Going to be very interesting to see what happens to Green polling if Sultana and Corbyn can ever bury the axe and get their party launched.
The crank left expend most of their energy fighting the true enemy - traitors in their own ranks. This conference they have announced - there will be factional fighting over the composition and membership of the committees formed to decide things like a constitution and a name.
Meanwhile, the Green Party are up and running with a dynamic new leader who can speak in a more compelling way than Magic Grandpa or Zarah lunacy.
Your Party = ALBA
No, with respect it's not at all like ALBA. I'm a potential recruit for the new party, and I'm chair of my constituency CLP and an ex-MP of 13 years. I'm not tempted by the Green Party, however, as I don't share their preoccupation with green issues and I don't think they'd made a serious effort to think about what they'd do in power, but I'd be up for some cooperation. What's keeping me in Labour is the vagueness of the new party's policies and leadership, which I hope will become clearer after the launch conference. It may collapse in internal disputes, in which case I'll soldier on, but with the massive increase in military spending and massive decline in overseas aid, the need for a genuine party on the left is IMHO clear.
I'm 75 so my personal preference isn't very important, but I suspect I'm not alone.
Boom time for immigration lawyers as US and UK tighten restrictions
Legal firms on both sides of the Atlantic told the Financial Times that their practices were overwhelmed with enquiries after Donald Trump and Keir Starmer hardened policies https://on.ft.com/3KH6ELP
The woman in the fish and chip shop is running out of visa. She has a degree in something or other but could not find a job in that field (assuming it was a field).
This is the problem in Britain, America, India, perhaps everywhere. People are following the rules, the unwritten social contract, that you go to school, study hard and behave well, go off to university and then get a graduate job. But increasingly, in whichever country, the graduate jobs are not there, owing variously to automation or recession or just wait-and-see.
And in a few months time, she will be shipped back to India and someone else will serve me fish and chips.
And that sucks for her as an individual, but is it the wrong thing for society?
She couldn’t find a role in her field. At best the next person with a degree in her field will be luckier?
It's not just her – that's the problem. It's everyone. Even the doctors who can't find jobs while we have a shortage of doctors.
I don’t buy the “can’t” find jobs.
If you said “won’t take a job at the salary offered” or “won’t move to a rural GP practice” then that’s something practical.
If there are jobs available and there are people who want to do the jobs then where does the “can’t” come from?
Isn’t the issue there with the number of NHS training places for junior doctors, which don’t line up with the number of university medicine graduates?
Imagine if such a scandal occurred in other fields:
Engineering grads who can't get engineering jobs Science grads who can't get science jobs Arts grads who can't get a job as an Artist in Residence History grads who can't get a job presenting a TV series
Welcome to the real world, med school comrades!
Well, I feel sorry for those grads too.
The medicine thing is stupid because the government has command and control over the NHS in a way it does not the rest of the economy/education system. In this case the damage to the individuals and society as a whole is largely avoidable.
Doctors get paid well, no doubt. But you have a very large number of highly qualified, hard working and smart young people saddled with massive debt , unable to use their skills for the wider good and facing unemployment - and we know that extended un/under employment has decades long impacts on people.
What makes it especially stupid is that staff shortages then require insanely expensive agency staff to be brought in.
If you staffed the NHS with enough people to not need agency (of similar) you’d save literal billions.
It's really, really worrying to find myself on the same side as Richard Burgon and Michael Gove. It feels like the universe is pranking me by making total idiots say sensible things.
MTG said something sensible the other day. We live in very strange times.
Going to be very interesting to see what happens to Green polling if Sultana and Corbyn can ever bury the axe and get their party launched.
The crank left expend most of their energy fighting the true enemy - traitors in their own ranks. This conference they have announced - there will be factional fighting over the composition and membership of the committees formed to decide things like a constitution and a name.
Meanwhile, the Green Party are up and running with a dynamic new leader who can speak in a more compelling way than Magic Grandpa or Zarah lunacy.
Your Party = ALBA
No, with respect it's not at all like ALBA. I'm a potential recruit for the new party, and I'm chair of my constituency CLP and an ex-MP of 13 years. I'm not tempted by the Green Party, however, as I don't share their preoccupation with green issues and I don't think they'd made a serious effort to think about what they'd do in power, but I'd be up for some cooperation. What's keeping me in Labour is the vagueness of the new party's policies and leadership, which I hope will become clearer after the launch conference. It may collapse in internal disputes, in which case I'll soldier on, but with the massive increase in military spending and massive decline in overseas aid, the need for a genuine party on the left is IMHO clear.
I'm 75 so my personal preference isn't very important, but I suspect I'm not alone.
The "like ALBA" comment was more that it exists, has a few elected members inherited from elsewhere and will make absolutely zero impact...
The UK is very good at innovation. We punch well above our weight in research. Yet successive governments keep effectively cutting university funding and introducing hostile policies.
But innovation isn’t enough. Going from innovation to market is hard. Innovators may look to larger markets (US, EU), particularly in areas where regulation is complex (which it needs to be in pharma).
We have plenty of creative, talented, people, but lack the necessary cadre of competent middle to senior management.
The universities are just about the only world class thing we have left and yet Phillipson seems to be totally asleep at the wheel as they collapse.
Has she said one thing about unis since becoming education sec?
But seems she still has some spare time as she is running to be deputy - a job that presumably involves some hours a week away from her actual day job.
On Uni finance, Bath has been pretty robust but can hear the system creaking everywhere. Whether it was no spare calculators in exam rooms, to stripping back admin staff to support examinations at one end, or the announcement yesterday of a voluntary exit scheme (not seen since the heady days of covid) you know that while we've been ok so far, belts are running out of holes to tighten to.
For someone who has been watching the sector for a while (one of the projects I worked on a while back was overseas recruitment for a Russell Group uni) I’m frankly surprised this is your first round of voluntary exit schemes.
Elsewhere they’ve ran them so often there is no-one left willing to volunteer.
Its not the first - its the first since Covid. Uni's have always had a problem with academics who have stopped being research active (or at least successful) but carry on turning up, taking the (usually large) salary as senior lecturers/profs etc but don't do much of anything else. Its hard for unis to sack people. About the only power HoD's or Dean's have is to start piling up teaching and admin to drive them out.
So our current scheme is branded as helping us 'refresh our workforce'.
My friend in the Uni sector was looking for their first job 20+ years ago, they said back then almost everyone waiting to be interviewed was more qualified and published than most of the interview panel.
And the reality, going back decades in many departments, is that the "piling up of teaching and admin" was a thing for new hires irrespective of any desire to drive them out.
This morning, dozens of Iranian-registered ships have suddenly switched on their transponders for the first time since 2017.
The question is why, and why today?
The rumour going around is that Trump is prepared to lift oil sanctions on Iran as part of the wider Middle East peace deal, and if that happens the oil price will collapse in the short term.
Great news for the West as the oil price feeds into everything
Average news for the Middle East outside Iran, as we like high prices out here to fund government spending.
But the important bit, is absolutely terrible news for Russia, they’ll be unable to give the stuff away, and have precisely no hard currency income whatsoever.
The UK is very good at innovation. We punch well above our weight in research. Yet successive governments keep effectively cutting university funding and introducing hostile policies.
But innovation isn’t enough. Going from innovation to market is hard. Innovators may look to larger markets (US, EU), particularly in areas where regulation is complex (which it needs to be in pharma).
We have plenty of creative, talented, people, but lack the necessary cadre of competent middle to senior management.
The universities are just about the only world class thing we have left and yet Phillipson seems to be totally asleep at the wheel as they collapse.
Has she said one thing about unis since becoming education sec?
But seems she still has some spare time as she is running to be deputy - a job that presumably involves some hours a week away from her actual day job.
That would be a useless education minister replacing a useless housing minister as Labour's deputy leader.
A reminder of how well the UK construction sector is currently doing:
September data suggested that the UK construction sector faced pressure on multiple fronts as residential, commercial and civil engineering work all continued to decrease at solid rates. Lower volumes of overall construction output have been recorded since January, although the latest reduction was the slowest for three months and the downturn in new orders was the softest so far in 2025.
Business activity expectations for the year ahead were among the lowest since the end of 2022, suggesting that construction companies remained cautious about the near-term outlook and have yet to see a turning point on the horizon. Some firms hope for a boost from lower borrowing costs and noted new sales pipelines in areas such as energy security markets and infrastructure projects. However, many survey respondents reported caution among clients ahead of the Autumn Budget and a general reluctance to commit to major capital expenditure projects against a subdued domestic economic backdrop.
Weak business optimism, shrinking workloads and robust cost pressures once again led to lower employment numbers across the construction sector. Lower staffing levels have now been recorded for nine months in a row, which is the longest period of job shedding since the pandemic.
Going to be very interesting to see what happens to Green polling if Sultana and Corbyn can ever bury the axe and get their party launched.
The crank left expend most of their energy fighting the true enemy - traitors in their own ranks. This conference they have announced - there will be factional fighting over the composition and membership of the committees formed to decide things like a constitution and a name.
Meanwhile, the Green Party are up and running with a dynamic new leader who can speak in a more compelling way than Magic Grandpa or Zarah lunacy.
Your Party = ALBA
No, with respect it's not at all like ALBA. I'm a potential recruit for the new party, and I'm chair of my constituency CLP and an ex-MP of 13 years. I'm not tempted by the Green Party, however, as I don't share their preoccupation with green issues and I don't think they'd made a serious effort to think about what they'd do in power, but I'd be up for some cooperation. What's keeping me in Labour is the vagueness of the new party's policies and leadership, which I hope will become clearer after the launch conference. It may collapse in internal disputes, in which case I'll soldier on, but with the massive increase in military spending and massive decline in overseas aid, the need for a genuine party on the left is IMHO clear.
I'm 75 so my personal preference isn't very important, but I suspect I'm not alone.
Your Party seems like a typical sectarian, ineffectual, party of the extreme left.
There's something very odd about these numbers. Perhaps the sampling. Is there an VI analysis by socio-economic group?
Right now, Yougov's sample skews well to the left of other pollsters'.
Most pollsters have the Conservatives and Reform's combined vote at c.50%, with that for Labour, Greens, Lib Dems at c.45%. With Yougov it's 44% to 49%.
Going to be very interesting to see what happens to Green polling if Sultana and Corbyn can ever bury the axe and get their party launched.
The crank left expend most of their energy fighting the true enemy - traitors in their own ranks. This conference they have announced - there will be factional fighting over the composition and membership of the committees formed to decide things like a constitution and a name.
Meanwhile, the Green Party are up and running with a dynamic new leader who can speak in a more compelling way than Magic Grandpa or Zarah lunacy.
Your Party = ALBA
No, with respect it's not at all like ALBA. I'm a potential recruit for the new party, and I'm chair of my constituency CLP and an ex-MP of 13 years. I'm not tempted by the Green Party, however, as I don't share their preoccupation with green issues and I don't think they'd made a serious effort to think about what they'd do in power, but I'd be up for some cooperation. What's keeping me in Labour is the vagueness of the new party's policies and leadership, which I hope will become clearer after the launch conference. It may collapse in internal disputes, in which case I'll soldier on, but with the massive increase in military spending and massive decline in overseas aid, the need for a genuine party on the left is IMHO clear.
I'm 75 so my personal preference isn't very important, but I suspect I'm not alone.
Your Party seems like a typical sectarian, ineffectual, party of the extreme left.
I think it's less sectarian than is typical, which is one reason why it's gestation has been so protracted and tortuous.
One sect or another may gain a procedural upper hand at the conference, provoking a split. We'll see.
Going to be very interesting to see what happens to Green polling if Sultana and Corbyn can ever bury the axe and get their party launched.
The crank left expend most of their energy fighting the true enemy - traitors in their own ranks. This conference they have announced - there will be factional fighting over the composition and membership of the committees formed to decide things like a constitution and a name.
Meanwhile, the Green Party are up and running with a dynamic new leader who can speak in a more compelling way than Magic Grandpa or Zarah lunacy.
Your Party = ALBA
No, with respect it's not at all like ALBA. I'm a potential recruit for the new party, and I'm chair of my constituency CLP and an ex-MP of 13 years. I'm not tempted by the Green Party, however, as I don't share their preoccupation with green issues and I don't think they'd made a serious effort to think about what they'd do in power, but I'd be up for some cooperation. What's keeping me in Labour is the vagueness of the new party's policies and leadership, which I hope will become clearer after the launch conference. It may collapse in internal disputes, in which case I'll soldier on, but with the massive increase in military spending and massive decline in overseas aid, the need for a genuine party on the left is IMHO clear.
I'm 75 so my personal preference isn't very important, but I suspect I'm not alone.
Interesting measure of Labour morale that "serious" figures are so openly pining their hopes on a laughable shitshow.
Going to be very interesting to see what happens to Green polling if Sultana and Corbyn can ever bury the axe and get their party launched.
The crank left expend most of their energy fighting the true enemy - traitors in their own ranks. This conference they have announced - there will be factional fighting over the composition and membership of the committees formed to decide things like a constitution and a name.
Meanwhile, the Green Party are up and running with a dynamic new leader who can speak in a more compelling way than Magic Grandpa or Zarah lunacy.
Your Party = ALBA
No, with respect it's not at all like ALBA. I'm a potential recruit for the new party, and I'm chair of my constituency CLP and an ex-MP of 13 years. I'm not tempted by the Green Party, however, as I don't share their preoccupation with green issues and I don't think they'd made a serious effort to think about what they'd do in power, but I'd be up for some cooperation. What's keeping me in Labour is the vagueness of the new party's policies and leadership, which I hope will become clearer after the launch conference. It may collapse in internal disputes, in which case I'll soldier on, but with the massive increase in military spending and massive decline in overseas aid, the need for a genuine party on the left is IMHO clear.
I'm 75 so my personal preference isn't very important, but I suspect I'm not alone.
Interesting measure of Labour morale that "serious" figures are so openly pining their hopes on a laughable shitshow.
" I don't share their preoccupation with green issues "
No need to worry about that I suspect under Zack P!!
Boom time for immigration lawyers as US and UK tighten restrictions
Legal firms on both sides of the Atlantic told the Financial Times that their practices were overwhelmed with enquiries after Donald Trump and Keir Starmer hardened policies https://on.ft.com/3KH6ELP
The woman in the fish and chip shop is running out of visa. She has a degree in something or other but could not find a job in that field (assuming it was a field).
This is the problem in Britain, America, India, perhaps everywhere. People are following the rules, the unwritten social contract, that you go to school, study hard and behave well, go off to university and then get a graduate job. But increasingly, in whichever country, the graduate jobs are not there, owing variously to automation or recession or just wait-and-see.
And in a few months time, she will be shipped back to India and someone else will serve me fish and chips.
And that sucks for her as an individual, but is it the wrong thing for society?
She couldn’t find a role in her field. At best the next person with a degree in her field will be luckier?
It's not just her – that's the problem. It's everyone. Even the doctors who can't find jobs while we have a shortage of doctors.
I don’t buy the “can’t” find jobs.
If you said “won’t take a job at the salary offered” or “won’t move to a rural GP practice” then that’s something practical.
If there are jobs available and there are people who want to do the jobs then where does the “can’t” come from?
You are assuming Doctor and GP are the same thing. They aren't. My wife was a chemical pathologist. Only a handful of jobs come up at any one time with competition for them. You can't just move from one speciality to another at the drop of a hat. She couldn't just move to be a GP. Doctors are fortunate. It generally isn't a problem, but it also isn't straightforward.
My assumption from context was that @DecrepiterJohnL was referring to a medical doctor. GP was just a specific example because we hear regularly about expensive locums / gaps in coverage due to the challenge of hiring.
Specialists are more complex in that there are fewer candidates for fewer roles
For example I probably have about 20 people in the UK who do what I do (and about 400 who aspire to do what I do). And if you go even more specialist I have 2 competitors globally and between us we control 80% of the market.
She is a medical doctor. You do know that pathologists are medical doctors don't you? She is much more highly qualified than a GP, but she still couldn't do a GPs role. It requires post graduate training. Quoting my wife when she qualified she was useless. They all need substantial training after that. So a GP can't be a brain surgeon, who can't be an anaesthetist, who can't be a pathologist. With maybe the exception of GPs there are limited roles to move to. You can't just move somewhere you don't want to go to or take a pay cut. The roles just don't exist. In my wife's case only one or two consultant roles came up each year and they are not going to take you on as a training role. They just don't.
My assumption was Medical doctor vs academic doctor, not that a GP is the only type of medical doctor.
I have two examples of why people might not want to take a job: it doesn’t pay enough and it is in the wrong location. Most pathologists are - again an assumption - based in larger hospital and not in far flung rural locations hence the reference to a GP. It was not intended to be an exhaustive list of why people might not want to take a job
This morning, dozens of Iranian-registered ships have suddenly switched on their transponders for the first time since 2017.
The question is why, and why today?
The rumour going around is that Trump is prepared to lift oil sanctions on Iran as part of the wider Middle East peace deal, and if that happens the oil price will collapse in the short term.
Great news for the West as the oil price feeds into everything
Average news for the Middle East outside Iran, as we like high prices out here to fund government spending.
But the important bit, is absolutely terrible news for Russia, they’ll be unable to give the stuff away, and have precisely no hard currency income whatsoever.
Not too eventful a poll, but the Greens continue steadily on the up. Polanski all over X again this week, and they've gone through the 100,000 membership milestone. Worries for Davey and YourParty.
The UK is very good at innovation. We punch well above our weight in research. Yet successive governments keep effectively cutting university funding and introducing hostile policies.
But innovation isn’t enough. Going from innovation to market is hard. Innovators may look to larger markets (US, EU), particularly in areas where regulation is complex (which it needs to be in pharma).
We have plenty of creative, talented, people, but lack the necessary cadre of competent middle to senior management.
The universities are just about the only world class thing we have left and yet Phillipson seems to be totally asleep at the wheel as they collapse.
Has she said one thing about unis since becoming education sec?
But seems she still has some spare time as she is running to be deputy - a job that presumably involves some hours a week away from her actual day job.
That would be a useless education minister replacing a useless housing minister as Labour's deputy leader.
A reminder of how well the UK construction sector is currently doing:
September data suggested that the UK construction sector faced pressure on multiple fronts as residential, commercial and civil engineering work all continued to decrease at solid rates. Lower volumes of overall construction output have been recorded since January, although the latest reduction was the slowest for three months and the downturn in new orders was the softest so far in 2025.
Business activity expectations for the year ahead were among the lowest since the end of 2022, suggesting that construction companies remained cautious about the near-term outlook and have yet to see a turning point on the horizon. Some firms hope for a boost from lower borrowing costs and noted new sales pipelines in areas such as energy security markets and infrastructure projects. However, many survey respondents reported caution among clients ahead of the Autumn Budget and a general reluctance to commit to major capital expenditure projects against a subdued domestic economic backdrop.
Weak business optimism, shrinking workloads and robust cost pressures once again led to lower employment numbers across the construction sector. Lower staffing levels have now been recorded for nine months in a row, which is the longest period of job shedding since the pandemic.
One of the more extraordinary aspects of this morning's UK labour market statistics is that the whole "productivity downgrade" story - with £10s of billions of tax incidentals at the Budget - is seriously questioned if you use the HMRC payroll data (and estimate hours worked of the back of this) - rather than rely on the ONS. Indeed on that measure, UK productivity has been growing faster than the OBR forecast assumption since late 2023
There's something very odd about these numbers. Perhaps the sampling. Is there an VI analysis by socio-economic group?
Right now, Yougov's sample skews well to the left of other pollsters'.
Do we know that? Other reasons could be how they weight their sample.
It’s not that they skew left it is they are much strict with habitual non voters, others like Find Out Now are much more generous.
Plenty of Reform’s support comes from voters who haven’t don’t vote in general elections this century, 2019 apart if at all since 2001.
And the big unknowable about the next election is what proportion of the non-habitual voters will vote next time around. So you can't say until the real poll which approach is the correct one (except that both are correct inasmuch as the pollster is consistent in their methodology).
Quite a bit of that probably still lies in the hands of the government. If Labour significantly reduce immigration, and manage the economy with some degree of success (the outcome of both those things being equally uncertain), then fewer of those electors will turn out.
Boom time for immigration lawyers as US and UK tighten restrictions
Legal firms on both sides of the Atlantic told the Financial Times that their practices were overwhelmed with enquiries after Donald Trump and Keir Starmer hardened policies https://on.ft.com/3KH6ELP
The woman in the fish and chip shop is running out of visa. She has a degree in something or other but could not find a job in that field (assuming it was a field).
This is the problem in Britain, America, India, perhaps everywhere. People are following the rules, the unwritten social contract, that you go to school, study hard and behave well, go off to university and then get a graduate job. But increasingly, in whichever country, the graduate jobs are not there, owing variously to automation or recession or just wait-and-see.
And in a few months time, she will be shipped back to India and someone else will serve me fish and chips.
And that sucks for her as an individual, but is it the wrong thing for society?
She couldn’t find a role in her field. At best the next person with a degree in her field will be luckier?
It's not just her – that's the problem. It's everyone. Even the doctors who can't find jobs while we have a shortage of doctors.
I don’t buy the “can’t” find jobs.
If you said “won’t take a job at the salary offered” or “won’t move to a rural GP practice” then that’s something practical.
If there are jobs available and there are people who want to do the jobs then where does the “can’t” come from?
Real problem of two bits of the health system not talking to each other.
There's been an expansion of the first bit of medical training (five years at Uni to get to call yourself "Doctor") without the necessary expansion of speciality training (five to ten years effective apprenticeship to actually become independently useful). That's created a bottleneck halfway through the system. Horrible for the people involved, wasteful for the nation and utterly predictable. Our Foxy friend has been flagging it for what feels like ages.
There is some sort of pending disaster with GP training - there are apparently thousands of new doctors who can't find a placement, and weirdly there is an issue with some GPs being forced to go part time because there isn't the funding available (but the GP practices themselves are very busy).
I don't know the details because I can't even feign an interest in it, much to my partner's frustration. She has said - "you should tell your weird online friends on PB about this" however.
It takes genius to create a shortage of GPs and a shortage of jobs for GPs at the same time.
I think we're producing enough doctors but don't have enough Foxys to train up people like my partner.
It would take a brave politician to reduce current provision in order to generate more capacity in 5+ years time.
May be there’s a role there for senior doctors who want to slight reduce their workload/stress but still make a contribution
Going to be very interesting to see what happens to Green polling if Sultana and Corbyn can ever bury the axe and get their party launched.
The crank left expend most of their energy fighting the true enemy - traitors in their own ranks. This conference they have announced - there will be factional fighting over the composition and membership of the committees formed to decide things like a constitution and a name.
Meanwhile, the Green Party are up and running with a dynamic new leader who can speak in a more compelling way than Magic Grandpa or Zarah lunacy.
Your Party = ALBA
No, with respect it's not at all like ALBA. I'm a potential recruit for the new party, and I'm chair of my constituency CLP and an ex-MP of 13 years. I'm not tempted by the Green Party, however, as I don't share their preoccupation with green issues and I don't think they'd made a serious effort to think about what they'd do in power, but I'd be up for some cooperation. What's keeping me in Labour is the vagueness of the new party's policies and leadership, which I hope will become clearer after the launch conference. It may collapse in internal disputes, in which case I'll soldier on, but with the massive increase in military spending and massive decline in overseas aid, the need for a genuine party on the left is IMHO clear.
I'm 75 so my personal preference isn't very important, but I suspect I'm not alone.
The vagueness of Your Party's stance isn't a bug, it's deliberate.
There's something very odd about these numbers. Perhaps the sampling. Is there an VI analysis by socio-economic group?
Right now, Yougov's sample skews well to the left of other pollsters'.
Do we know that? Other reasons could be how they weight their sample.
It’s not that they skew left it is they are much more strict with habitual non voters, others like Find Out Now are much more generous.
Plenty of Reform’s support comes from voters who haven’t don’t vote in general elections this century, 2019 apart if at all since 2001.
And the high-price question is this.
Are these habitual non-voters people who have finally found someone worthy of their vote, so their electoral strike is over? Or are they just saying it now, because that's the easy bit?
The related question is what voters who went for Starmer (or Sunak!) but are currently unimpressed going to do. At the moment, they are mostly in the boxes "don't know"/"won't say"/"won't vote"/"will give my vote to a pointless party that makes me feel good". Will they stick to that, when push comes to shove?
A lot of the polling gap is people making different judgements about those questions, because it's really hard to tell in advance.
The Ukrainian delegation has departed for the United States: Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov, and several representatives of the diplomatic sector. They will hold a number of meetings.
I will also have the opportunity to come to Washington and meet with President Trump on Friday. I believe we will discuss a series of steps that I intend to propose. I am grateful to President Trump for our dialogue and his support.
There will be several other important meetings – with defense companies, and possibly with senators and members of Congress. I will also meet with energy companies. This is necessary – it was President Trump’s proposal – and I will meet with these companies because there are pressing needs linked to various formats of attacks, not even the attacks that Russia has already carried out. In any case, we must be prepared. So, it will be helpful.
Therefore, the main focus of the visit is air defense and our long-range capabilities aimed at exerting pressure on Russia for the sake of peace.
Going to be very interesting to see what happens to Green polling if Sultana and Corbyn can ever bury the axe and get their party launched.
The crank left expend most of their energy fighting the true enemy - traitors in their own ranks. This conference they have announced - there will be factional fighting over the composition and membership of the committees formed to decide things like a constitution and a name.
Meanwhile, the Green Party are up and running with a dynamic new leader who can speak in a more compelling way than Magic Grandpa or Zarah lunacy.
Your Party = ALBA
No, with respect it's not at all like ALBA. I'm a potential recruit for the new party, and I'm chair of my constituency CLP and an ex-MP of 13 years. I'm not tempted by the Green Party, however, as I don't share their preoccupation with green issues and I don't think they'd made a serious effort to think about what they'd do in power, but I'd be up for some cooperation. What's keeping me in Labour is the vagueness of the new party's policies and leadership, which I hope will become clearer after the launch conference. It may collapse in internal disputes, in which case I'll soldier on, but with the massive increase in military spending and massive decline in overseas aid, the need for a genuine party on the left is IMHO clear.
I'm 75 so my personal preference isn't very important, but I suspect I'm not alone.
The "like ALBA" comment was more that it exists, has a few elected members inherited from elsewhere and will make absolutely zero impact...
Alba is down to only 2 councillors, which I don't think qualifies as "a few". Your Party could be starting with 6 MPs and over 200 councillors. On MP numbers, that would put them ahead of the DUP, Reform, Greens, and Plaid Cymru.
He came in by inflatable boat, gave a false name to authorities here, had 17 previous convictions in Sweden, including for carrying a knife, threatening behaviour and vandalism and was also jailed in June 2019 after using threatening behaviour towards a public servant.
Why on earth wasn't he deported never to be allowed in again? What is this country becoming?
There's something very odd about these numbers. Perhaps the sampling. Is there an VI analysis by socio-economic group?
Right now, Yougov's sample skews well to the left of other pollsters'.
Do we know that? Other reasons could be how they weight their sample.
It’s not that they skew left it is they are much more strict with habitual non voters, others like Find Out Now are much more generous.
Plenty of Reform’s support comes from voters who haven’t don’t vote in general elections this century, 2019 apart if at all since 2001.
And the high-price question is this.
Are these habitual non-voters people who have finally found someone worthy of their vote, so their electoral strike is over? Or are they just saying it now, because that's the easy bit?
The related question is what voters who went for Starmer (or Sunak!) but are currently unimpressed going to do. At the moment, they are mostly in the boxes "don't know"/"won't say"/"won't vote"/"will give my vote to a pointless party that makes me feel good". Will they stick to that, when push comes to shove?
A lot of the polling gap is people making different judgements about those questions, because it's really hard to tell in advance.
Faites vos jeux messieurs, faites vos jeux.
A fortnight ago I met up with a former political strategist who pointed out that during the 2010 parliament Ed Miliband led consistently in the polls mostly due to left leaning Lib Dems who were enraged about the yellow peril making a Tory the Prime Minister.
Yet come election days these voters either stayed at home or just went meh.
If you look at the polling at the time, these voters were the ones self identifying as the most likely to turn out at the 2015 general election.
Going to be very interesting to see what happens to Green polling if Sultana and Corbyn can ever bury the axe and get their party launched.
The crank left expend most of their energy fighting the true enemy - traitors in their own ranks. This conference they have announced - there will be factional fighting over the composition and membership of the committees formed to decide things like a constitution and a name.
Meanwhile, the Green Party are up and running with a dynamic new leader who can speak in a more compelling way than Magic Grandpa or Zarah lunacy.
Your Party = ALBA
No, with respect it's not at all like ALBA. I'm a potential recruit for the new party, and I'm chair of my constituency CLP and an ex-MP of 13 years. I'm not tempted by the Green Party, however, as I don't share their preoccupation with green issues and I don't think they'd made a serious effort to think about what they'd do in power, but I'd be up for some cooperation. What's keeping me in Labour is the vagueness of the new party's policies and leadership, which I hope will become clearer after the launch conference. It may collapse in internal disputes, in which case I'll soldier on, but with the massive increase in military spending and massive decline in overseas aid, the need for a genuine party on the left is IMHO clear.
I'm 75 so my personal preference isn't very important, but I suspect I'm not alone.
The "like ALBA" comment was more that it exists, has a few elected members inherited from elsewhere and will make absolutely zero impact...
Alba is down to only 2 councillors, which I don't think qualifies as "a few". Your Party could be starting with 6 MPs and over 200 councillors. On MP numbers, that would put them ahead of the DUP, Reform, Greens, and Plaid Cymru.
If Aspire fold into YP, they'd have a directly elected mayor and control a council.
There's something very odd about these numbers. Perhaps the sampling. Is there an VI analysis by socio-economic group?
Right now, Yougov's sample skews well to the left of other pollsters'.
Do we know that? Other reasons could be how they weight their sample.
It’s not that they skew left it is they are much more strict with habitual non voters, others like Find Out Now are much more generous.
Plenty of Reform’s support comes from voters who haven’t don’t vote in general elections this century, 2019 apart if at all since 2001.
And the high-price question is this.
Are these habitual non-voters people who have finally found someone worthy of their vote, so their electoral strike is over? Or are they just saying it now, because that's the easy bit?
I think it's probably more about whether they're sufficiently outraged by whatever the issue of the days is, come the next general election. If not, many will stay at home.
There's something very odd about these numbers. Perhaps the sampling. Is there an VI analysis by socio-economic group?
Right now, Yougov's sample skews well to the left of other pollsters'.
Do we know that? Other reasons could be how they weight their sample.
It’s not that they skew left it is they are much more strict with habitual non voters, others like Find Out Now are much more generous.
Plenty of Reform’s support comes from voters who haven’t don’t vote in general elections this century, 2019 apart if at all since 2001.
And the high-price question is this.
Are these habitual non-voters people who have finally found someone worthy of their vote, so their electoral strike is over? Or are they just saying it now, because that's the easy bit?
The related question is what voters who went for Starmer (or Sunak!) but are currently unimpressed going to do. At the moment, they are mostly in the boxes "don't know"/"won't say"/"won't vote"/"will give my vote to a pointless party that makes me feel good". Will they stick to that, when push comes to shove?
A lot of the polling gap is people making different judgements about those questions, because it's really hard to tell in advance.
Faites vos jeux messieurs, faites vos jeux.
It's worth also thinking about where the pollsters agree.
Even YouGov, who give Reform lower vote shares, have about one quarter of Tory 2024 voters and nearly one-tenth of Labour/Liberal voters switching to Reform.
Happy Last Ever Patch Tuesday for Windows 10 users who have not sold their soul to Microsoft for an extra year of updates Day.
In a world where computers now regularly last for 5-8 years without too much trouble in domestic environments, this probably goes down as one of Microsoft’s worst decisions of all time.
When they launched W10, the idea was that it would be basically the last Windows O/S, with everything afterwards just being updates.
W11 added little new apart from adverts, telemetry, and forcing Microsoft Account on everyone. It’s purely a commercial decision to get rid of W10, at the cost of hundreds of millions of computers. The sort of thing that antitrust regulators should be all over.
Sticking with W10 - wish me luck
A courageous decision. In the long term anyway. It's not irrational if your kit is OK, as there's some sense in seeing if Microsoft backtrack some more, but if I were you I'd earmark six months down the line to do something else about it.
A lot depends on how mission critical the machine is question is. I've a couple of win 10 boxes at work that only operate as access points to a Onedrive based cloud (which has external backups/ransomware protection). I could skip the machines tomorrow without data loss. I'll replace them in due course, but I see no reason to rush about it.
Going to be very interesting to see what happens to Green polling if Sultana and Corbyn can ever bury the axe and get their party launched.
The crank left expend most of their energy fighting the true enemy - traitors in their own ranks. This conference they have announced - there will be factional fighting over the composition and membership of the committees formed to decide things like a constitution and a name.
Meanwhile, the Green Party are up and running with a dynamic new leader who can speak in a more compelling way than Magic Grandpa or Zarah lunacy.
Your Party = ALBA
No, with respect it's not at all like ALBA. I'm a potential recruit for the new party, and I'm chair of my constituency CLP and an ex-MP of 13 years. I'm not tempted by the Green Party, however, as I don't share their preoccupation with green issues and I don't think they'd made a serious effort to think about what they'd do in power, but I'd be up for some cooperation. What's keeping me in Labour is the vagueness of the new party's policies and leadership, which I hope will become clearer after the launch conference. It may collapse in internal disputes, in which case I'll soldier on, but with the massive increase in military spending and massive decline in overseas aid, the need for a genuine party on the left is IMHO clear.
I'm 75 so my personal preference isn't very important, but I suspect I'm not alone.
Interesting measure of Labour morale that "serious" figures are so openly pining their hopes on a laughable shitshow.
I think, to be fair, NP has always been a Magic Grandpa supporter. Whether that makes him a "serious" figure in Labour terms, I'll leave others to judge.
He is - to make it clear - without question a serious PB asset tho!!
The Ukrainian delegation has departed for the United States: Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov, and several representatives of the diplomatic sector. They will hold a number of meetings.
I will also have the opportunity to come to Washington and meet with President Trump on Friday. I believe we will discuss a series of steps that I intend to propose. I am grateful to President Trump for our dialogue and his support.
There will be several other important meetings – with defense companies, and possibly with senators and members of Congress. I will also meet with energy companies. This is necessary – it was President Trump’s proposal – and I will meet with these companies because there are pressing needs linked to various formats of attacks, not even the attacks that Russia has already carried out. In any case, we must be prepared. So, it will be helpful.
Therefore, the main focus of the visit is air defense and our long-range capabilities aimed at exerting pressure on Russia for the sake of peace.
What a change from his bollocking by Vance and Trump..
He came in by inflatable boat, gave a false name to authorities here, had 17 previous convictions in Sweden, including for carrying a knife, threatening behaviour and vandalism and was also jailed in June 2019 after using threatening behaviour towards a public servant.
Why on earth wasn't he deported never to be allowed in again? What is this country becoming?
He will probably be able to claim he's at risk of persecution/execution if deported to Afghanistan. Or they don't want to accept him. Or it's impossible to prove he's from there etc etc.
Going to be very interesting to see what happens to Green polling if Sultana and Corbyn can ever bury the axe and get their party launched.
The crank left expend most of their energy fighting the true enemy - traitors in their own ranks. This conference they have announced - there will be factional fighting over the composition and membership of the committees formed to decide things like a constitution and a name.
Meanwhile, the Green Party are up and running with a dynamic new leader who can speak in a more compelling way than Magic Grandpa or Zarah lunacy.
Your Party = ALBA
No, with respect it's not at all like ALBA. I'm a potential recruit for the new party, and I'm chair of my constituency CLP and an ex-MP of 13 years. I'm not tempted by the Green Party, however, as I don't share their preoccupation with green issues and I don't think they'd made a serious effort to think about what they'd do in power, but I'd be up for some cooperation. What's keeping me in Labour is the vagueness of the new party's policies and leadership, which I hope will become clearer after the launch conference. It may collapse in internal disputes, in which case I'll soldier on, but with the massive increase in military spending and massive decline in overseas aid, the need for a genuine party on the left is IMHO clear.
I'm 75 so my personal preference isn't very important, but I suspect I'm not alone.
I'm not sure the Green Party share a preoccupation with green issues.
There's something very odd about these numbers. Perhaps the sampling. Is there an VI analysis by socio-economic group?
Right now, Yougov's sample skews well to the left of other pollsters'.
Do we know that? Other reasons could be how they weight their sample.
It’s not that they skew left it is they are much more strict with habitual non voters, others like Find Out Now are much more generous.
Plenty of Reform’s support comes from voters who haven’t don’t vote in general elections this century, 2019 apart if at all since 2001.
And the high-price question is this.
Are these habitual non-voters people who have finally found someone worthy of their vote, so their electoral strike is over? Or are they just saying it now, because that's the easy bit?
The related question is what voters who went for Starmer (or Sunak!) but are currently unimpressed going to do. At the moment, they are mostly in the boxes "don't know"/"won't say"/"won't vote"/"will give my vote to a pointless party that makes me feel good". Will they stick to that, when push comes to shove?
A lot of the polling gap is people making different judgements about those questions, because it's really hard to tell in advance.
Faites vos jeux messieurs, faites vos jeux.
A fortnight ago I met up with a former political strategist who pointed out that during the 2010 parliament Ed Miliband led consistently in the polls mostly due to left leaning Lib Dems who were enraged about the yellow peril making a Tory the Prime Minister.
Yet come election days these voters either stayed at home or just went meh.
If you look at the polling at the time, these voters were the ones self identifying as the most likely to turn out at the 2015 general election.
There would have to be an unbelievably strong demographic quirk to make me believe that we've finally reached the election that Labour can out-perform, heck even just perform, their polling.
There's something very odd about these numbers. Perhaps the sampling. Is there an VI analysis by socio-economic group?
Right now, Yougov's sample skews well to the left of other pollsters'.
Do we know that? Other reasons could be how they weight their sample.
It’s not that they skew left it is they are much more strict with habitual non voters, others like Find Out Now are much more generous.
Plenty of Reform’s support comes from voters who haven’t don’t vote in general elections this century, 2019 apart if at all since 2001.
And the high-price question is this.
Are these habitual non-voters people who have finally found someone worthy of their vote, so their electoral strike is over? Or are they just saying it now, because that's the easy bit?
The related question is what voters who went for Starmer (or Sunak!) but are currently unimpressed going to do. At the moment, they are mostly in the boxes "don't know"/"won't say"/"won't vote"/"will give my vote to a pointless party that makes me feel good". Will they stick to that, when push comes to shove?
A lot of the polling gap is people making different judgements about those questions, because it's really hard to tell in advance.
Faites vos jeux messieurs, faites vos jeux.
A fortnight ago I met up with a former political strategist who pointed out that during the 2010 parliament Ed Miliband led consistently in the polls mostly due to left leaning Lib Dems who were enraged about the yellow peril making a Tory the Prime Minister.
Yet come election days these voters either stayed at home or just went meh.
If you look at the polling at the time, these voters were the ones self identifying as the most likely to turn out at the 2015 general election.
There would have to be an unbelievably strong demographic quirk to make me believe that we've finally reached the election that Labour can out-perform, heck even just perform, their polling.
Labour outperformed their polling in 2010 and 2017.
There's something very odd about these numbers. Perhaps the sampling. Is there an VI analysis by socio-economic group?
Right now, Yougov's sample skews well to the left of other pollsters'.
Do we know that? Other reasons could be how they weight their sample.
It’s not that they skew left it is they are much strict with habitual non voters, others like Find Out Now are much more generous.
Plenty of Reform’s support comes from voters who haven’t don’t vote in general elections this century, 2019 apart if at all since 2001.
And the big unknowable about the next election is what proportion of the non-habitual voters will vote next time around. So you can't say until the real poll which approach is the correct one (except that both are correct inasmuch as the pollster is consistent in their methodology).
Quite a bit of that probably still lies in the hands of the government. If Labour significantly reduce immigration, and manage the economy with some degree of success (the outcome of both those things being equally uncertain), then fewer of those electors will turn out.
I've been running the 2024 Results against IMD (indices of multiple deprivation) and REFUK skews towards the lowest 2 quintiles. So the support, as you would expect, comes from those missing out. Red Wall? But how they get from those lowest quintiles to a majority over all the quintiles seems a step too far IMHO. Perhaps they hope to GOTV of the these non-voters with the help of the media (Social/MSM).
"Public executions after Hamas left in control of Gaza Rivals and suspected collaborators are targeted as regional powers warn disarming the Palestinian terror group will be difficult"
The Ukrainian delegation has departed for the United States: Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov, and several representatives of the diplomatic sector. They will hold a number of meetings.
I will also have the opportunity to come to Washington and meet with President Trump on Friday. I believe we will discuss a series of steps that I intend to propose. I am grateful to President Trump for our dialogue and his support.
There will be several other important meetings – with defense companies, and possibly with senators and members of Congress. I will also meet with energy companies. This is necessary – it was President Trump’s proposal – and I will meet with these companies because there are pressing needs linked to various formats of attacks, not even the attacks that Russia has already carried out. In any case, we must be prepared. So, it will be helpful.
Therefore, the main focus of the visit is air defense and our long-range capabilities aimed at exerting pressure on Russia for the sake of peace.
What a change from his bollocking by Vance and Trump..
Think where Ukraine could be had Trump supported them 10 months ago!
And yet, in two little-noticed cases — including one spearheaded by Vice President J.D. Vance — the high court could soon do the opposite, eliminating the last restrictions on campaign donations and obstructing law enforcement’s efforts to halt bribery...
..Once again, the master planners are conjuring a legal fiction — House Republicans’ amicus brief insists that because parties pool money from many contributors, that “significantly dilutes the potential for any particular donor to exercise a corrupting influence over any particular candidate” who ultimately benefits from their cash. In essence, they’re asking justices to believe a bank CEO’s donation to a political party coordinating with a lawmaker’s campaign can in no way influence how that lawmaker drafts banking legislation.
A robust argument for preserving the existing restrictions is certainly possible — but the defense side of the case has already been thrown into chaos. After Donald Trump was sworn in, his solicitor general ended the Justice Department’s support of the current law and joined with the plaintiffs attacking it. The Supreme Court then assigned the defense to a conservative lawyer who served as Chief Justice Roberts’ clerk when he engineered the original Citizens United ruling. This same conservative attorney charged with defending the last remaining campaign finance statutes recently pressed justices to limit the scope of federal anti-bribery laws, which are now also in the legal crosshairs...
This bit explains why Vance is so vehemently denying that Homan's' envelope of $50k wasn't a bribe.
..In a concurrent case unfolding amid Washington’s bacchanal of self-enrichment scandals, Cincinnati’s former Democratic city councilman P.G. Sittenfeld is asking the Supreme Court to overturn his bribery conviction after an FBI sting caught him accepting a $20,000 campaign contribution in exchange for supporting a local development project.
Notably, Sittenfeld has already been pardoned by Trump, making him by his own admission the first person in history to appeal a case he’s already been absolved from. He is receiving pro bono legal counsel from the most Trump-connected law firm in America, he is being personally represented by Trump’s former solicitor general, and his appeal is being supported by an army of former elected officials...
He came in by inflatable boat, gave a false name to authorities here, had 17 previous convictions in Sweden, including for carrying a knife, threatening behaviour and vandalism and was also jailed in June 2019 after using threatening behaviour towards a public servant.
Why on earth wasn't he deported never to be allowed in again? What is this country becoming?
He will probably be able to claim he's at risk of persecution/execution if deported to Afghanistan. Or they don't want to accept him. Or it's impossible to prove he's from there etc etc.
And he actually has a machine gun tattoo on his face. Why on earth would we want him in our country?
Why aren't we assured that after his prison term (which will likely be less than 3 years) he is to be immediately deported? Who do we hold to account when this doesn't happen?
Boom time for immigration lawyers as US and UK tighten restrictions
Legal firms on both sides of the Atlantic told the Financial Times that their practices were overwhelmed with enquiries after Donald Trump and Keir Starmer hardened policies https://on.ft.com/3KH6ELP
The woman in the fish and chip shop is running out of visa. She has a degree in something or other but could not find a job in that field (assuming it was a field).
This is the problem in Britain, America, India, perhaps everywhere. People are following the rules, the unwritten social contract, that you go to school, study hard and behave well, go off to university and then get a graduate job. But increasingly, in whichever country, the graduate jobs are not there, owing variously to automation or recession or just wait-and-see.
And in a few months time, she will be shipped back to India and someone else will serve me fish and chips.
Millions of Brits unemployed or on benefits yet the chippie is hiring a migrant on a visa. Something is broken.
Whole feckin country is broken , they seem to have unlimited money to hose out for any ailment real or imagined. If it had to come out of the dumb MP's wages they would have benefits cut pronto.
Just to point out that the country is not remotely close to being broken; that this is all far fetched nonsense; that in respect of wealth generation we are doing less well than we might but are comparable with other large wealthy countries; that most people live extraordinarily contented, peaceful and decent lives in at least modest prosperity; and that to be born in the UK is to have drawn a prize winning ticket in the lottery of life.
The 'Britain is Broken' brigade should get out more. Have a chat with people I know who have been a doctor in Mauretania, a social scientist in rural Uganda, a resident in modern Iran, an aid worker with refugees in Chad....
Sure, Not just in this country, but in a lot of the world, the best time to be born was yesterday. I could not fault the treatment I got for my gashed forehead and broken ribs in the Luton & Dunstable. People do recover from naturally from such injuries, but I could have been in a hell of a lot more pain.
I recently had antibiotics for an Impetigo infection that was rapidly spreading. I had my tonsils removed in the 1980s as a child because of repeated tonsilitis (I understand far rarer now) so catch things more readily.
I do wonder if I'd be alive today without them, which is why I worry about AMR.
"Public executions after Hamas left in control of Gaza Rivals and suspected collaborators are targeted as regional powers warn disarming the Palestinian terror group will be difficult"
"Public executions after Hamas left in control of Gaza Rivals and suspected collaborators are targeted as regional powers warn disarming the Palestinian terror group will be difficult"
"Public executions after Hamas left in control of Gaza Rivals and suspected collaborators are targeted as regional powers warn disarming the Palestinian terror group will be difficult"
It's horrible but hardly unexpected. Throughout history, suspected collaborators have always fared badly in the chaotic power vacuum that ensues when an occupying force withdraws.
"Public executions after Hamas left in control of Gaza Rivals and suspected collaborators are targeted as regional powers warn disarming the Palestinian terror group will be difficult"
"Difficult"? LOL. That must be understatement of the year.
The world’s worst political outfits operate just like organised crime syndicates. If you can’t be loved you need to be feared, so you do the old public execution malarkey.
The paramilitaries in NI were similar. So too the Taliban. The former eventually lost, albeit with a few vestiges in the crime world; the latter won.
The Ukrainian delegation has departed for the United States: Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov, and several representatives of the diplomatic sector. They will hold a number of meetings.
I will also have the opportunity to come to Washington and meet with President Trump on Friday. I believe we will discuss a series of steps that I intend to propose. I am grateful to President Trump for our dialogue and his support.
There will be several other important meetings – with defense companies, and possibly with senators and members of Congress. I will also meet with energy companies. This is necessary – it was President Trump’s proposal – and I will meet with these companies because there are pressing needs linked to various formats of attacks, not even the attacks that Russia has already carried out. In any case, we must be prepared. So, it will be helpful.
Therefore, the main focus of the visit is air defense and our long-range capabilities aimed at exerting pressure on Russia for the sake of peace.
Putin should have taken what the US offered him, back in the Spring. The fortunes of war are only getting worse for Russia, from now on. This is the first year in which Russia have been unable to take even a mid-size town.
"Public executions after Hamas left in control of Gaza Rivals and suspected collaborators are targeted as regional powers warn disarming the Palestinian terror group will be difficult"
"Public executions after Hamas left in control of Gaza Rivals and suspected collaborators are targeted as regional powers warn disarming the Palestinian terror group will be difficult"
He came in by inflatable boat, gave a false name to authorities here, had 17 previous convictions in Sweden, including for carrying a knife, threatening behaviour and vandalism and was also jailed in June 2019 after using threatening behaviour towards a public servant.
Why on earth wasn't he deported never to be allowed in again? What is this country becoming?
He will probably be able to claim he's at risk of persecution/execution if deported to Afghanistan. Or they don't want to accept him. Or it's impossible to prove he's from there etc etc.
And he actually has a machine gun tattoo on his face. Why on earth would we want him in our country?
Why aren't we assured that after his prison term (which will likely be less than 3 years) he is to be immediately deported? Who do we hold to account when this doesn't happen?
This is from the House of Commons Library paper on the deportation of criminals which I happened to be looking at this morning:
"The Immigration Act 1971 originally envisaged deportation being discretionary. A person would be liable to deportation if the Home Office decided it was conducive to the public good or a judge recommended it at the point of sentencing.8 Discretionary deportation decisions have largely been overtaken by statutory deportation rules. Under section 32 of the UK Borders Act 2007, the Home Secretary “must make a deportation order” against a person given a prison sentence of 12 months or more for a crime committed in the UK.9 This converts the discretionary power of deportation into a duty in relevant cases. It also makes criminal court recommendations for deportation largely redundant.10 Exceptions to the duty Although section 32 is titled “automatic deportation”, a 12-month prison sentence does not inevitably result in deportation. Various exceptions apply.11 In particular, deportation is not automatic if it would breach the European Convention on Human Rights, UN Refugee Convention or Council of Europe Convention Against Trafficking in Human Beings. Human rights appeals against deportation are covered in section 2 below. Other exceptions include people who were under 18 on the date of conviction, or who are being extradited. EU citizens and their family members with residence rights under the post-Brexit Withdrawal Agreement are also exempt from automatic deportation if their criminal act took place before 31 December 2020.12 Such people are instead considered for deportation under a framework derived from EU free movement law, which offers stronger protections against deportation. No particular length of prison sentence triggers deportation.13 By contrast, EU citizens whose offence has been committed since 31 December 2020 are liable to automatic deportation (except for Irish citizens).14"
The case I was looking at it for was for someone of Pakistani origin who was supposed to have a sentencing diet tomorrow. He has been in this country since he came here illegally on a false passport in 2005. He has now been convicted of a serious criminal offence. He was caught before and taken to a detention centre but then let go (again) on the basis that he would sign on at the local police station (he didn't).
It's cases like this that drive me mad. He has been in this country with no legal status for 20 years. Border Force is nothing short of a farce. And, in this case at least, someone ended up getting seriously hurt because of their failures.
A belated post of appreciation for a thoughtful, if a little disheartening, post from @Nigelb
It looks like Eli Lilly are eating Novo Nordisks lunch with weight loss drugs.
Biopharma is a high tech, high wage, industry we should be targetting to grow. Sadly it’s likely to stall.
Early days for the weight loss competition. The big thing will be producing a pill rather than injection, which is effective and doesn't come with as many adverse reactions (nausea being a major reason for discontinuation with all the existing drugs, to a greater or lesser extent, for example).
It's a huge market, and there's room for quite a lot of differentiation.
He came in by inflatable boat, gave a false name to authorities here, had 17 previous convictions in Sweden, including for carrying a knife, threatening behaviour and vandalism and was also jailed in June 2019 after using threatening behaviour towards a public servant.
Why on earth wasn't he deported never to be allowed in again? What is this country becoming?
He will probably be able to claim he's at risk of persecution/execution if deported to Afghanistan. Or they don't want to accept him. Or it's impossible to prove he's from there etc etc.
And he actually has a machine gun tattoo on his face. Why on earth would we want him in our country?
Why aren't we assured that after his prison term (which will likely be less than 3 years) he is to be immediately deported? Who do we hold to account when this doesn't happen?
He won’t be deported. He will be a burden on the taxpayer for life.
"Public executions after Hamas left in control of Gaza Rivals and suspected collaborators are targeted as regional powers warn disarming the Palestinian terror group will be difficult"
"Public executions after Hamas left in control of Gaza Rivals and suspected collaborators are targeted as regional powers warn disarming the Palestinian terror group will be difficult"
He came in by inflatable boat, gave a false name to authorities here, had 17 previous convictions in Sweden, including for carrying a knife, threatening behaviour and vandalism and was also jailed in June 2019 after using threatening behaviour towards a public servant.
Why on earth wasn't he deported never to be allowed in again? What is this country becoming?
He will probably be able to claim he's at risk of persecution/execution if deported to Afghanistan. Or they don't want to accept him. Or it's impossible to prove he's from there etc etc.
And he actually has a machine gun tattoo on his face. Why on earth would we want him in our country?
Why aren't we assured that after his prison term (which will likely be less than 3 years) he is to be immediately deported? Who do we hold to account when this doesn't happen?
He won’t be deported. He will be a burden on the taxpayer for life.
He has his "human rights", completely unfettered by his human responsibilities.
The Ukrainian delegation has departed for the United States: Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov, and several representatives of the diplomatic sector. They will hold a number of meetings.
I will also have the opportunity to come to Washington and meet with President Trump on Friday. I believe we will discuss a series of steps that I intend to propose. I am grateful to President Trump for our dialogue and his support.
There will be several other important meetings – with defense companies, and possibly with senators and members of Congress. I will also meet with energy companies. This is necessary – it was President Trump’s proposal – and I will meet with these companies because there are pressing needs linked to various formats of attacks, not even the attacks that Russia has already carried out. In any case, we must be prepared. So, it will be helpful.
Therefore, the main focus of the visit is air defense and our long-range capabilities aimed at exerting pressure on Russia for the sake of peace.
What a change from his bollocking by Vance and Trump..
Think where Ukraine could be had Trump supported them 10 months ago!
More joy in heaven over a repenting sinner, etc etc.
Boom time for immigration lawyers as US and UK tighten restrictions
Legal firms on both sides of the Atlantic told the Financial Times that their practices were overwhelmed with enquiries after Donald Trump and Keir Starmer hardened policies https://on.ft.com/3KH6ELP
The woman in the fish and chip shop is running out of visa. She has a degree in something or other but could not find a job in that field (assuming it was a field).
This is the problem in Britain, America, India, perhaps everywhere. People are following the rules, the unwritten social contract, that you go to school, study hard and behave well, go off to university and then get a graduate job. But increasingly, in whichever country, the graduate jobs are not there, owing variously to automation or recession or just wait-and-see.
And in a few months time, she will be shipped back to India and someone else will serve me fish and chips.
Millions of Brits unemployed or on benefits yet the chippie is hiring a migrant on a visa. Something is broken.
Whole feckin country is broken , they seem to have unlimited money to hose out for any ailment real or imagined. If it had to come out of the dumb MP's wages they would have benefits cut pronto.
Just to point out that the country is not remotely close to being broken; that this is all far fetched nonsense; that in respect of wealth generation we are doing less well than we might but are comparable with other large wealthy countries; that most people live extraordinarily contented, peaceful and decent lives in at least modest prosperity; and that to be born in the UK is to have drawn a prize winning ticket in the lottery of life.
The 'Britain is Broken' brigade should get out more. Have a chat with people I know who have been a doctor in Mauretania, a social scientist in rural Uganda, a resident in modern Iran, an aid worker with refugees in Chad....
Sure, Not just in this country, but in a lot of the world, the best time to be born was yesterday. I could not fault the treatment I got for my gashed forehead and broken ribs in the Luton & Dunstable. People do recover from naturally from such injuries, but I could have been in a hell of a lot more pain.
I recently had antibiotics for an Impetigo infection that was rapidly spreading. I had my tonsils removed in the 1980s as a child because of repeated tonsilitis (I understand far rarer now) so catch things more readily.
I do wonder if I'd be alive today without them, which is why I worry about AMR.
Antimicrobial resistance is a huge challenge, but is mainly an issue for the unwell. Healthy people shrug off bacteria most of the time, ill people, people having surgery etc is the concern. We do still have some weapons up our sleeves too - hugely cytotoxic drugs designed for use in cancer but actually potentially life saving in very resistant bacterial infections. And ad in bactiophages etc.
On the whole we use antibiotics too much, as does the farming industry in some parts of the world.
Its not all bad news. Some bacteria are constrained by their biology. I know of one type of bacteria, common in UTI, that can become resistant to nitrofurantoin ( a common treatment for UTIs) but in doing so becomes hardly able to proliferate.
One of the more extraordinary aspects of this morning's UK labour market statistics is that the whole "productivity downgrade" story - with £10s of billions of tax incidentals at the Budget - is seriously questioned if you use the HMRC payroll data (and estimate hours worked of the back of this) - rather than rely on the ONS. Indeed on that measure, UK productivity has been growing faster than the OBR forecast assumption since late 2023
A belated post of appreciation for a thoughtful, if a little disheartening, post from @Nigelb
It looks like Eli Lilly are eating Novo Nordisks lunch with weight loss drugs.
Biopharma is a high tech, high wage, industry we should be targetting to grow. Sadly it’s likely to stall.
Early days for the weight loss competition. The big thing will be producing a pill rather than injection, which is effective and doesn't come with as many adverse reactions (nausea being a major reason for discontinuation with all the existing drugs, to a greater or lesser extent, for example).
It's a huge market, and there's room for quite a lot of differentiation.
My friend is on GLP1 inhibitors and while it helps with his diabetes/weight it is a significant constraint on his life style. Finds eating out difficult as he is full after a very modest main. No pudding or starter. Now thats not a huge problem, but it can affect mental health too.
Boom time for immigration lawyers as US and UK tighten restrictions
Legal firms on both sides of the Atlantic told the Financial Times that their practices were overwhelmed with enquiries after Donald Trump and Keir Starmer hardened policies https://on.ft.com/3KH6ELP
The woman in the fish and chip shop is running out of visa. She has a degree in something or other but could not find a job in that field (assuming it was a field).
This is the problem in Britain, America, India, perhaps everywhere. People are following the rules, the unwritten social contract, that you go to school, study hard and behave well, go off to university and then get a graduate job. But increasingly, in whichever country, the graduate jobs are not there, owing variously to automation or recession or just wait-and-see.
And in a few months time, she will be shipped back to India and someone else will serve me fish and chips.
Millions of Brits unemployed or on benefits yet the chippie is hiring a migrant on a visa. Something is broken.
Whole feckin country is broken , they seem to have unlimited money to hose out for any ailment real or imagined. If it had to come out of the dumb MP's wages they would have benefits cut pronto.
Just to point out that the country is not remotely close to being broken; that this is all far fetched nonsense; that in respect of wealth generation we are doing less well than we might but are comparable with other large wealthy countries; that most people live extraordinarily contented, peaceful and decent lives in at least modest prosperity; and that to be born in the UK is to have drawn a prize winning ticket in the lottery of life.
The 'Britain is Broken' brigade should get out more. Have a chat with people I know who have been a doctor in Mauretania, a social scientist in rural Uganda, a resident in modern Iran, an aid worker with refugees in Chad....
'Broken Britain' is a meme that is popular right now but anecdote is usually revealing. Such as "The NHS is terrible" followed then by tales of excellent, timely care. Its a bit like how perception of crime is far worse than the reality (aside of warzone of shoplifting in Leon's local shops).
We remember the bad bits, and expect the good bits. Something just working is unremarkable; something not working annoys and sticks in the memory.
The Internet is also a problem; people (and trolls, and bots...) highlight their terrible experiences, and might make them seem typical. Five people complaining about bad service online get heard; the thousands who had acceptable service do not.
Britain isn't broken. But we're at a major inflexion point in the global economy, outside of a large trade block, running large fiscal and balance of payments deficits, and with debt >100% of GDP. And suffering persistent low growth.
So we're in greater danger of becoming broken than at any time in the last forty years, I think.
Looking across the G7 we are in the middle of the pack in terms of growth in the last few years. Our debt to GDP ratio is actually <100% on the public sector net debt definition that is the one we usually use, our fiscal deficit is large but coming down and is smaller than in France or the US. Our external current account deficit is smaller than in the US and in part reflects a decent inwards investment performance. I don't want to play down our problems, and I agree we are unusually exposed in the wake of Brexit, but you could argue that given the series of shocks we have faced - the global financial crisis, the European sovereign debt crisis, Brexit, Covid and the Ukraine war - we have actually been remarkably resilient. Let's not overplay the doom and gloom.
He came in by inflatable boat, gave a false name to authorities here, had 17 previous convictions in Sweden, including for carrying a knife, threatening behaviour and vandalism and was also jailed in June 2019 after using threatening behaviour towards a public servant.
Why on earth wasn't he deported never to be allowed in again? What is this country becoming?
He will probably be able to claim he's at risk of persecution/execution if deported to Afghanistan. Or they don't want to accept him. Or it's impossible to prove he's from there etc etc.
And he actually has a machine gun tattoo on his face. Why on earth would we want him in our country?
Why aren't we assured that after his prison term (which will likely be less than 3 years) he is to be immediately deported? Who do we hold to account when this doesn't happen?
This is from the House of Commons Library paper on the deportation of criminals which I happened to be looking at this morning:
"The Immigration Act 1971 originally envisaged deportation being discretionary. A person would be liable to deportation if the Home Office decided it was conducive to the public good or a judge recommended it at the point of sentencing.8 Discretionary deportation decisions have largely been overtaken by statutory deportation rules. Under section 32 of the UK Borders Act 2007, the Home Secretary “must make a deportation order” against a person given a prison sentence of 12 months or more for a crime committed in the UK.9 This converts the discretionary power of deportation into a duty in relevant cases. It also makes criminal court recommendations for deportation largely redundant.10 Exceptions to the duty Although section 32 is titled “automatic deportation”, a 12-month prison sentence does not inevitably result in deportation. Various exceptions apply.11 In particular, deportation is not automatic if it would breach the European Convention on Human Rights, UN Refugee Convention or Council of Europe Convention Against Trafficking in Human Beings. Human rights appeals against deportation are covered in section 2 below. Other exceptions include people who were under 18 on the date of conviction, or who are being extradited. EU citizens and their family members with residence rights under the post-Brexit Withdrawal Agreement are also exempt from automatic deportation if their criminal act took place before 31 December 2020.12 Such people are instead considered for deportation under a framework derived from EU free movement law, which offers stronger protections against deportation. No particular length of prison sentence triggers deportation.13 By contrast, EU citizens whose offence has been committed since 31 December 2020 are liable to automatic deportation (except for Irish citizens).14"
The case I was looking at it for was for someone of Pakistani origin who was supposed to have a sentencing diet tomorrow. He has been in this country since he came here illegally on a false passport in 2005. He has now been convicted of a serious criminal offence. He was caught before and taken to a detention centre but then let go (again) on the basis that he would sign on at the local police station (he didn't).
It's cases like this that drive me mad. He has been in this country with no legal status for 20 years. Border Force is nothing short of a farce. And, in this case at least, someone ended up getting seriously hurt because of their failures.
My view is that if someone commits a crime with a sentence of more than X, they are deemed to have withdrawn their asylum applucation.
One of the more extraordinary aspects of this morning's UK labour market statistics is that the whole "productivity downgrade" story - with £10s of billions of tax incidentals at the Budget - is seriously questioned if you use the HMRC payroll data (and estimate hours worked of the back of this) - rather than rely on the ONS. Indeed on that measure, UK productivity has been growing faster than the OBR forecast assumption since late 2023
"Public executions after Hamas left in control of Gaza Rivals and suspected collaborators are targeted as regional powers warn disarming the Palestinian terror group will be difficult"
It's horrible but hardly unexpected. Throughout history, suspected collaborators have always fared badly in the chaotic power vacuum that ensues when an occupying force withdraws.
Hamas face an existential threat.
They get their funding (from outside Gaza) by being in charge there.
If they are not in charge, then the money dries up. People backing The Strong Horse and all that.
Then they will be a bunch of guys with some guns facing the next Strong Horse. Which will try and kill them.
And that is equally true for the leadership living in Qatar in 5 star hotels - if they are no longer powerful, then they are inconvenient to their hosts. With no upside.
A belated post of appreciation for a thoughtful, if a little disheartening, post from @Nigelb
It looks like Eli Lilly are eating Novo Nordisks lunch with weight loss drugs.
Biopharma is a high tech, high wage, industry we should be targetting to grow. Sadly it’s likely to stall.
Early days for the weight loss competition. The big thing will be producing a pill rather than injection, which is effective and doesn't come with as many adverse reactions (nausea being a major reason for discontinuation with all the existing drugs, to a greater or lesser extent, for example).
It's a huge market, and there's room for quite a lot of differentiation.
Indeed but there is some resistance to it from the diet industry, although Weight Watchers (IIRC) are happy to sell jabs. Also the junk food/health lifestyle lobbyists will push back too, after all their existence depends on managing a problem.
I agree a pill is the desired solution and a lot of money is being throw into weight loss drugs at the moment. I was working on multiple projects for our customers on this when I left work in February.
"Public executions after Hamas left in control of Gaza Rivals and suspected collaborators are targeted as regional powers warn disarming the Palestinian terror group will be difficult"
It's horrible but hardly unexpected. Throughout history, suspected collaborators have always fared badly in the chaotic power vacuum that ensues when an occupying force withdraws.
Hamas face an existential threat.
They get their funding (from outside Gaza) by being in charge there.
If they are not in charge, then the money dries up. People backing The Strong Horse and all that.
Then they will be a bunch of guys with some guns facing the next Strong Horse. Which will try and kill them.
And that is equally true for the leadership living in Qatar in 5 star hotels - if they are no longer powerful, then they are inconvenient to their hosts. With no upside.
And it also sounds like Trump is about to buy off Iran with oil exports, Qatar can be kept in line by their neighbours in the GCC. Alongside getting a dozen or more countries to invest in the rebuilding, they will all have a stake in making sure the terrorists are dealt with one way or another and don’t return.
He came in by inflatable boat, gave a false name to authorities here, had 17 previous convictions in Sweden, including for carrying a knife, threatening behaviour and vandalism and was also jailed in June 2019 after using threatening behaviour towards a public servant.
Why on earth wasn't he deported never to be allowed in again? What is this country becoming?
He will probably be able to claim he's at risk of persecution/execution if deported to Afghanistan. Or they don't want to accept him. Or it's impossible to prove he's from there etc etc.
And he actually has a machine gun tattoo on his face. Why on earth would we want him in our country?
Why aren't we assured that after his prison term (which will likely be less than 3 years) he is to be immediately deported? Who do we hold to account when this doesn't happen?
He won’t be deported. He will be a burden on the taxpayer for life.
He has his "human rights", completely unfettered by his human responsibilities.
Not only that he has an entire industry that has grown up around asylum issues to go into bat for him and make excuses for him.
He came in by inflatable boat, gave a false name to authorities here, had 17 previous convictions in Sweden, including for carrying a knife, threatening behaviour and vandalism and was also jailed in June 2019 after using threatening behaviour towards a public servant.
Why on earth wasn't he deported never to be allowed in again? What is this country becoming?
He will probably be able to claim he's at risk of persecution/execution if deported to Afghanistan. Or they don't want to accept him. Or it's impossible to prove he's from there etc etc.
And he actually has a machine gun tattoo on his face. Why on earth would we want him in our country?
Why aren't we assured that after his prison term (which will likely be less than 3 years) he is to be immediately deported? Who do we hold to account when this doesn't happen?
This is from the House of Commons Library paper on the deportation of criminals which I happened to be looking at this morning:
"The Immigration Act 1971 originally envisaged deportation being discretionary. A person would be liable to deportation if the Home Office decided it was conducive to the public good or a judge recommended it at the point of sentencing.8 Discretionary deportation decisions have largely been overtaken by statutory deportation rules. Under section 32 of the UK Borders Act 2007, the Home Secretary “must make a deportation order” against a person given a prison sentence of 12 months or more for a crime committed in the UK.9 This converts the discretionary power of deportation into a duty in relevant cases. It also makes criminal court recommendations for deportation largely redundant.10 Exceptions to the duty Although section 32 is titled “automatic deportation”, a 12-month prison sentence does not inevitably result in deportation. Various exceptions apply.11 In particular, deportation is not automatic if it would breach the European Convention on Human Rights, UN Refugee Convention or Council of Europe Convention Against Trafficking in Human Beings. Human rights appeals against deportation are covered in section 2 below. Other exceptions include people who were under 18 on the date of conviction, or who are being extradited. EU citizens and their family members with residence rights under the post-Brexit Withdrawal Agreement are also exempt from automatic deportation if their criminal act took place before 31 December 2020.12 Such people are instead considered for deportation under a framework derived from EU free movement law, which offers stronger protections against deportation. No particular length of prison sentence triggers deportation.13 By contrast, EU citizens whose offence has been committed since 31 December 2020 are liable to automatic deportation (except for Irish citizens).14"
The case I was looking at it for was for someone of Pakistani origin who was supposed to have a sentencing diet tomorrow. He has been in this country since he came here illegally on a false passport in 2005. He has now been convicted of a serious criminal offence. He was caught before and taken to a detention centre but then let go (again) on the basis that he would sign on at the local police station (he didn't).
It's cases like this that drive me mad. He has been in this country with no legal status for 20 years. Border Force is nothing short of a farce. And, in this case at least, someone ended up getting seriously hurt because of their failures.
I don't know if Badenoch or Jenrick (Shadow Justice) have commented but they should. Put pressure on the government over this case. ReformUK surely will.
One of the more extraordinary aspects of this morning's UK labour market statistics is that the whole "productivity downgrade" story - with £10s of billions of tax incidentals at the Budget - is seriously questioned if you use the HMRC payroll data (and estimate hours worked of the back of this) - rather than rely on the ONS. Indeed on that measure, UK productivity has been growing faster than the OBR forecast assumption since late 2023
Given the massive spikes in U.K. labour costs, it perhaps isn’t surprising.
A spike that’s concentrated right at the bottom of the market with the NI threshold change and minimum wage rise. They combine to make a lot of manual work unable to add value. By next year the ordering kiosks in fast food outlets will be ubiquitous, and probably finding their way into other industries.
Looking across the G7 we are in the middle of the pack in terms of growth in the last few years. Our debt to GDP ratio is actually < 100% on the public sector net debt definition that is the one we usually use, our fiscal deficit is large but coming down and is smaller than in France or the US. Our external current account deficit is smaller than in the US and in part reflects a decent inwards investment performance. I don't want to play down our problems, and I agree we are unusually exposed in the wake of Brexit, but you could argue that given the series of shocks we have faced - the global financial crisis, the European sovereign debt crisis, Brexit, Covid and the Ukraine war - we have actually been remarkably resilient. Let's not overplay the doom and gloom.
Oh, I agree with that.
But our post Brexit status, in a world with China and Trump lobbing trade restrictions back and forth, means that good or bad choices by government are especially consequential.
Which is why the public debate about those choices is currently so important.
(btw if you're posting < 100%, make sure to leave a space after < otherwise it messes up blockquotes.)
"Public executions after Hamas left in control of Gaza Rivals and suspected collaborators are targeted as regional powers warn disarming the Palestinian terror group will be difficult"
"Difficult"? LOL. That must be understatement of the year.
If the great plan everyone was lauding yesterday, with BBC and all going OTT, doesn't have a mechanism for peace keeping today and tomorrow in the parts of Gaza the IDF have withdrawn from, then it isn't even a skeleton of a plan.
One of the more extraordinary aspects of this morning's UK labour market statistics is that the whole "productivity downgrade" story - with £10s of billions of tax incidentals at the Budget - is seriously questioned if you use the HMRC payroll data (and estimate hours worked of the back of this) - rather than rely on the ONS. Indeed on that measure, UK productivity has been growing faster than the OBR forecast assumption since late 2023
Given the massive spikes in U.K. labour costs, it perhaps isn’t surprising.
A spike that’s concentrated right at the bottom of the market with the NI threshold change and minimum wage rise. They combine to make a lot of manual work unable to add value. By next year the ordering kiosks in fast food outlets will be ubiquitous, and probably finding their way into other industries.
The ordering screens are ubiquitous in central London, now.
The wife of a friend works at the top of HR at one of then companies that owns a bunch of high street names.
Their response to rising labour costs is, usually to cut the lowest end jobs. Typically, the floor walkers - people you see folding sweaters etc. who direct you to a more senior person for nearly any question. Apparently it’s a financial model that compares employment cost at each location with the category of business - it actually comes up with the staffing profile to match
There's something very odd about these numbers. Perhaps the sampling. Is there an VI analysis by socio-economic group?
Right now, Yougov's sample skews well to the left of other pollsters'.
Do we know that? Other reasons could be how they weight their sample.
It’s not that they skew left it is they are much more strict with habitual non voters, others like Find Out Now are much more generous.
Plenty of Reform’s support comes from voters who haven’t don’t vote in general elections this century, 2019 apart if at all since 2001.
And the high-price question is this.
Are these habitual non-voters people who have finally found someone worthy of their vote, so their electoral strike is over? Or are they just saying it now, because that's the easy bit?
The related question is what voters who went for Starmer (or Sunak!) but are currently unimpressed going to do. At the moment, they are mostly in the boxes "don't know"/"won't say"/"won't vote"/"will give my vote to a pointless party that makes me feel good". Will they stick to that, when push comes to shove?
A lot of the polling gap is people making different judgements about those questions, because it's really hard to tell in advance.
Faites vos jeux messieurs, faites vos jeux.
A fortnight ago I met up with a former political strategist who pointed out that during the 2010 parliament Ed Miliband led consistently in the polls mostly due to left leaning Lib Dems who were enraged about the yellow peril making a Tory the Prime Minister.
Yet come election days these voters either stayed at home or just went meh.
If you look at the polling at the time, these voters were the ones self identifying as the most likely to turn out at the 2015 general election.
Surely last time was the “meh”/stay at home election? Three million fewer voters than 2019, and all major parties seeing a reduction in their vote
One of the more extraordinary aspects of this morning's UK labour market statistics is that the whole "productivity downgrade" story - with £10s of billions of tax incidentals at the Budget - is seriously questioned if you use the HMRC payroll data (and estimate hours worked of the back of this) - rather than rely on the ONS. Indeed on that measure, UK productivity has been growing faster than the OBR forecast assumption since late 2023
Given the massive spikes in U.K. labour costs, it perhaps isn’t surprising.
A spike that’s concentrated right at the bottom of the market with the NI threshold change and minimum wage rise. They combine to make a lot of manual work unable to add value. By next year the ordering kiosks in fast food outlets will be ubiquitous, and probably finding their way into other industries.
The ordering screens are ubiquitous in central London, now.
The wife of a friend works at the top of HR at one of then companies that owns a bunch of high street names.
Their response to rising labour costs is, usually to cut the lowest end jobs. Typically, the floor walkers - people you see folding sweaters etc. who direct you to a more senior person for nearly any question. Apparently it’s a financial model that compares employment cost at each location with the category of business - it actually comes up with the staffing profile to match
I always assumed those staff folding sweaters while knowing nothing about anything when asked were on the “Revenue Protection” team, paid more than minimum wage not to let themselves be distracted.
One of the more extraordinary aspects of this morning's UK labour market statistics is that the whole "productivity downgrade" story - with £10s of billions of tax incidentals at the Budget - is seriously questioned if you use the HMRC payroll data (and estimate hours worked of the back of this) - rather than rely on the ONS. Indeed on that measure, UK productivity has been growing faster than the OBR forecast assumption since late 2023
Given the massive spikes in U.K. labour costs, it perhaps isn’t surprising.
A spike that’s concentrated right at the bottom of the market with the NI threshold change and minimum wage rise. They combine to make a lot of manual work unable to add value. By next year the ordering kiosks in fast food outlets will be ubiquitous, and probably finding their way into other industries.
A belated post of appreciation for a thoughtful, if a little disheartening, post from @Nigelb
It looks like Eli Lilly are eating Novo Nordisks lunch with weight loss drugs.
Biopharma is a high tech, high wage, industry we should be targetting to grow. Sadly it’s likely to stall.
Early days for the weight loss competition. The big thing will be producing a pill rather than injection, which is effective and doesn't come with as many adverse reactions (nausea being a major reason for discontinuation with all the existing drugs, to a greater or lesser extent, for example).
It's a huge market, and there's room for quite a lot of differentiation.
Indeed but there is some resistance to it from the diet industry, although Weight Watchers (IIRC) are happy to sell jabs. Also the junk food/health lifestyle lobbyists will push back too, after all their existence depends on managing a problem.
I agree a pill is the desired solution and a lot of money is being throw into weight loss drugs at the moment. I was working on multiple projects for our customers on this when I left work in February.
They're clearly extremely effective for those who are severely obese - and a great deal easier to stick with than a calorie restrictive diet.
But there are a lot of unanswered questions - eg will microdosing work for long term weight maintenance, or how do the plethora of health benefits outside of purely weight loss stack up against losing weight by non-medicated means, or what might be the very long term side effects.
And how long it will take for RFK Jnr to weigh in...
One of the more extraordinary aspects of this morning's UK labour market statistics is that the whole "productivity downgrade" story - with £10s of billions of tax incidentals at the Budget - is seriously questioned if you use the HMRC payroll data (and estimate hours worked of the back of this) - rather than rely on the ONS. Indeed on that measure, UK productivity has been growing faster than the OBR forecast assumption since late 2023
Given the massive spikes in U.K. labour costs, it perhaps isn’t surprising.
A spike that’s concentrated right at the bottom of the market with the NI threshold change and minimum wage rise. They combine to make a lot of manual work unable to add value. By next year the ordering kiosks in fast food outlets will be ubiquitous, and probably finding their way into other industries.
My daughter now orders her lunch from a kiosk at school.
The problem with "Broken Britain" hyperbole is it risks becoming self-fulfilling because it rolls the pitch for political extremists and populist charlatans (no names no pack drill). They are the main beneficiaries of this sentiment going mainstream. That's why they work so hard to promote it.
The problem with "Broken Britain" hyperbole is it risks becoming self-fulfilling because it rolls the pitch for political extremists and populist charlatans (no names no pack drill). They are the main beneficiaries of this sentiment going mainstream. That's why they work so hard to promote it.
One of the more extraordinary aspects of this morning's UK labour market statistics is that the whole "productivity downgrade" story - with £10s of billions of tax incidentals at the Budget - is seriously questioned if you use the HMRC payroll data (and estimate hours worked of the back of this) - rather than rely on the ONS. Indeed on that measure, UK productivity has been growing faster than the OBR forecast assumption since late 2023
Given the massive spikes in U.K. labour costs, it perhaps isn’t surprising.
A spike that’s concentrated right at the bottom of the market with the NI threshold change and minimum wage rise. They combine to make a lot of manual work unable to add value. By next year the ordering kiosks in fast food outlets will be ubiquitous, and probably finding their way into other industries.
My daughter now orders her lunch from a kiosk at school.
Test post.
Ok great, working now. I couldn't reply to anyone for some reason.
"Public executions after Hamas left in control of Gaza Rivals and suspected collaborators are targeted as regional powers warn disarming the Palestinian terror group will be difficult"
"Difficult"? LOL. That must be understatement of the year.
If the great plan everyone was lauding yesterday, with BBC and all going OTT, doesn't have a mechanism for peace keeping today and tomorrow in the parts of Gaza the IDF have withdrawn from, then it isn't even a skeleton of a plan.
That was obvious from the start. Who is going to disarm Hamas? No one has the will except Israel. No one has the wherewithal except the USA.
And yet, in two little-noticed cases — including one spearheaded by Vice President J.D. Vance — the high court could soon do the opposite, eliminating the last restrictions on campaign donations and obstructing law enforcement’s efforts to halt bribery...
..Once again, the master planners are conjuring a legal fiction — House Republicans’ amicus brief insists that because parties pool money from many contributors, that “significantly dilutes the potential for any particular donor to exercise a corrupting influence over any particular candidate” who ultimately benefits from their cash. In essence, they’re asking justices to believe a bank CEO’s donation to a political party coordinating with a lawmaker’s campaign can in no way influence how that lawmaker drafts banking legislation.
A robust argument for preserving the existing restrictions is certainly possible — but the defense side of the case has already been thrown into chaos. After Donald Trump was sworn in, his solicitor general ended the Justice Department’s support of the current law and joined with the plaintiffs attacking it. The Supreme Court then assigned the defense to a conservative lawyer who served as Chief Justice Roberts’ clerk when he engineered the original Citizens United ruling. This same conservative attorney charged with defending the last remaining campaign finance statutes recently pressed justices to limit the scope of federal anti-bribery laws, which are now also in the legal crosshairs...
This bit explains why Vance is so vehemently denying that Homan's' envelope of $50k wasn't a bribe.
..In a concurrent case unfolding amid Washington’s bacchanal of self-enrichment scandals, Cincinnati’s former Democratic city councilman P.G. Sittenfeld is asking the Supreme Court to overturn his bribery conviction after an FBI sting caught him accepting a $20,000 campaign contribution in exchange for supporting a local development project.
Notably, Sittenfeld has already been pardoned by Trump, making him by his own admission the first person in history to appeal a case he’s already been absolved from. He is receiving pro bono legal counsel from the most Trump-connected law firm in America, he is being personally represented by Trump’s former solicitor general, and his appeal is being supported by an army of former elected officials...
This, the guy who penned the Citizens United decision, stepped down during Trump term 1, and hand picked Kavanaugh as his replacement.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired from #SCOTUS in 2018, is worried about this country. In an NPR interview the Reagan appointee warns that “Democracy is not guaranteed to survive.” https://x.com/NinaTotenberg/status/1977853163098042670
One of the more extraordinary aspects of this morning's UK labour market statistics is that the whole "productivity downgrade" story - with £10s of billions of tax incidentals at the Budget - is seriously questioned if you use the HMRC payroll data (and estimate hours worked of the back of this) - rather than rely on the ONS. Indeed on that measure, UK productivity has been growing faster than the OBR forecast assumption since late 2023
Given the massive spikes in U.K. labour costs, it perhaps isn’t surprising.
A spike that’s concentrated right at the bottom of the market with the NI threshold change and minimum wage rise. They combine to make a lot of manual work unable to add value. By next year the ordering kiosks in fast food outlets will be ubiquitous, and probably finding their way into other industries.
My daughter now orders her lunch from a kiosk at school.
My school has had that for about four years. Needless to say they used that to sack the lunch supervisors who the kids all knew. So now they use supply TA's at greater expense due to parental complaints about poor behaviour in the dinner hall. We are lucky if most of them last a week. They often escalate poor behaviour. Not my problem.
One of the more extraordinary aspects of this morning's UK labour market statistics is that the whole "productivity downgrade" story - with £10s of billions of tax incidentals at the Budget - is seriously questioned if you use the HMRC payroll data (and estimate hours worked of the back of this) - rather than rely on the ONS. Indeed on that measure, UK productivity has been growing faster than the OBR forecast assumption since late 2023
Given the massive spikes in U.K. labour costs, it perhaps isn’t surprising.
A spike that’s concentrated right at the bottom of the market with the NI threshold change and minimum wage rise. They combine to make a lot of manual work unable to add value. By next year the ordering kiosks in fast food outlets will be ubiquitous, and probably finding their way into other industries.
AKA productivity growth.
The problem with the "tax on jobs" language is that there are jobs and there are jobs. If we are talking large employers with low value-added jobs that could be automated, at a time when we still seem to need fairly hefty (and unpopular) immigration to keep the wheels spinning...
... it's not obvious that we shouldn't be taxing those jobs more than we have done in the past. It might not be right, but it's not trivially crazy.
One of the more extraordinary aspects of this morning's UK labour market statistics is that the whole "productivity downgrade" story - with £10s of billions of tax incidentals at the Budget - is seriously questioned if you use the HMRC payroll data (and estimate hours worked of the back of this) - rather than rely on the ONS. Indeed on that measure, UK productivity has been growing faster than the OBR forecast assumption since late 2023
Given the massive spikes in U.K. labour costs, it perhaps isn’t surprising.
A spike that’s concentrated right at the bottom of the market with the NI threshold change and minimum wage rise. They combine to make a lot of manual work unable to add value. By next year the ordering kiosks in fast food outlets will be ubiquitous, and probably finding their way into other industries.
AKA productivity growth.
Indeed, which is a good thing so long as it doesn’t cause unemployment along the way, nor an increase in the marginal cost of a unit of utility, in this case wage bill per £x of sales.
It’s causing both an increase in unemployment, and likely also an increase in the marginal cost of utility.
The problem with "Broken Britain" hyperbole is it risks becoming self-fulfilling because it rolls the pitch for political extremists and populist charlatans (no names no pack drill). They are the main beneficiaries of this sentiment going mainstream. That's why they work so hard to promote it.
Shitting all over the country while pretending to be patriots. It's sickening.
The problem with "Broken Britain" hyperbole is it risks becoming self-fulfilling because it rolls the pitch for political extremists and populist charlatans (no names no pack drill). They are the main beneficiaries of this sentiment going mainstream. That's why they work so hard to promote it.
Again, straight out of the Trump playbook.
Depressingly so. An instruction manual for all the wrong people, a warning for everyone else.
I agree with you btw about this feeling like a crux few years for us. But for me the absolute biggest short term priority is preventing far right populism getting its mitts on government. So long as we manage to stop that we have a chance of meeting some of our many challenges. If not, forget it and we'll be looking back at today quite wistfully.
There's something very odd about these numbers. Perhaps the sampling. Is there an VI analysis by socio-economic group?
Right now, Yougov's sample skews well to the left of other pollsters'.
Do we know that? Other reasons could be how they weight their sample.
It’s not that they skew left it is they are much more strict with habitual non voters, others like Find Out Now are much more generous.
Plenty of Reform’s support comes from voters who haven’t don’t vote in general elections this century, 2019 apart if at all since 2001.
And the high-price question is this.
Are these habitual non-voters people who have finally found someone worthy of their vote, so their electoral strike is over? Or are they just saying it now, because that's the easy bit?
The related question is what voters who went for Starmer (or Sunak!) but are currently unimpressed going to do. At the moment, they are mostly in the boxes "don't know"/"won't say"/"won't vote"/"will give my vote to a pointless party that makes me feel good". Will they stick to that, when push comes to shove?
A lot of the polling gap is people making different judgements about those questions, because it's really hard to tell in advance.
Faites vos jeux messieurs, faites vos jeux.
A fortnight ago I met up with a former political strategist who pointed out that during the 2010 parliament Ed Miliband led consistently in the polls mostly due to left leaning Lib Dems who were enraged about the yellow peril making a Tory the Prime Minister.
Yet come election days these voters either stayed at home or just went meh.
If you look at the polling at the time, these voters were the ones self identifying as the most likely to turn out at the 2015 general election.
There would have to be an unbelievably strong demographic quirk to make me believe that we've finally reached the election that Labour can out-perform, heck even just perform, their polling.
Labour outperformed their polling in 2010 and 2017.
Ancient history never was my strong point, but did they actually win either of those elections?
Comments
I'm 75 so my personal preference isn't very important, but I suspect I'm not alone.
If you staffed the NHS with enough people to not need agency (of similar) you’d save literal billions.
We live in very strange times.
This morning, dozens of Iranian-registered ships have suddenly switched on their transponders for the first time since 2017.
The question is why, and why today?
The rumour going around is that Trump is prepared to lift oil sanctions on Iran as part of the wider Middle East peace deal, and if that happens the oil price will collapse in the short term.
Great news for the West as the oil price feeds into everything
Average news for the Middle East outside Iran, as we like high prices out here to fund government spending.
But the important bit, is absolutely terrible news for Russia, they’ll be unable to give the stuff away, and have precisely no hard currency income whatsoever.
https://x.com/jayinkyiv/status/1978012234547646675
Brent and WTI both down 2.5% today, the former is now $61.50 and about to claim the one-year low.
Most pollsters have the Conservatives and Reform's combined vote at c.50%, with that for Labour, Greens, Lib Dems at c.45%. With Yougov it's 44% to 49%.
One sect or another may gain a procedural upper hand at the conference, provoking a split. We'll see.
No need to worry about that I suspect under Zack P!!
I have two examples of why people might not want to take a job: it doesn’t pay enough and it is in the wrong location. Most pathologists are - again an assumption - based in larger hospital and not in far flung rural locations hence the reference to a GP. It was not intended to be an exhaustive list of why people might not want to take a job
Not too eventful a poll, but the Greens continue steadily on the up. Polanski all over X again this week, and they've gone through the 100,000 membership milestone. Worries for Davey and YourParty.
Plenty of Reform’s support comes from voters who haven’t don’t vote in general elections this century, 2019 apart if at all since 2001.
YouGov have these voters splitting preferentially for the Greens (15%) over Reform (10%).
Opinium, for example, have the balance the other way, Reform (14%), Green (8%).
Similar left/right differences in terms of Labour 2024 voters switching to Tories and Lib Dems.
So YouGov seem to have a sample where more of the Labour 2024 voters are metropolitan liberal types, and Opinium a sample where more of them are not.
I couldn't begin to tell you which was more accurate.
Simon French
@Frencheconomics
One of the more extraordinary aspects of this morning's UK labour market statistics is that the whole "productivity downgrade" story - with £10s of billions of tax incidentals at the Budget - is seriously questioned if you use the HMRC payroll data (and estimate hours worked of the back of this) - rather than rely on the ONS. Indeed on that measure, UK productivity has been growing faster than the OBR forecast assumption since late 2023
https://x.com/Frencheconomics/status/1978047081731297631
So you can't say until the real poll which approach is the correct one (except that both are correct inasmuch as the pollster is consistent in their methodology).
Quite a bit of that probably still lies in the hands of the government. If Labour significantly reduce immigration, and manage the economy with some degree of success (the outcome of both those things being equally uncertain), then fewer of those electors will turn out.
https://tomharwood.substack.com/p/your-partys-identity-crisis
Are these habitual non-voters people who have finally found someone worthy of their vote, so their electoral strike is over? Or are they just saying it now, because that's the easy bit?
The related question is what voters who went for Starmer (or Sunak!) but are currently unimpressed going to do. At the moment, they are mostly in the boxes "don't know"/"won't say"/"won't vote"/"will give my vote to a pointless party that makes me feel good". Will they stick to that, when push comes to shove?
A lot of the polling gap is people making different judgements about those questions, because it's really hard to tell in advance.
Faites vos jeux messieurs, faites vos jeux.
Sounds like whatever Putin said when he met Trump, he’s seriously pissed off the US President with his actions since.
https://x.com/zelenskyyua/status/1977805339912257850
The Ukrainian delegation has departed for the United States: Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustem Umerov, and several representatives of the diplomatic sector. They will hold a number of meetings.
I will also have the opportunity to come to Washington and meet with President Trump on Friday. I believe we will discuss a series of steps that I intend to propose. I am grateful to President Trump for our dialogue and his support.
There will be several other important meetings – with defense companies, and possibly with senators and members of Congress. I will also meet with energy companies. This is necessary – it was President Trump’s proposal – and I will meet with these companies because there are pressing needs linked to various formats of attacks, not even the attacks that Russia has already carried out. In any case, we must be prepared. So, it will be helpful.
Therefore, the main focus of the visit is air defense and our long-range capabilities aimed at exerting pressure on Russia for the sake of peace.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj97lkmd23po
He came in by inflatable boat, gave a false name to authorities here, had 17 previous convictions in Sweden, including for carrying a knife, threatening behaviour and vandalism and was also jailed in June 2019 after using threatening behaviour towards a public servant.
Why on earth wasn't he deported never to be allowed in again? What is this country becoming?
Yet come election days these voters either stayed at home or just went meh.
If you look at the polling at the time, these voters were the ones self identifying as the most likely to turn out at the 2015 general election.
Even YouGov, who give Reform lower vote shares, have about one quarter of Tory 2024 voters and nearly one-tenth of Labour/Liberal voters switching to Reform.
It looks like Eli Lilly are eating Novo Nordisks lunch with weight loss drugs.
Biopharma is a high tech, high wage, industry we should be targetting to grow. Sadly it’s likely to stall.
He is - to make it clear - without question a serious PB asset tho!!
"Public executions after Hamas left in control of Gaza
Rivals and suspected collaborators are targeted as regional powers warn disarming the Palestinian terror group will be difficult"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/10/14/blindfold-executions-hamas-trump-plan-israeli-withdrawl
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/jd-vance-right-plan-billionaires-elections-1235445122/
On the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Roberts Supreme Court, one point of consensus persists: Most Americans believe money corrupts the political process — and they want to overturn the Citizens United precedent that empowers oligarchs to buy elections.
And yet, in two little-noticed cases — including one spearheaded by Vice President J.D. Vance — the high court could soon do the opposite, eliminating the last restrictions on campaign donations and obstructing law enforcement’s efforts to halt bribery...
..Once again, the master planners are conjuring a legal fiction — House Republicans’ amicus brief insists that because parties pool money from many contributors, that “significantly dilutes the potential for any particular donor to exercise a corrupting influence over any particular candidate” who ultimately benefits from their cash. In essence, they’re asking justices to believe a bank CEO’s donation to a political party coordinating with a lawmaker’s campaign can in no way influence how that lawmaker drafts banking legislation.
A robust argument for preserving the existing restrictions is certainly possible — but the defense side of the case has already been thrown into chaos. After Donald Trump was sworn in, his solicitor general ended the Justice Department’s support of the current law and joined with the plaintiffs attacking it. The Supreme Court then assigned the defense to a conservative lawyer who served as Chief Justice Roberts’ clerk when he engineered the original Citizens United ruling. This same conservative attorney charged with defending the last remaining campaign finance statutes recently pressed justices to limit the scope of federal anti-bribery laws, which are now also in the legal crosshairs...
This bit explains why Vance is so vehemently denying that Homan's' envelope of $50k wasn't a bribe.
..In a concurrent case unfolding amid Washington’s bacchanal of self-enrichment scandals, Cincinnati’s former Democratic city councilman P.G. Sittenfeld is asking the Supreme Court to overturn his bribery conviction after an FBI sting caught him accepting a $20,000 campaign contribution in exchange for supporting a local development project.
Notably, Sittenfeld has already been pardoned by Trump, making him by his own admission the first person in history to appeal a case he’s already been absolved from. He is receiving pro bono legal counsel from the most Trump-connected law firm in America, he is being personally represented by Trump’s former solicitor general, and his appeal is being supported by an army of former elected officials...
Why aren't we assured that after his prison term (which will likely be less than 3 years) he is to be immediately deported? Who do we hold to account when this doesn't happen?
I do wonder if I'd be alive today without them, which is why I worry about AMR.
The paramilitaries in NI were similar. So too the Taliban. The former eventually lost, albeit with a few vestiges in the crime world; the latter won.
"The Immigration Act 1971 originally envisaged deportation being discretionary. A person would be liable to deportation if the Home Office decided it was conducive to the public good or a judge recommended it at the point of sentencing.8
Discretionary deportation decisions have largely been overtaken by statutory deportation rules. Under section 32 of the UK Borders Act 2007, the Home Secretary “must make a deportation order” against a person given a prison sentence of 12 months or more for a crime committed in the UK.9 This converts the discretionary power of deportation into a duty in relevant cases. It also makes criminal court recommendations for deportation largely redundant.10
Exceptions to the duty
Although section 32 is titled “automatic deportation”, a 12-month prison sentence does not inevitably result in deportation. Various exceptions apply.11
In particular, deportation is not automatic if it would breach the European Convention on Human Rights, UN Refugee Convention or Council of Europe Convention Against Trafficking in Human Beings. Human rights appeals against deportation are covered in section 2 below.
Other exceptions include people who were under 18 on the date of conviction, or who are being extradited.
EU citizens and their family members with residence rights under the post-Brexit Withdrawal Agreement are also exempt from automatic deportation if their criminal act took place before 31 December 2020.12 Such people are instead considered for deportation under a framework derived from EU free movement law, which offers stronger protections against deportation. No particular length of prison sentence triggers deportation.13
By contrast, EU citizens whose offence has been committed since 31 December 2020 are liable to automatic deportation (except for Irish citizens).14"
The case I was looking at it for was for someone of Pakistani origin who was supposed to have a sentencing diet tomorrow. He has been in this country since he came here illegally on a false passport in 2005. He has now been convicted of a serious criminal offence. He was caught before and taken to a detention centre but then let go (again) on the basis that he would sign on at the local police station (he didn't).
It's cases like this that drive me mad. He has been in this country with no legal status for 20 years. Border Force is nothing short of a farce. And, in this case at least, someone ended up getting seriously hurt because of their failures.
The big thing will be producing a pill rather than injection, which is effective and doesn't come with as many adverse reactions (nausea being a major reason for discontinuation with all the existing drugs, to a greater or lesser extent, for example).
It's a huge market, and there's room for quite a lot of differentiation.
Nobody supports Starmer.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx20negxx11o
https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/64428/digital-id
On the whole we use antibiotics too much, as does the farming industry in some parts of the world.
Its not all bad news. Some bacteria are constrained by their biology. I know of one type of bacteria, common in UTI, that can become resistant to nitrofurantoin ( a common treatment for UTIs) but in doing so becomes hardly able to proliferate.
We saw this in Scotland in the early 2010s. Increasing unemployment = productivity growth. As employment subsequently grew, productivity stalled.
The BBC provides her with a puff piece. Staggering.
She will end up presenting twee segments on The One Show at this rate
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ye19w98qxo
They get their funding (from outside Gaza) by being in charge there.
If they are not in charge, then the money dries up. People backing The Strong Horse and all that.
Then they will be a bunch of guys with some guns facing the next Strong Horse. Which will try and kill them.
And that is equally true for the leadership living in Qatar in 5 star hotels - if they are no longer powerful, then they are inconvenient to their hosts. With no upside.
I agree a pill is the desired solution and a lot of money is being throw into weight loss drugs at the moment. I was working on multiple projects for our customers on this when I left work in February.
Queen of our hearts Lucy got away lightly.
But our post Brexit status, in a world with China and Trump lobbing trade restrictions back and forth, means that good or bad choices by government are especially consequential.
Which is why the public debate about those choices is currently so important.
(btw if you're posting < 100%, make sure to leave a space after < otherwise it messes up blockquotes.)
The wife of a friend works at the top of HR at one of then companies that owns a bunch of high street names.
Their response to rising labour costs is, usually to cut the lowest end jobs. Typically, the floor walkers - people you see folding sweaters etc. who direct you to a more senior person for nearly any question. Apparently it’s a financial model that compares employment cost at each location with the category of business - it actually comes up with the staffing profile to match
But there are a lot of unanswered questions - eg will microdosing work for long term weight maintenance, or how do the plethora of health benefits outside of purely weight loss stack up against losing weight by non-medicated means, or what might be the very long term side effects.
And how long it will take for RFK Jnr to weigh in...
Ok great, working now. I couldn't reply to anyone for some reason.
(I hope she's not on your steak only diet, Bart)
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who retired from #SCOTUS in 2018, is worried about this country. In an NPR interview the Reagan appointee warns that “Democracy is not guaranteed to survive.”
https://x.com/NinaTotenberg/status/1977853163098042670
Needless to say they used that to sack the lunch supervisors who the kids all knew.
So now they use supply TA's at greater expense due to parental complaints about poor behaviour in the dinner hall.
We are lucky if most of them last a week. They often escalate poor behaviour.
Not my problem.
... it's not obvious that we shouldn't be taxing those jobs more than we have done in the past. It might not be right, but it's not trivially crazy.
It’s causing both an increase in unemployment, and likely also an increase in the marginal cost of utility.
I agree with you btw about this feeling like a crux few years for us. But for me the absolute biggest short term priority is preventing far right populism getting its mitts on government. So long as we manage to stop that we have a chance of meeting some of our many challenges. If not, forget it and we'll be looking back at today quite wistfully.