to free trade, don't bother responding, and continue to import BYDs faster than we do Renaults, Skodas and Volkswagens.
Perhaps.
I found out today we don't give EV credits on Chinese EVs on the theory their factories are too dirty. Anyone know if that's a legitimate reason or if it's political?
Just seen the full clip of Bob Jenrick's final few seconds of his speech.
OMG.
He actually said "let's build this new order"!!
And everyone is freaking over "take our country back"???
I saw New Order live once. The stage collapsed.
I have seen them live twice. Headlining at Glasto in 1987, and at the Blue Dot festival 7 years ago. They are a brilliant live band.
The stage remained intact on both occasions, though Glasto 1987 was illuminated by a burning Transit van abandoned in the mud by the stage. Pyrotechnics were a little more crowd led in those days.
So, under the Conservatives, our policy is simple: one knife and you are out. If you assault a teacher then you are out. If you sexually assault someone then you are out. If you’ve been expelled from not just one but two mainstream schools, then it’s clear, mainstream classrooms aren’t for you. If children bring knives into the classroom, then they shouldn’t be there. If they are violent, then they shouldn’t be there.
And under the Conservatives, they won’t be there.
Raising the obvious question where will they be? And why did you allow such a dysfunctional Hell to develop over 14 years? Does nowt to dispel the idea that young people are to be feared. Why should someone you're clearly terrified of vote for you?
That'll be an attractive set of proposals for those who remember being trapped in classes with people like that. Unless they remember being in those classrooms under the Tories.
Or those who went to private schooling, where the knifers etc. were soon dumped on other schools and finally the state system.
I expect some plan involving the army, which might fly until someone asks the actual army.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
Tariffs damage both our country and the EU.
80% of our steel exports go there, or used to.
But Brexit put us in this bad place.
We do, however, buy more of their steel than they do ours.
Being out has tariff advantages too: not paying 25% tariffs on Chinese EVs like our EU cousins, for example.
I wonder what, if anything, we will tariff in response to these steel tariffs.
Yes, so a tariff war damages us from both sides.
Putting up trade barriers to our largest and closest market was supreme folly.
Indeed if we were still in the EU we may have been able to stop a tariff war with other producers too.
May be we could have a common trading area without all the politics stuff? Wouldn’t that be grand.
Economics and trade are inherently political, so no.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
Tariffs damage both our country and the EU.
80% of our steel exports go there, or used to.
But Brexit put us in this bad place.
We do, however, buy more of their steel than they do ours.
Being out has tariff advantages too: not paying 25% tariffs on Chinese EVs like our EU cousins, for example.
I wonder what, if anything, we will tariff in response to these steel tariffs.
Yes, so a tariff war damages us from both sides.
Putting up trade barriers to our largest and closest market was supreme folly.
Indeed if we were still in the EU we may have been able to stop a tariff war with other producers too.
May be we could have a common trading area without all the politics stuff? Wouldn’t that be grand.
The problem is... you can't and you never could. Making economic decisions is political by definition. Heath knew that at the time and said so clearly. Those looking for apolitical economics are wishing for the Moon.
There's probably a risk of too much attention being paid to the triple lock. It's a useful indicator of whether a party is remotely serious, but it's far from being the be-all and end-all.
Subscribe needs to do some serious thinking that goes a bit deeper than that.
It's pointless discussing the triple lock if every party endorse it for fear of the electorate
They are all as bad as each other
Which is why the way out is taxation.
The basic pension, at approx the IT threshold, isnt a lot.
The issue is, people on 50k pensions sticking that on top.
So
1) merge employee NI and IT. 2) Pensioners on the basic rate of tax continue with the old rate of tax. 3) Pensioners on the higher rate pay the new rate of tax (old IT + NI) 4) Quadruple lock - the state pension sets the tax free allowance for everyone.
This means that everyone pays NI (in effect) on all income. Except poorer pensioners.
And you can boast of improving the triple lock to a quadruple lock.
Not sure doubling down on the triple lock problem by applying the same ratchet to personal allowance to further hollow out the already extremely narrow tax base is the way forward unless you want to work towards a UBI by stealth with obscene tax rates on 50k+ to help fund a free ride for most people.
It’s effectively a limit condition on the triple lock
But clever disguised with *my* branding
Nope, I was there first and invented the Quadruple Lock
The Quintuple Lock is in pre release testing
Prove it… so far you have threatened me and now are denying the truth. All very Trumpian of you
Oh, do a search on the term of it bothers you so much.
I vaguely remember coming up with an alternative quadruple lock, with the fourth part of the lock being the Conservative vote share at the election. I think it was when Sunak suggested protecting the lock from the personal allowance.
Why can’t the Illinois national guard be used to stop the Texas national guard in Chicago? It seems like democratic governors just do nothing but complain.
The National Guard is not the private army of the state governor, they are under joint control of state and federal authorities. So Trump can order the Texas National Guard to mobilise, but the governor of Illinois cannot on his own.
They are mainly under the control of state governors. The President’s rights are very limited to specific reasons for federalising the guard.
I understand that Muneera Lula, one of Keir Starmer's longest-serving policy advisers, handed in her resignation to the prime minister yesterday. Another of the dwindling number of spads personally loyal to him gone.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
The baiting comes from a place of raging left wing snobbery.
Perhaps, but delivered with with and style!
Provence seems, to me, to be Reform’s Britain, dialled up to eleven.
It could never be that dull and rancid. The place is as cosmopolitan as London. You're maybe confusing it with Luton?.
There's probably a risk of too much attention being paid to the triple lock. It's a useful indicator of whether a party is remotely serious, but it's far from being the be-all and end-all.
Subscribe needs to do some serious thinking that goes a bit deeper than that.
It's pointless discussing the triple lock if every party endorse it for fear of the electorate
They are all as bad as each other
Which is why the way out is taxation.
The basic pension, at approx the IT threshold, isnt a lot.
The issue is, people on 50k pensions sticking that on top.
So
1) merge employee NI and IT. 2) Pensioners on the basic rate of tax continue with the old rate of tax. 3) Pensioners on the higher rate pay the new rate of tax (old IT + NI) 4) Quadruple lock - the state pension sets the tax free allowance for everyone.
This means that everyone pays NI (in effect) on all income. Except poorer pensioners.
And you can boast of improving the triple lock to a quadruple lock.
Not sure doubling down on the triple lock problem by applying the same ratchet to personal allowance to further hollow out the already extremely narrow tax base is the way forward unless you want to work towards a UBI by stealth with obscene tax rates on 50k+ to help fund a free ride for most people.
It’s effectively a limit condition on the triple lock
But clever disguised with *my* branding
Nope, I was there first and invented the Quadruple Lock
The Quintuple Lock is in pre release testing
Prove it… so far you have threatened me and now are denying the truth. All very Trumpian of you
Oh, do a search on the term of it bothers you so much.
I vaguely remember coming up with an alternative quadruple lock, with the fourth part of the lock being the Conservative vote share at the election. I think it was when Sunak suggested protecting the lock from the personal allowance.
I got my version from removing the stupid from the Sunak idea. Which was to make the state pension never taxable, even when it went past past the personal allowance.
There's probably a risk of too much attention being paid to the triple lock. It's a useful indicator of whether a party is remotely serious, but it's far from being the be-all and end-all.
Subscribe needs to do some serious thinking that goes a bit deeper than that.
It's pointless discussing the triple lock if every party endorse it for fear of the electorate
They are all as bad as each other
Which is why the way out is taxation.
The basic pension, at approx the IT threshold, isnt a lot.
The issue is, people on 50k pensions sticking that on top.
So
1) merge employee NI and IT. 2) Pensioners on the basic rate of tax continue with the old rate of tax. 3) Pensioners on the higher rate pay the new rate of tax (old IT + NI) 4) Quadruple lock - the state pension sets the tax free allowance for everyone.
This means that everyone pays NI (in effect) on all income. Except poorer pensioners.
And you can boast of improving the triple lock to a quadruple lock.
Not sure doubling down on the triple lock problem by applying the same ratchet to personal allowance to further hollow out the already extremely narrow tax base is the way forward unless you want to work towards a UBI by stealth with obscene tax rates on 50k+ to help fund a free ride for most people.
It’s effectively a limit condition on the triple lock
But clever disguised with *my* branding
Nope, I was there first and invented the Quadruple Lock
The Quintuple Lock is in pre release testing
Prove it… so far you have threatened me and now are denying the truth. All very Trumpian of you
Oh, do a search on the term of it bothers you so much.
Just seen the full clip of Bob Jenrick's final few seconds of his speech.
OMG.
He actually said "let's build this new order"!!
And everyone is freaking over "take our country back"???
He's showing he has True Faith.
Shame he didn't say it on Blue Monday.
New Order's second album was called Power, Corruption and Lies. It got to 4th place in the charts; at this rate, that may be more than the Conservatives can manage next time.
Still the title sums up their 14 years in actual government rather well.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
Tariffs damage both our country and the EU.
80% of our steel exports go there, or used to.
But Brexit put us in this bad place.
We do, however, buy more of their steel than they do ours.
Being out has tariff advantages too: not paying 25% tariffs on Chinese EVs like our EU cousins, for example.
I wonder what, if anything, we will tariff in response to these steel tariffs.
Yes, so a tariff war damages us from both sides.
Putting up trade barriers to our largest and closest market was supreme folly.
Indeed if we were still in the EU we may have been able to stop a tariff war with other producers too.
May be we could have a common trading area without all the politics stuff? Wouldn’t that be grand.
Economics and trade are inherently political, so no.
It worked fine for the first 20 years or so of membership
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
Tariffs damage both our country and the EU.
80% of our steel exports go there, or used to.
But Brexit put us in this bad place.
We do, however, buy more of their steel than they do ours.
Being out has tariff advantages too: not paying 25% tariffs on Chinese EVs like our EU cousins, for example.
I wonder what, if anything, we will tariff in response to these steel tariffs.
Yes, so a tariff war damages us from both sides.
Putting up trade barriers to our largest and closest market was supreme folly.
Indeed if we were still in the EU we may have been able to stop a tariff war with other producers too.
May be we could have a common trading area without all the politics stuff? Wouldn’t that be grand.
Probably the last politician on the international stage who really got that subsidy vs tariff is lose-lose was Bush Senior.
Who was talking about the last shibboleth being in the next round of GATT talks, if he’d got re-elected. Yes, farm subsidies.
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
The theory that tariffs affect the country imposing them rather than the country they are imposed upon seems to have gone missing on Remainer PB this evening.
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
Tariffs damage both our country and the EU.
80% of our steel exports go there, or used to.
But Brexit put us in this bad place.
We do, however, buy more of their steel than they do ours.
Being out has tariff advantages too: not paying 25% tariffs on Chinese EVs like our EU cousins, for example.
I wonder what, if anything, we will tariff in response to these steel tariffs.
Yes, so a tariff war damages us from both sides.
Putting up trade barriers to our largest and closest market was supreme folly.
Indeed if we were still in the EU we may have been able to stop a tariff war with other producers too.
May be we could have a common trading area without all the politics stuff? Wouldn’t that be grand.
The problem is... you can't and you never could. Making economic decisions is political by definition. Heath knew that at the time and said so clearly. Those looking for apolitical economics are wishing for the Moon.
Of course these things are political. But that doesn’t mean you need a “ever closer union” monetary union, freedom of movement, etc etc
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
The baiting comes from a place of raging left wing snobbery.
Perhaps, but delivered with with and style!
Provence seems, to me, to be Reform’s Britain, dialled up to eleven.
It could never be that dull and rancid. The place is as cosmopolitan as London. You're maybe confusing it with Luton?.
Luton? A town with a non-white majority, with the Asian ethnic group being the largest at 37%, followed by White at 45.2% and a population younger than the national average, with more people under 15 and fewer over 65. A town where Christianity is the majority religion at 37.9%, closely followed by Islam at 32.9%. Recent data also indicating significant population growth driven by international migration?
And that is where you’re suggesting is emblematic of a Reform Britain?
EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest ever crisis' for UK industry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy875px79po The EU has announced plans to hike tariffs on imported steel in a move the UK's steel industry has said could be "perhaps the biggest crisis" it has ever faced. The commission has set out plans to cut the amount of steel that can be imported into the bloc by half - beyond which the new 50% tariffs will apply. The EU is the UK's most important export destination for steel, worth nearly £3bn and representing 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets. The commission has come under pressure from some member states and their steel industries, which have been struggling to compete with cheap imports from countries like China and Turkey. The EU is proposing to reduce tariff-free quotas for imports to 18.3 million tonnes a year – a 47% reduction from 2024 levels...
So what about this deal we negotiated with the Eu…
These tariffs, if they come in, also affect Switzerland. So apparently a soft brexit would not have helped...
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
The baiting comes from a place of raging left wing snobbery.
Perhaps, but delivered with with and style!
Provence seems, to me, to be Reform’s Britain, dialled up to eleven.
It could never be that dull and rancid. The place is as cosmopolitan as London. You're maybe confusing it with Luton?.
Luton? A town with a non-white majority, with the Asian ethnic group being the largest at 37%, followed by White at 45.2% and a population younger than the national average, with more people under 15 and fewer over 65. A town where Christianity is the majority religion at 37.9%, closely followed by Islam at 32.9%. Recent data also indicating significant population growth driven by international migration?
And that is where you’re suggesting is emblematic of a Reform Britain?
You really are a stupid as I thought.
Whilst Provence was carried by Marine Le Pen, and has six out of ten RN MP’s. Luton is about as safe for Labour as anywhere can be.
Objectively speaking, this does sound quite bad for the government on the face of it.
"CPS blames Labour for collapse of China spies trial Director of public prosecutions says Government refused for more than a year to describe Beijing as national security threat" (£)
Why can’t the Illinois national guard be used to stop the Texas national guard in Chicago? It seems like democratic governors just do nothing but complain.
The National Guard is not the private army of the state governor, they are under joint control of state and federal authorities. So Trump can order the Texas National Guard to mobilise, but the governor of Illinois cannot on his own.
Interestingly, some US States (Texas, New York, others?) have a State Guard as well as a National Guard, with the State Guard being the army of the state. But Illinois is not one of them.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
The baiting comes from a place of raging left wing snobbery.
Perhaps, but delivered with with and style!
Provence seems, to me, to be Reform’s Britain, dialled up to eleven.
It could never be that dull and rancid. The place is as cosmopolitan as London. You're maybe confusing it with Luton?.
Luton? A town with a non-white majority, with the Asian ethnic group being the largest at 37%, followed by White at 45.2% and a population younger than the national average, with more people under 15 and fewer over 65. A town where Christianity is the majority religion at 37.9%, closely followed by Islam at 32.9%. Recent data also indicating significant population growth driven by international migration?
And that is where you’re suggesting is emblematic of a Reform Britain?
You really are a stupid as I thought.
But surely Luton is a prime example of Reform Britain for just those reasons.
So, under the Conservatives, our policy is simple: one knife and you are out. If you assault a teacher then you are out. If you sexually assault someone then you are out. If you’ve been expelled from not just one but two mainstream schools, then it’s clear, mainstream classrooms aren’t for you. If children bring knives into the classroom, then they shouldn’t be there. If they are violent, then they shouldn’t be there.
And under the Conservatives, they won’t be there.
Raising the obvious question where will they be? And why did you allow such a dysfunctional Hell to develop over 14 years? Does nowt to dispel the idea that young people are to be feared. Why should someone you're clearly terrified of vote for you?
That'll be an attractive set of proposals for those who remember being trapped in classes with people like that. Unless they remember being in those classrooms under the Tories.
Or those who went to private schooling, where the knifers etc. were soon dumped on other schools and finally the state system.
I expect some plan involving the army, which might fly until someone asks the actual army.
Even in the conscription era, the armed forces really did not like having criminals and antisocials and gangsters and spivs dumped on them. In the modern volunteer era ... just imagine the recruiting posters
JOIN THE ARMY - PROVE YOURSELF WORTHY OF YOUR FELLOW GANGSTERS.
and similar.
It was true of the Royal Navy c. 1780-1820 (except for the smuggler sailors - *very* useful crims) and it'll be even more true of today.
Okay so that’s not a power station, it’s a factory that makes jet turbines for long-range missiles.
In other news, a military train was derailed near St. Petersburg. The russian authorities denied that anything happened, but also cut off mobile phone networks in the area.
Ukraine's HUR have said that partisans in Russia set off an explosion to achieve that.
They might lie though
They might. And it is clearly in the interests of the Ukrainians for the Russians to be constantly looking over their shoulders for sabateurs and fifth columnists.
On the other hand, there is no shortage of opposition to the Putin regime - it's just that independent newspapers have been shutdown, rival politicians have been imprisoned and/or died, and a brutal security apparatus stamps down on anything that looks like it a demonstration.
Could some opponents of the Putin regime start to sabotage Russian war efforts? The answer is 'probably not', but the more cracks appear in the regime, the more you might doubt that Putin will be around long-term to punish you, and maybe 'throwing a spanner in the works' no longer seems quite as risky as it did.
And the more fuel shotages there are, especially with winter coming, the more subtle grumbling there will be.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
The baiting comes from a place of raging left wing snobbery.
Perhaps, but delivered with with and style!
Provence seems, to me, to be Reform’s Britain, dialled up to eleven.
It could never be that dull and rancid. The place is as cosmopolitan as London. You're maybe confusing it with Luton?.
Luton? A town with a non-white majority, with the Asian ethnic group being the largest at 37%, followed by White at 45.2% and a population younger than the national average, with more people under 15 and fewer over 65. A town where Christianity is the majority religion at 37.9%, closely followed by Islam at 32.9%. Recent data also indicating significant population growth driven by international migration?
And that is where you’re suggesting is emblematic of a Reform Britain?
You really are a stupid as I thought.
Luton is probably the definition of Hell for @Roger.
I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.
If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.
Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.
We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.
Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.
If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.
It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!
I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.
Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.
I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.
Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).
I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.
Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news
Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm
Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).
You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.
I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking
1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party
or
2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?
The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos
I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems
A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...
Everyone but the English.......
What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK
Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!
I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.
Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.
You meanie,
I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.
I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.
It's cold outside...
The baiting comes from a place of raging left wing snobbery.
Perhaps, but delivered with with and style!
Provence seems, to me, to be Reform’s Britain, dialled up to eleven.
It could never be that dull and rancid. The place is as cosmopolitan as London. You're maybe confusing it with Luton?.
Luton? A town with a non-white majority, with the Asian ethnic group being the largest at 37%, followed by White at 45.2% and a population younger than the national average, with more people under 15 and fewer over 65. A town where Christianity is the majority religion at 37.9%, closely followed by Islam at 32.9%. Recent data also indicating significant population growth driven by international migration?
And that is where you’re suggesting is emblematic of a Reform Britain?
You really are a stupid as I thought.
But surely Luton is a prime example of Reform Britain for just those reasons.
Comments
The good news for Reform/bad news for the Conservatives, is that each round of local elections will deliver big headline gains for Reform. By 2028, we could have 4,000 Reform councillors, dozens of members of devolved assemblies and Parliaments. That gives the impression of unstoppable momentum, and in all likelihood, the Conservatives will have fewer elected representatives. That fuels the belief that the Conservatives are a wasted vote.
In the old days of PB, there was a man called (I believe) Avery Lynch Pole, who was very big on it.
The Quintuple Lock is in pre release testing
And even now in thrall to Faragism?
More LDs and Greens would tactically vote Labour to beat Reform in Labour held seats. In Tory held seats nearly half of Labour and LD voters would even vote Tory to beat Reform Yougov found, likely even more if Cleverly led the Tories at the next general election and even nearly a quarter of Greens said they would hold their noses in a Tory seat and vote Tory if the alternative was a Reform MP
It does make me wonder whether Britain is in danger of becoming a dangerous place to live for anyone who isn't a "white face". That's the path we are on if supposedly mainstream politicians are now casually tossing out this kind of pig ignorant bile.
It is possible that it was a pseudonym.
It is almost like he made a very large bet 20 years ago that he could destroy the Tories and is going about winning it by any means possible - like an out of hand game, as you say. It doesn't seem to be wholly serious.
I think at some point people in his party who are serious will notice, and attempt to do something about it, at which point you would hope the implosion occurs.
The only problem is that Trump also did not appear to be serious, and yet here we are. But for all Farage's faults, I don't think he's quite as unhinged.
But doesn't that also mean Reform will have plenty of time to display their competence in running Councils?
*one of the great euphemisms of our times.
As you say, the jigsaw certainly doesn't fit together and it will buckle and crack apart - let's just hope the jigsaw isn't the British Govt when it happens.
You know that verse in Kipling's "If" about a game of pitch and toss? It's balls.
Second line more mixed, Thatcherite Tories who have gone Reform are economic libertarians who will hate Reform controlled KCC raising council tax to fund social care.
Redwall ex Labour voters who have gone Reform though are much more pro spending on public services and social care and don't mind higher tax on the wealthy and high earners as long as not them. Remember the only Tory they ever voted for was Boris
In my view the wisdom of crowds has not yet decided against Labour forming the next government. Though I suspect the verdict is already in about the Tories.
It won't be dull.
So, under the Conservatives, our policy is simple: one knife and you are out.
If you assault a teacher then you are out.
If you sexually assault someone then you are out.
If you’ve been expelled from not just one but two mainstream schools, then it’s clear, mainstream classrooms aren’t for you.
If children bring knives into the classroom, then they shouldn’t be there.
If they are violent, then they shouldn’t be there.
And under the Conservatives, they won’t be there.
Raising the obvious question where will they be?
And why did you allow such a dysfunctional Hell to develop over 14 years?
Does nowt to dispel the idea that young people are to be feared.
Why should someone you're clearly terrified of vote for you?
Perhaps it was never quite that simple in the first place.
There are some great graphs in this substack to substantiate this:
https://benansell.substack.com/p/british-politics-midlife-crisis
80% of our steel exports go there, or used to.
But Brexit put us in this bad place.
When was the last election where you could make an argument that the electorate got it totally wrong (as opposed to the government)?
The elevated risk of that error happening is coming from social media, of course.
Partly, there's the whole "how did it get so bad before 2024?" thing, that will dog the Conservatives for a bit longer.
More importantly, where are we going to put these children? Dixiedean has told us of the mess that the referral system is in. It would be a morally good thing to have enough capacity that young people who do terrible things can rapidly go somewhere more appropriate, and it's worth spending money on... but it ain't going to be cheap.
If Trott hasn't got any further than "not here", that's pretty useless. But then again, this is what her leader said about deportation flights;
Asked where the people being deported would be sent to, Badenoch said: "I'm tired of us asking all of these irrelevant questions about where should they go. "They will go back to where they should do or another country, but they should not be here."
In a world made of actual places, that doesn't work.
Being out has tariff advantages too: not paying 25% tariffs on Chinese EVs like our EU cousins, for example.
I wonder what, if anything, we will tariff in response to these steel tariffs.
Putting up trade barriers to our largest and closest market was supreme folly.
Indeed if we were still in the EU we may have been able to stop a tariff war with other producers too.
Two very different polls from Freshwater and YouGov.
Jenrick's antics made sure the defection of 20 councillors from the Conservatives to Reform (moving Reform ahead of the Greens in councillor numbers) didn't get the attention it might otherwise have received.
As someone who lives in an area with few "white British" faces currently (though I sense that's starting to change as new housing is bringing people into the area), I can't say it bothers me all that much. It may bother others - the main people speaking English are the children who mingle together indifferent to ethnicity, gender and creed.
Once again, we see from another Badenoch interview the debate has moved from immigration to integration. I'm not sure what it is people want or expect - do I feel any less British surrounded by Muslims and Hindus? In truth, no. Britain isn't about the colour of your skin or the God to whom you pray - never has been. It is about people living and working together and the fact we have a family of Catholics from the Phillipines on one side and a young Indian couple on the other side makes no odds.
The Anglican church houses both a Tamil Christian congregation and a couple of groups of evangelicals from sub-saharan Africa. Up the road, I see the older Muslim men walking toward the mosque to pray - it may not be the Vicar cycling past the village green as cricket is being played but it's my community and I see no problem with it.
Not in mainstream. So where?
It is redolent of those who bemoaned the effect lockdown would have on mental health. Then when millions report poor mental health the solution is cut off their benefits then they'll get better.
But effects will vary greatly depending on circumstances.
The UK, as a trading economy which is no longer part of a trade block, is quite poorly placed to deal with the shocks inherent in the introduction of very high tariffs - and our steel industry particularly so.
But the wisdom of crowds was demonstrated in 2024. In a single swoop to destroy Tory pretensions, give Labour a huge majority but tell Labour is lacked the credibility of a popular mandate by only giving it 34% of the vote. Genius.
OMG.
He actually said "let's build this new order"!!
And everyone is freaking over "take our country back"???
Maybe we just threaten to tariff their cars and hope they back off?
One of the reasons I am a Conservative is I strongly believe in the rule of law, as Mrs T said without it there's anarchy, his attacks on the judiciary are inflammatory.
The other thing that annoys me about that snivelling little shit is that he espoused these policies whilst in government.
The stage collapsed.
Attorney General Ken Paxton
@KenPaxtonTX
BREAKING: I'm launching undercover operations to infiltrate and uproot leftist terror cells in Texas.
Leftist political terrorism is a clear and present danger. There can be no compromise with those who want us dead.
https://x.com/KenPaxtonTX/status/1975581768876237115
And no Nigel this is not another idea for your manifesto.
I found out today we don't give EV credits on Chinese EVs on the theory their factories are too dirty. Anyone know if that's a legitimate reason or if it's political?
New Order's second album was called Power, Corruption and Lies. It got to 4th place in the charts; at this rate, that may be more than the Conservatives can manage next time.
Isn't he the one trying to unseat the incumbent Republican senator, or is that another Trump-deluded weirdo?
The stage remained intact on both occasions, though Glasto 1987 was illuminated by a burning Transit van abandoned in the mud by the stage. Pyrotechnics were a little more crowd led in those days.
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-does-us-national-guard-do
Patrick Maguire
@patrickkmaguire
I understand that Muneera Lula, one of Keir Starmer's longest-serving policy advisers, handed in her resignation to the prime minister yesterday. Another of the dwindling number of spads personally loyal to him gone.
https://x.com/patrickkmaguire/status/1975582302534312078
I got my version from removing the stupid from the Sunak idea. Which was to make the state pension never taxable, even when it went past past the personal allowance.
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g187069-d754280-Reviews-Armenian_Taverna_Restaurant-Manchester_Greater_Manchester_England.html
Who was talking about the last shibboleth being in the next round of GATT talks, if he’d got re-elected. Yes, farm subsidies.
And that is where you’re suggesting is emblematic of a Reform Britain?
You really are a stupid as I thought.
"CPS blames Labour for collapse of China spies trial
Director of public prosecutions says Government refused for more than a year to describe Beijing as national security threat" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/07/cps-blames-labour-for-collapse-of-china-spies-trial
Hometown of Yaxley-Lennon too.
JOIN THE ARMY - PROVE YOURSELF WORTHY OF YOUR FELLOW GANGSTERS.
and similar.
It was true of the Royal Navy c. 1780-1820 (except for the smuggler sailors - *very* useful crims) and it'll be even more true of today.
On the other hand, there is no shortage of opposition to the Putin regime - it's just that independent newspapers have been shutdown, rival politicians have been imprisoned and/or died, and a brutal security apparatus stamps down on anything that looks like it a demonstration.
Could some opponents of the Putin regime start to sabotage Russian war efforts? The answer is 'probably not', but the more cracks appear in the regime, the more you might doubt that Putin will be around long-term to punish you, and maybe 'throwing a spanner in the works' no longer seems quite as risky as it did.
And the more fuel shotages there are, especially with winter coming, the more subtle grumbling there will be.
So, who knows?
Whose world view is expressed quite well, here - https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/1451542#Comment_1451542
Edit: didn’t the Ultra Ultra Far Right…. Lib Dem’s do rather well in the last council elections in Luton?
Labour: 30
Liberal Democrats: 15
Conservative: 3
Reform: 0
Unassociated Gaza Parties: 0