President Trump has posted on Truth Social, extending a pause on striking Iranian energy plants, which he announced on Monday.
He also says talks between the US and Iran are "ongoing".
The post says:
"As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time. Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP"
A man who confronted a team of journalists working for Al Jazeera during an altercation after the Golders Green ambulance attacks was a volunteer Metropolitan Police officer.
The crew of journalists were reporting on an arson attack which targeted Hatzola ambulances - a Jewish community-run service - on Monday when they were confronted by a group of people telling them to leave the area.
One of the individuals has been identified as David Soffer, a Met Police special constable, as first reported by Declassified UK then confirmed by the BBC. He was seen calling one of the team "you donkey, you dog" in Arabic.
The Met has referred the incident to its professional standards team for assessment.
Videos from the scene show a group of people from the Jewish community shouting: "Go home" and "Al Jazeera off our streets".
Reporters from the Press Association also heard the journalists called "terrorist sympathisers".
Soffer, who is also a technology businessman, then arrived and told them to "go back to Qatar".
In Arabic, he continued: "Go from here you donkey... go from here you donkey, you dog".
He then called one of the team a dog again and, in Hebrew, he and one of the Al Jazeera staff then call each other donkeys.
At one stage, Soffer warned another person next to him to not be violent. When he was told to calm down, he insisted he was calm.
A female reporter told Soffer "shame on you" after she believed he suggested that she was an antisemite. He told her he could define his own racism.
Our elites now read less than the average member of the population and it shows.
'Britain’s elites no longer look like they did in the 1950s: droopy-moustached old white blokes with a grouse moor somewhere in their background. They are younger, more urban, more multi-ethnic, make rather than inherit their money. That’s all, we may think, to the good. But as The Telegraph’s Great British Class Study discovers, they are less likely than any other sector of society to spend their spare time reading.
For fewer than one in three members of the new “Elite” read for pleasure, according to polling conducted by the opinion-research firm Public First. Too busy with socials, or crypto, or the gym. By contrast, 45 per cent of the “Left Behind” group – whose members typically score the least economic and cultural points in the new system – are readers, as are 60 per cent of the typically older, more financially stable “Quietly Comfortable” class.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/news/britains-elites-have-abandoned-intelligence/
I used to read a lot for pleasure.
Then I started reading PB instead.
Yeah, I'm exactly the same. But I feel ambivalent about it. I enjoy the snappy points on PB and the way the arguments develop with many informed contributions but I can't help lamenting how long it is since I read a novel from beginning to end. I seem to be losing the ability to simply be absorbed in a different world and I miss it.
One of the reasons I booked a series of long train journeys for this summer, Paul Theroux style, was to get me back into reading a book every few days. As it happens I’ve started back up months ahead of time, because the pile of books (a mixture of novels and travel writing) I ordered ahead of the trip have been sitting there asking to be started.
Sounds a good plan. My partner loves train travel so we’re training it from Glasgow down to London then the Eurostar to Lille for four nights in May. I’ve pencilled in a reread of The Tin Drum then Flesh (Booker Prize winner) plus something non fiction for leavening. Will try not to dip in and out of tomes and ration internet time, time to rediscover some self discipline.
My son took the train up to Glasgow recently to visit a friend. A very long journey but more visually attractive than the East coast main line to Edinburgh. I’d love to think he devoured a few books but I suspect he spent the whole journey on Roblox and TikTok.
...what? Impossible to beat Holy Island, the Tweed, Durham Cathedral.
Fair enough but I prefer the Mountain Views on the WCML. And the Eastern route is boring as hell until you’re way up North.
Re header: The big problem is that economists don't have the first idea about economics. Nor does anyone else. It's roughly like weather-forecasting was 100 years ago.
Angela Rayner is preparing to launch a podcast called Beyond the Bubble as she seeks to broaden her appeal before a potential Labour leadership contest
The former deputy prime minister has interviewed Lord Gove, the former Tory cabinet minister, as the star guest on the pilot, which is focused on housing
Rayner and Gove both served as housing secretaries and the two recently gave evidence together to a parliamentary committee about leasehold reform. Both championed legislation to give leaseholders and renters more rights while they were in office
The two are understood to get on well despite their political differences. Gove, who is now editor of The Spectator, is said to have joked to Rayner after their appearance before MPs that she had been like Annie Lennox to his Dave Stewart from Eurythmics
In the first episode Rayner conducts other interviews with people across the country about housing. The show was produced by Global, which owns the radio station LBC, but it is not yet clear if it has signed off a full series
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
A radical rethink is needed of the kinds we have seen in the past – Liberal reforms a century ago, or Labour’s welfare state post-war, or the Thatcher deregulation boom of the 80s.
And yet here we are, despite all these radical reforms? I still find them hard to distinguish from blips on the chart that might have made things better, might have arrested a decline, might have hastened it longer term despite looking like the sunny uplands in the short term. I'm not enough of an economic historian to know if we've basically been returning to mean since the blip that (to my ignorant knowledge) led from Raleigh to Clive and wider empire.
Was that our lucky streak? Did we p*ss it all up the wall on the way out the door? Did some Prussian guy pick a fight with us and we just couldn't leave it? Dunno.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
A radical rethink is needed of the kinds we have seen in the past – Liberal reforms a century ago, or Labour’s welfare state post-war, or the Thatcher deregulation boom of the 80s.
And yet here we are, despite all these radical reforms? I still find them hard to distinguish from blips on the chart that might have made things better, might have arrested a decline, might have hastened it longer term despite looking like the sunny uplands in the short term. I'm not enough of an economic historian to know if we've basically been returning to mean since the blip that (to my ignorant knowledge) led from Raleigh to Clive and wider empire.
Was that our lucky streak? Did we p*ss it all up the wall on the way out the door? Did some Prussian guy pick a fight with us and we just couldn't leave it? Dunno.
Part of the problem (one we share with France) is exceptionalism. We expect, no demand, to be more successful and more powerful than our peers. And when we fail to be, we declare we are the worst, uniquely awful. When the reality is we’re in the middle of the middle of the pack.
Angela Rayner is preparing to launch a podcast called Beyond the Bubble as she seeks to broaden her appeal before a potential Labour leadership contest
She should have borrowed the name used by her parody: No Brainer with Angela Rayner.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
It won't.
I'm pretty sure you're right. I rather worry that AI might be really good at the UK's key strengths of blather and high bills.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
Imagine how much more tax I could pay if my rent were 60% of what it is.... I could pay 10 percentage points more tax and still be up.
On his way to the G7 meeting, Marco Rubio says Donald Trump will have to “examine” his engagement in Ukraine in response to Europe’s refusal to secure the Strait to Hormuz from Iranian attacks.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
We missed an opportunity to reduce long term healthcare spending during Covid when we concentrated protecting old buggers like me at the expense of children and working people, thereby keeping us alive to continue to be a drain on the country’s resources.
Our elites now read less than the average member of the population and it shows.
'Britain’s elites no longer look like they did in the 1950s: droopy-moustached old white blokes with a grouse moor somewhere in their background. They are younger, more urban, more multi-ethnic, make rather than inherit their money. That’s all, we may think, to the good. But as The Telegraph’s Great British Class Study discovers, they are less likely than any other sector of society to spend their spare time reading.
For fewer than one in three members of the new “Elite” read for pleasure, according to polling conducted by the opinion-research firm Public First. Too busy with socials, or crypto, or the gym. By contrast, 45 per cent of the “Left Behind” group – whose members typically score the least economic and cultural points in the new system – are readers, as are 60 per cent of the typically older, more financially stable “Quietly Comfortable” class.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/news/britains-elites-have-abandoned-intelligence/
I used to read a lot for pleasure.
Then I started reading PB instead.
Yeah, I'm exactly the same. But I feel ambivalent about it. I enjoy the snappy points on PB and the way the arguments develop with many informed contributions but I can't help lamenting how long it is since I read a novel from beginning to end. I seem to be losing the ability to simply be absorbed in a different world and I miss it.
I’m reading my first book in ages “I Capture The Castle”. Feels like it’s meant for a younger audience, but I am quite enjoying it
On his way to the G7 meeting, Marco Rubio says Donald Trump will have to “examine” his engagement in Ukraine in response to Europe’s refusal to secure the Strait to Hormuz from Iranian attacks.
This is what Europeans feared: payback.
What engagement? If he means US support for Putin then yes, perhaps they should reexamine that.
"Britain pursuing closer ties with the European Union will “not be viewed favourably” in the White House if it in any way affects the trading relationship between the UK and US, Washington’s ambassador to the UK has warned." https://www.cityam.com/us-ambassador-warns-against-eu-realignment/
He needs to be told, with extreme rigour (sic)...
They really have a fxcking nerve ! Having screwed the UK with tariffs they’re now dictating our other trading relationships.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
It’s exactly as I described: ever more expensive medicines that keep people alive and healthy longer. We already ration innovative medicines. Good luck trying to take that further without succumbing to privatisation.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I'd suggest that a blind acceptance of insane inflation in some areas is at the rose of many problems.
If our costs to do things are 10x some other countries and the timescales 10x longer, then we can't afford anything and can't get it done either.
If we want to live in a country where a 15 foot long footbridge over a creek costs £250K, then we can't complain when there aren't many footbridges over creeks.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
It’s exactly as I described: ever more expensive medicines that keep people alive and healthy longer. We already ration innovative medicines. Good luck trying to take that further without succumbing to privatisation.
Agree with that bit - but it's coupled with people being very unhealthy. The criticism of the NHS as a National Sickness Service is brutally correct - our healthy life expectancy is actually going backwards.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
It’s exactly as I described: ever more expensive medicines that keep people alive and healthy longer. We already ration innovative medicines. Good luck trying to take that further without succumbing to privatisation.
A talk from a lung cancer oncologist this week was very revealing. When he started in medicine there were three types of lung cancer and thus three treatment regimes. Now, in the age of personalised medicine, each tumour is characterised by whatever rogue protein target it expresses and often there are specific biologists for those subtypes. They can be really successful in some, but not all, cases. But they ain’t cheap folks. The hope is that eventually they will become ever cheaper, but right now the NHS has to choose where the limited money goes.
Our elites now read less than the average member of the population and it shows.
'Britain’s elites no longer look like they did in the 1950s: droopy-moustached old white blokes with a grouse moor somewhere in their background. They are younger, more urban, more multi-ethnic, make rather than inherit their money. That’s all, we may think, to the good. But as The Telegraph’s Great British Class Study discovers, they are less likely than any other sector of society to spend their spare time reading.
For fewer than one in three members of the new “Elite” read for pleasure, according to polling conducted by the opinion-research firm Public First. Too busy with socials, or crypto, or the gym. By contrast, 45 per cent of the “Left Behind” group – whose members typically score the least economic and cultural points in the new system – are readers, as are 60 per cent of the typically older, more financially stable “Quietly Comfortable” class.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/news/britains-elites-have-abandoned-intelligence/
I used to read a lot for pleasure.
Then I started reading PB instead.
Yeah, I'm exactly the same. But I feel ambivalent about it. I enjoy the snappy points on PB and the way the arguments develop with many informed contributions but I can't help lamenting how long it is since I read a novel from beginning to end. I seem to be losing the ability to simply be absorbed in a different world and I miss it.
Same. I do audiobooks now. They are immersive and enjoyable but they don't quite 'stick' like trad books used to with me. I think I could get back into books but it would take an effort. Reading in that way has come to feel a bit clunky. It's a shame. I used to devour stuff and time would fly.
I suspect the "book" as we know it, is finished - especially fiction, on the page
It's sad, but it's also undeniable, and it's not all about dumbing down and shortening attention spans, Take narrative history. When I travel I like to read books about where I am, but then you are getting one person's view and one person's distillation of the stories. Which can be annoying and also perverting, you must submit to the writer's POV. Nowadays you can do personal deep-dives online and get much more forensic and focussed info, without the bias of a mediator
I thoroughly enjoy it and feel much better educated
It's an odd one - because people love long-form 3 hour podcasts. So is long-form media really dead?
My daughter speed reads novels - eyes straight down the centre of each page. She also plays podcasts at double speed. Her children, my grandchildren, all talk at double speed. I can hardly understand them.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
There are a number of more recent reports from OBR, Scottish Fiscal Commission etc etc that make the same point. To be fair on the Conservatives, this significantly slowed during 2010-2016, though that's primarily due to real terms cuts in NHS pay.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
I am sorry my wife [86] and I [82] are such a burden on society
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
It does because YODO. Most costs are incurred in the final 12-months, and it doesn't matter whether that is aged 60 or 90 in terms of the demographic impact. It's the length of time people live with chronic illnesses that is the driver of costs, and that effect can be isolated from an ageing population.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
I am sorry my wife [86] and I [82] are such a burden on society
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
Thanks- I was wondering what a zero-order model of NHS spending (healthcare costs basically nothing until people hit age X, then costs £££ per year) would look like in terms of X and £££. It's why the arguments about immigration pressures on the NHS are largely tosh, and also why a more directly personal model of funding healthcare probably isn't the point. It might seem to give more for less for working-age people, but society is still left with the question of how to fund healthcare for older, more expensive people who can't cover their own costs in real time.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
I am sorry my wife [86] and I [82] are such a burden on society
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
I am sorry my wife [86] and I [82] are such a burden on society
What do you suggest - we are euthanised ?
You probably aren't BigG - I know you've had some health issues but unless you've been struggling with chronic illnesses for 20+ years and spending a lot of time in hospital, you'll have had a relatively minor impact.
TBH - with two MRIs and a major operation, I won't be far behind you over the last decade.
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I just don't have the time, I was a prodigious reader of fiction, I love my sci-fi.
Plus it's a downside of WFH, I usually WFH 2 days a week, and I used to read during my train journeys.
For the last 3 decades I have aimed to read at least 100 books year. For the first 20 years I averaged between 80 and 90 but the last 8 years I have been averaging between 100 and 120 a year.
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I'm not a big fan of fiction. If it isn't true and it isn't funny, what's the point? I finish a fiction book and think "but none of that happened..." I find a lot of fiction quite stressful to a level I think is quite unusual. It genuinely causes unpleasant stress hormones. Usually when I do try fiction on telly I opt out long before the end because I find the stress it causes unpleasant.
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I just don't have the time, I was a prodigious reader of fiction, I love my sci-fi.
Plus it's a downside of WFH, I usually WFH 2 days a week, and I used to read during my train journeys.
For the last 3 decades I have aimed to read at least 100 books year. For the first 20 years I averaged between 80 and 90 but the last 8 years I have been averaging between 100 and 120 a year.
I didn't read much for some years, but for the last 6 years have done about 150 a year - cheating with some pretty short easy stuff in fairness.
On track for about 50 in 2026 as a whole though - trying to work through my unplayed Steam library instead!
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I just don't have the time, I was a prodigious reader of fiction, I love my sci-fi.
Plus it's a downside of WFH, I usually WFH 2 days a week, and I used to read during my train journeys.
For the last 3 decades I have aimed to read at least 100 books year. For the first 20 years I averaged between 80 and 90 but the last 8 years I have been averaging between 100 and 120 a year.
Very impressive.
I used to read two books a week, I just don't have the energy/time these days.
I get one audiobook a month from Audible and that's enough for me which pains me.
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I just don't have the time, I was a prodigious reader of fiction, I love my sci-fi.
Plus it's a downside of WFH, I usually WFH 2 days a week, and I used to read during my train journeys.
For the last 3 decades I have aimed to read at least 100 books year. For the first 20 years I averaged between 80 and 90 but the last 8 years I have been averaging between 100 and 120 a year.
I didn't read much for some years, but for the last 6 years have done about 150 a year - cheating with some pretty short easy stuff in fairness.
On track for about 50 in 2026 as a whole though - trying to work through my unplayed Steam library instead!
Where do you find the time? (Not least as you have over 100,000 posts on here!)
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
I am sorry my wife [86] and I [82] are such a burden on society
What do you suggest - we are euthanised ?
You probably aren't BigG - I know you've had some health issues but unless you've been struggling with chronic illnesses for 20+ years and spending a lot of time in hospital, you'll have had a relatively minor impact.
TBH - with two MRIs and a major operation, I won't be far behind you over the last decade.
I’ve had hole in the heart as a baby, broken leg at 10, both patella tendons evulsed, leukemia, carpal tunnel surgery, and that’s not even the lot. I’ve had my share.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
I am sorry my wife [86] and I [82] are such a burden on society
What do you suggest - we are euthanised ?
You probably aren't BigG - I know you've had some health issues but unless you've been struggling with chronic illnesses for 20+ years and spending a lot of time in hospital, you'll have had a relatively minor impact.
TBH - with two MRIs and a major operation, I won't be far behind you over the last decade.
Yes and I was just making the point that old age doesn't come alone and it is not an option for many to cost the NHS a lot of money
2 years ago I would not have imagined that in Edinburgh, Kings Cross, and Euston stations last week I needed passenger assist to take me to and from the trains in a wheelchair
One of the reasons we have not downsized is to ensure that should my wife and I, or one of us, need prolonged nursing care in a care home it would not cost the taxpayer anything
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
I am sorry my wife [86] and I [82] are such a burden on society
What do you suggest - we are euthanised ?
Older people, in general, will cost more, it's happened before and it is going to happen to those of us who are not yet at that age, because thankfully a lot more people are able to live that long when they didn't used to be able to. It's not advocating euthanasia to note that society getting older comes with some major impacts on society - the rising demand for adult social care is a thing, plus other matters, even if there is no 'solution' to that.
Indeed, part of the worry with assisted suicide is the idea some older people might get pressured into feeling like a burden that they should then do something about it, which I'd hope no-one would want.
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I just don't have the time, I was a prodigious reader of fiction, I love my sci-fi.
Plus it's a downside of WFH, I usually WFH 2 days a week, and I used to read during my train journeys.
For the last 3 decades I have aimed to read at least 100 books year. For the first 20 years I averaged between 80 and 90 but the last 8 years I have been averaging between 100 and 120 a year.
I didn't read much for some years, but for the last 6 years have done about 150 a year - cheating with some pretty short easy stuff in fairness.
On track for about 50 in 2026 as a whole though - trying to work through my unplayed Steam library instead!
Where do you find the time? (Not least as you have over 100,000 posts on here!)
I do read very quickly (sometimes a little too quickly, and have to resist scanning ahead too much), but, and this will not surprise, mainly just because I am not very social, lack dependents to take up attention, and do not have a long work commute to eat into my time.
Block out a hardcore reading weekend of some breezy 200 page crime thrillers and you can get through half a dozen then and there!
ETA: As for the 100k posts, the key is to never stop and think about whether to post something and just react instinctively.
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I'm not a big fan of fiction. If it isn't true and it isn't funny, what's the point? I finish a fiction book and think "but none of that happened..." I find a lot of fiction quite stressful to a level I think is quite unusual. It genuinely causes unpleasant stress hormones. Usually when I do try fiction on telly I opt out long before the end because I find the stress it causes unpleasant.
This is such a divergent position from my own that it makes me wonder how incredible it is that people can be so different sometimes.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Yes. Technological advance plus government action to ensure the benefits are population wide rather than reaped by an elite. The first is nailed on, the second very much not. I'd say that's the political challenge of our age. But first there's a need to get through Trump2.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
I am sorry my wife [86] and I [82] are such a burden on society
What do you suggest - we are euthanised ?
You probably aren't BigG - I know you've had some health issues but unless you've been struggling with chronic illnesses for 20+ years and spending a lot of time in hospital, you'll have had a relatively minor impact.
TBH - with two MRIs and a major operation, I won't be far behind you over the last decade.
I’ve had hole in the heart as a baby, broken leg at 10, both patella tendons evulsed, leukemia, carpal tunnel surgery, and that’s not even the lot. I’ve had my share.
It might be you. I jest - looking after people is why we have an NHS, and politicians of all parties have agreed via their budgets that it's the biggest priority for public spending. I just wish more of it was spent on preventing this kind of stuff happening in the first place, rather than managing illness after it has occurred.
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I just don't have the time, I was a prodigious reader of fiction, I love my sci-fi.
Plus it's a downside of WFH, I usually WFH 2 days a week, and I used to read during my train journeys.
For the last 3 decades I have aimed to read at least 100 books year. For the first 20 years I averaged between 80 and 90 but the last 8 years I have been averaging between 100 and 120 a year.
I didn't read much for some years, but for the last 6 years have done about 150 a year - cheating with some pretty short easy stuff in fairness.
On track for about 50 in 2026 as a whole though - trying to work through my unplayed Steam library instead!
I use my reading rate as an excuse to keep buying books. I have about 6000 books in my collection and have read about 4500 of them. I am 60 years old and at 100 books a year, if I live to be 80 then I can justify buying at least 500 more books.
I am sure once I reach that number I will find another excuse to keep buying.
Of the 1000 books I've read in the last 6-7 years, that does include at least one Tom Knox and two S K Tremaynes, lest anyone think it is all highbrow literature.
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I just don't have the time, I was a prodigious reader of fiction, I love my sci-fi.
Plus it's a downside of WFH, I usually WFH 2 days a week, and I used to read during my train journeys.
For the last 3 decades I have aimed to read at least 100 books year. For the first 20 years I averaged between 80 and 90 but the last 8 years I have been averaging between 100 and 120 a year.
I didn't read much for some years, but for the last 6 years have done about 150 a year - cheating with some pretty short easy stuff in fairness.
On track for about 50 in 2026 as a whole though - trying to work through my unplayed Steam library instead!
I use my reading rate as an excuse to keep buying books. I have about 6000 books in my collection and have read about 4500 of them. I am 60 years old and at 100 books a year, if I live to be 80 then I can justify buying at least 500 more books.
I am sure once I reach that number I will find another excuse to keep buying.
Hmph, I've got 2000 at 40, so I am clearly running very far behind.
My 'unread' pile always never seems to get lower than 20 though...
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I just don't have the time, I was a prodigious reader of fiction, I love my sci-fi.
Plus it's a downside of WFH, I usually WFH 2 days a week, and I used to read during my train journeys.
For the last 3 decades I have aimed to read at least 100 books year. For the first 20 years I averaged between 80 and 90 but the last 8 years I have been averaging between 100 and 120 a year.
I didn't read much for some years, but for the last 6 years have done about 150 a year - cheating with some pretty short easy stuff in fairness.
On track for about 50 in 2026 as a whole though - trying to work through my unplayed Steam library instead!
I use my reading rate as an excuse to keep buying books. I have about 6000 books in my collection and have read about 4500 of them. I am 60 years old and at 100 books a year, if I live to be 80 then I can justify buying at least 500 more books.
I am sure once I reach that number I will find another excuse to keep buying.
I do keep on buying books.
I have a rule which I have broken is that the size of my main TV now exceeds the size of my bookcase.
The Iranians, unsurprisingly, accuse Trump of lying.
In my experience, Iranians are delightful people - some of very best in the world. Kind, courteous, intelligent, thoughtful. But they do lie. I think it is probably considered a form of courtesy.
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I'm not a big fan of fiction. If it isn't true and it isn't funny, what's the point? I finish a fiction book and think "but none of that happened..." I find a lot of fiction quite stressful to a level I think is quite unusual. It genuinely causes unpleasant stress hormones. Usually when I do try fiction on telly I opt out long before the end because I find the stress it causes unpleasant.
I think (the best) fiction can describe reality better than non fiction.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
I am sorry my wife [86] and I [82] are such a burden on society
What do you suggest - we are euthanised ?
Older people, in general, will cost more, it's happened before and it is going to happen to those of us who are not yet at that age, because thankfully a lot more people are able to live that long when they didn't used to be able to. It's not advocating euthanasia to note that society getting older comes with some major impacts on society - the rising demand for adult social care is a thing, plus other matters, even if there is no 'solution' to that.
Indeed, part of the worry with assisted suicide is the idea some older people might get pressured into feeling like a burden that they should then do something about it, which I'd hope no-one would want.
Thing is, there is a solution... it's just that it's the one that has been taboo for decades.
Imagine Roger Allam doing his best world-weary voice as Peter Mannion as he says "fund necessary public services through broad-based increases in taxation".
David Willets pointed this out fifteen years ago;
However, the size of this dividend depends on when you born. The biggest beneficiaries are baby boomers born in the mid-1950s (such as Lord Willetts), who are set for a ‘welfare dividend’ of £291,000 over the course of their lives – paying on average £941,000 worth of tax, and receiving £1,231,000 worth of public services from the welfare state in return.
In contrast, the smallest post-war beneficiaries are set to be young millennials born in 1996. They are set to receive a far smaller ‘welfare dividend’ of just £132,000 (£962,000 of tax paid for £1,095,000 worth of public service benefits). The pre-war 1931 cohort have done even worse, because they were too young to benefit from post-war education expansions but paid the higher taxes that made them possible.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
I am sorry my wife [86] and I [82] are such a burden on society
What do you suggest - we are euthanised ?
You probably aren't BigG - I know you've had some health issues but unless you've been struggling with chronic illnesses for 20+ years and spending a lot of time in hospital, you'll have had a relatively minor impact.
TBH - with two MRIs and a major operation, I won't be far behind you over the last decade.
I’ve had hole in the heart as a baby, broken leg at 10, both patella tendons evulsed, leukemia, carpal tunnel surgery, and that’s not even the lot. I’ve had my share.
It might be you. I jest - looking after people is why we have an NHS, and politicians of all parties have agreed via their budgets that it's the biggest priority for public spending. I just wish more of it was spent on preventing this kind of stuff happening in the first place, rather than managing illness after it has occurred.
Ironic for me is that broken leg and both knees were playing sport. Football, football and cricket. I suspect a weakness in the patella tendons as doing both separately was odd. And when diagnosed with leukemia I was a marathon running, cricket playing footballer who ate mostly healthy food and have never smoked. Fixing lifestyles and getting people to be responsible is laudable and the right thing to do, but it won’t stop every Tubbs from turning up at A and E again…
It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.
There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.
If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the 'medicine closet' and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice! ― Umberto Eco
Over the 1000 books I've read in the last 6-7 years, that does include at least one Tom Knox and two S K Tremaynes, lest anyone think it is all highbrow literature.
I can only assume you have read so many others to dilute the pain.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
I am sorry my wife [86] and I [82] are such a burden on society
What do you suggest - we are euthanised ?
You probably aren't BigG - I know you've had some health issues but unless you've been struggling with chronic illnesses for 20+ years and spending a lot of time in hospital, you'll have had a relatively minor impact.
TBH - with two MRIs and a major operation, I won't be far behind you over the last decade.
I’ve had hole in the heart as a baby, broken leg at 10, both patella tendons evulsed, leukemia, carpal tunnel surgery, and that’s not even the lot. I’ve had my share.
It might be you. I jest - looking after people is why we have an NHS, and politicians of all parties have agreed via their budgets that it's the biggest priority for public spending. I just wish more of it was spent on preventing this kind of stuff happening in the first place, rather than managing illness after it has occurred.
Ironic for me is that broken leg and both knees were playing sport. Football, football and cricket. I suspect a weakness in the patella tendons as doing both separately was odd. And when diagnosed with leukemia I was a marathon running, cricket playing footballer who ate mostly healthy food and have never smoked. Fixing lifestyles and getting people to be responsible is laudable and the right thing to do, but it won’t stop every Tubbs from turning up at A and E again…
It will mean there is more time and money to look after Mr Tubbs though. And I think we'd all support that.
The Iranians, unsurprisingly, accuse Trump of lying.
In my experience, Iranians are delightful people - some of very best in the world. Kind, courteous, intelligent, thoughtful. But they do lie. I think it is probably considered a form of courtesy.
On the question of whether negotiations are going on, I can easily see an incentive for them to lie until any deal is done.
Doesn't mean the Trump claims are true, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Iranians were posturing as well. Why not?
More to the point on reading and politics, which political (auto), biographies are actually worth reading?
I've read 'For the Record', but don't really have any others.
Kind of Blue by Ken Clarke.
He made this point that a lot of his political career was down to good fortune
His first Secretary of State (first at Transport then the DHSS) was Norman Fowler who he followed for the first six years of the Thatcher government happened to be a friend and somebody who was happy for Ken Clarke to do well.
He did wonder if he worked for somebody else whether he would have done quite so well.
Also he got on well with Lord Young in a job share which sometimes ends very badly for others.
The Iranians, unsurprisingly, accuse Trump of lying.
In my experience, Iranians are delightful people - some of very best in the world. Kind, courteous, intelligent, thoughtful. But they do lie. I think it is probably considered a form of courtesy.
President Trump has posted on Truth Social, extending a pause on striking Iranian energy plants, which he announced on Monday.
He also says talks between the US and Iran are "ongoing".
The post says:
"As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time. Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP"
So the Iranians have demanded he issues that statement? Interesting.
President Trump has posted on Truth Social, extending a pause on striking Iranian energy plants, which he announced on Monday.
He also says talks between the US and Iran are "ongoing".
The post says:
"As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time. Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP"
So the Iranians have demanded he issues that statement? Interesting.
No
The Iranians have already said this is a lie
The stock market took it biggest dip since the start of the war just before he posted this
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I just don't have the time, I was a prodigious reader of fiction, I love my sci-fi.
Plus it's a downside of WFH, I usually WFH 2 days a week, and I used to read during my train journeys.
For the last 3 decades I have aimed to read at least 100 books year. For the first 20 years I averaged between 80 and 90 but the last 8 years I have been averaging between 100 and 120 a year.
I didn't read much for some years, but for the last 6 years have done about 150 a year - cheating with some pretty short easy stuff in fairness.
On track for about 50 in 2026 as a whole though - trying to work through my unplayed Steam library instead!
I use my reading rate as an excuse to keep buying books. I have about 6000 books in my collection and have read about 4500 of them. I am 60 years old and at 100 books a year, if I live to be 80 then I can justify buying at least 500 more books.
I am sure once I reach that number I will find another excuse to keep buying.
I do keep on buying books.
I have a rule which I have broken is that the size of my main TV now exceeds the size of my bookcase.
That’s not many books. We have 10m of Billy book cases just upstairs
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I'm not a big fan of fiction. If it isn't true and it isn't funny, what's the point? I finish a fiction book and think "but none of that happened..." I find a lot of fiction quite stressful to a level I think is quite unusual. It genuinely causes unpleasant stress hormones. Usually when I do try fiction on telly I opt out long before the end because I find the stress it causes unpleasant.
I think (the best) fiction can describe reality better than non fiction.
Yes, I think so.
Crime and Punishment is a novel, but one that dissects the psychology of the criminal better than non-fiction. Ditto the best of Conrad or Greene.
President Trump has posted on Truth Social, extending a pause on striking Iranian energy plants, which he announced on Monday.
He also says talks between the US and Iran are "ongoing".
The post says:
"As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time. Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP"
So the Iranians have demanded he issues that statement? Interesting.
No
The Iranians have already said this is a lie
The stock market took it biggest dip since the start of the war just before he posted this
I should have read on! I would be surprised if there wasn't some kind of back channel negotiation going on. But I am not sure social media posts are the usual channel for diplomatic communiqués.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
There are a number of more recent reports from OBR, Scottish Fiscal Commission etc etc that make the same point. To be fair on the Conservatives, this significantly slowed during 2010-2016, though that's primarily due to real terms cuts in NHS pay.
Thanks. I would quibble that the document only partially supports your claims, but it does highlight some other pressures on cost that can be overlooked (but are nonetheless discussed here on PB). Table 1 shows from 1995 to 2009 and includes a period of increased spending under New Labour in the UK, and obviously misses out COVID, so not the most up to date figures and somewhat different to your claim about what’s happened since 2000.
That analysis identifies demographics as a small part of a total increase (it doesn’t use your phrasing of “very small”), but it doesn’t ascribe the rest of the increase to political choice. It also highlights relative prices and technology. These are also very important. I and others have repeatedly noted that healthcare inflation runs ahead of general inflation. We keep getting better at treating ill health, with new drugs and other technology.
Ultimately, yes, any and all state healthcare spending is a political choice. Whatever the pressures on costs, we elect politicians who choose how much to spend. But the claim made was that, “Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still.” That remains true. You’re saying it doesn’t have to rise a huge amount, but it still does have to rise for service levels to stand still.
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I'm not a big fan of fiction. If it isn't true and it isn't funny, what's the point? I finish a fiction book and think "but none of that happened..." I find a lot of fiction quite stressful to a level I think is quite unusual. It genuinely causes unpleasant stress hormones. Usually when I do try fiction on telly I opt out long before the end because I find the stress it causes unpleasant.
I think (the best) fiction can describe reality better than non fiction.
Yes, I think so.
Crime and Punishment is a novel, but one that dissects the psychology of the criminal better than non-fiction. Ditto the best of Conrad or Greene.
I’m a mix. I probably do 2 non-fiction per 1 fiction. Some fiction I really enjoy, others I can take or leave.
Just finished The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak. Wonderful book. But before that it was The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, and found it pretty mediocre. Sort of sub-Dumas mystery fiction.
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I just don't have the time, I was a prodigious reader of fiction, I love my sci-fi.
Plus it's a downside of WFH, I usually WFH 2 days a week, and I used to read during my train journeys.
For the last 3 decades I have aimed to read at least 100 books year. For the first 20 years I averaged between 80 and 90 but the last 8 years I have been averaging between 100 and 120 a year.
I didn't read much for some years, but for the last 6 years have done about 150 a year - cheating with some pretty short easy stuff in fairness.
On track for about 50 in 2026 as a whole though - trying to work through my unplayed Steam library instead!
I use my reading rate as an excuse to keep buying books. I have about 6000 books in my collection and have read about 4500 of them. I am 60 years old and at 100 books a year, if I live to be 80 then I can justify buying at least 500 more books.
I am sure once I reach that number I will find another excuse to keep buying.
I do keep on buying books.
I have a rule which I have broken is that the size of my main TV now exceeds the size of my bookcase.
That’s not many books. We have 10m of Billy book cases just upstairs
When we got the shoffice built, we put in about 4m of full-height Billies. The scary thing is how little impact that had on the overloadedness of the other bookcases in the rest of the house.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
Since 2000 the number of 80+ year olds in the UK has grown by 75%.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
I am sorry my wife [86] and I [82] are such a burden on society
What do you suggest - we are euthanised ?
You probably aren't BigG - I know you've had some health issues but unless you've been struggling with chronic illnesses for 20+ years and spending a lot of time in hospital, you'll have had a relatively minor impact.
TBH - with two MRIs and a major operation, I won't be far behind you over the last decade.
I’ve had hole in the heart as a baby, broken leg at 10, both patella tendons evulsed, leukemia, carpal tunnel surgery, and that’s not even the lot. I’ve had my share.
It might be you. I jest - looking after people is why we have an NHS, and politicians of all parties have agreed via their budgets that it's the biggest priority for public spending. I just wish more of it was spent on preventing this kind of stuff happening in the first place, rather than managing illness after it has occurred.
I agree about more being spent on preventative healthcare. But the public see the value in fixing current problems, and they take a lot more persuading about preventing future problems. The sick person who needs the expensive medicine attracts more attention than the healthy person who is persuaded to do a bit more exercise and as a result doesn’t get sick in 30 years time.
I guess you need a persuasive politician to make the case for more preventative health.
Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.
1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed. 2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed. 3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.
So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.
Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?
We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.
Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.
I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.
Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.
What are your numbers and evidence for "a very small proportion"?
There are a number of more recent reports from OBR, Scottish Fiscal Commission etc etc that make the same point. To be fair on the Conservatives, this significantly slowed during 2010-2016, though that's primarily due to real terms cuts in NHS pay.
Thanks. I would quibble that the document only partially supports your claims, but it does highlight some other pressures on cost that can be overlooked (but are nonetheless discussed here on PB). Table 1 shows from 1995 to 2009 and includes a period of increased spending under New Labour in the UK, and obviously misses out COVID, so not the most up to date figures and somewhat different to your claim about what’s happened since 2000.
That analysis identifies demographics as a small part of a total increase (it doesn’t use your phrasing of “very small”), but it doesn’t ascribe the rest of the increase to political choice. It also highlights relative prices and technology. These are also very important. I and others have repeatedly noted that healthcare inflation runs ahead of general inflation. We keep getting better at treating ill health, with new drugs and other technology.
Ultimately, yes, any and all state healthcare spending is a political choice. Whatever the pressures on costs, we elect politicians who choose how much to spend. But the claim made was that, “Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still.” That remains true. You’re saying it doesn’t have to rise a huge amount, but it still does have to rise for service levels to stand still.
Agree with that. No doubt the UK has aged a bit and that has contributed to an extent. It's just that the effect is dwarfed by that unhappy interaction of an unhealthy population and brilliant technological advances.
SCOOP: Trump has spent his second term in office working to leave his mark on Washington and the country.
Now, his Treasury Department plans to add his signature to all denominations of U.S. dollar bills. It will be the first time in history a sitting president's signature appears on dollar bills
Trump is responsible for a third of the $39 trillion US national debt between his two presidencies.
“A historic moment in the European Parliament: The so-called “firewall” against right-wing parties has fallen. Right-wing populists and conservatives joined forces and pushed through a major motion on the new Return Regulation.
Some Key points: ✅ Outsourcing asylum procedures via external return hubs ✅ DNA testing to verify the age of illegal migrants ✅ Lifetime entry bans for illegals
Now the work begins. As European patriots, we must spread this message to national and regional level. We must coordinate political parties, media, and activists.
The USA has the National Rifle Association. Europe needs a Continental Remigration Association. If we build it, we can save this continent. Massive white pill today.”
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I'm not a big fan of fiction. If it isn't true and it isn't funny, what's the point? I finish a fiction book and think "but none of that happened..." I find a lot of fiction quite stressful to a level I think is quite unusual. It genuinely causes unpleasant stress hormones. Usually when I do try fiction on telly I opt out long before the end because I find the stress it causes unpleasant.
I think (the best) fiction can describe reality better than non fiction.
Yes, I think so.
Crime and Punishment is a novel, but one that dissects the psychology of the criminal better than non-fiction. Ditto the best of Conrad or Greene.
Distance from reality can be very helpful in thinking about and aborbing a point (or spurring us to think of our own) . Even if it is a paper thin facade over reality.
Though personally I just think it's entertaining, and so things like describing reality or providing moral insight are just bonuses rather than the point.
Pure fun is the key, whether it is a noble laureate or less acclaimed author (fun can include enjoying harrowing fiction too in this context).
Indeed, if a book is praised for everything but the story it is telling, I'd consider that a red flag.
It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.
There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.
If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the 'medicine closet' and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice! ― Umberto Eco
(No, I've never read anything by him)
Ha, yes, I was just thinking of that quote! Umberto is a consolation in so many ways.
Edit: you should definitely read him if your reading muscles are still in good fettle.
I see Badenoch has once again visited the Magic Money Tree. "Help with Energy Bills" - well, yes, but what kind of help and from where? Is she going to compel energy companies to reduce prices? Is there going to be Government money to help with bills, if so, how much and from where is the shortfall to be met?
As for drilling in the North Sea, I yield willingly to the knowledge of @Richard_Tyndall and others on the subject. I presume even if we started tomorrow, any new North Sea oil wouldn't be piped ashore for some weeks or months or years? I presume we'd need refinery capacity for example.
To be fair, "Fuel Britannia" is quite catchy albeit meaningless.
It's utter crap.
It would take many months.
It may get more tax receipts but would be sold at global prices at a loss.
Fuel Britannia lorry with a conservative logo when the pump price is £2 is a real vote winner?
Cue "Clueless Kemi robbin us" stickers
She's clueless
Vast majority of under 30s and majority of under 50s very pro renewables
Like with her rush to war, her rush to oil is the polar opposite of visionary or progressive.
Of “the” markets, it’s actually the European Market the UK gas bills shaped by, not world market. Being up to eyebrows in mud and goo, I missed Richard T saying drilling for more Gas in the proposed new UK North Sea fields, DEFINITELY lowers UK Gas bills. No one can promise that.
Has anyone on PB explained how such a small UK contribution to the European network, from new Gas wells proposed for Jackdaw and Cambo for example, will shape Gas Price UK pays for it? Richard T knows this industry well, he knows it’s not possible.
UK has long been price takers, not price makers. At the proposed level of input being argued over, with these new licenses on hold, most the oil sold into the Euro market, UK bills are hardly going anywhere.
All Oil and gas resource from the UK North Sea is owned by private companies, not UK. Once a company is granted a licence to drill, the oil and gas belong to that company. And they sell it on international markets at prices good for them. What stops them? What is actually stopping about 80% of it going abroad and not to UK, which is about normal?
We’ve sold the cake. You can’t sell cake, and still own and control and eat same cake you sold off. I can’t hear anyone talking about quasi-nationalisation. Though Kemi was so in bed with policies of the unions at PMQs yesterday, she might be talking about Nationalisation by after Easter. Farage also loves a bit of Nationalisation too - it obviously fits the Britain First ideology.
As has been explained multiple times, the companies that extract oil and gas pay the U.K. government tax. Lots of it.
When the oil and gas prices zoom up, the U.K. government gets more tax.
This offsets the effect of rising oil prices - they can use the extra revenue to subsidise consumers or reduce taxes elsewhere.
Since we will be using oil and gas for a number of years, even under the most aggressive net zero plans, why not get some financial benefit here?
Okay let’s talk money. 🙂
Unlike Green Lobby, I am open minded how much more drilling licenses UK needs to issue, but let’s at least agree how much income it brings in to us, so we have some sort of scale exactly what the UK government can buy with it. I am happy to go first, so you can all laugh and shake your heads at my pathetic excuse of research.
This is how UK has been taxing. All these taxes are on profits from extraction, pre refining. Ring Fence Corporation Tax (30%): A fixed permanent tax on profits from oil and gas extraction in the UK. Supplementary Charge (10%): An additional fixed charge on these same profits. Energy Profits Levy (38%): is that "windfall tax" introduced in 2022 and increased to 38% on 1 November 2024, sounds good so far for helping UK coffers Malmsy? 🤑 But there’s a question how much this tax regime now deterring exploratory drilling and license applications. Don’t just take it from me posting it here research for yourselves, how this amount of tax along with depleting basin trickier to explore and extract from is deterring investment new license interest, especially regarding gas - major operators are on record explicitly stating these reasons for their scaling back and exiting going on.
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I'm not a big fan of fiction. If it isn't true and it isn't funny, what's the point? I finish a fiction book and think "but none of that happened..." I find a lot of fiction quite stressful to a level I think is quite unusual. It genuinely causes unpleasant stress hormones. Usually when I do try fiction on telly I opt out long before the end because I find the stress it causes unpleasant.
I think (the best) fiction can describe reality better than non fiction.
Yes, I think so.
Crime and Punishment is a novel, but one that dissects the psychology of the criminal better than non-fiction. Ditto the best of Conrad or Greene.
Distance from reality can be very helpful in thinking about and aborbing a point (or spurring us to think of our own) . Even if it is a paper thin facade over reality.
Though personally I just think it's entertaining, and so things like describing reality or providing moral insight are just bonuses rather than the point.
Pure fun is the key, whether it is a noble laureate or less acclaimed author (fun can include enjoying harrowing fiction too in this context).
Indeed, if a book is praised for everything but the story it is telling, I'd consider that a red flag.
Well, yes. Really good classic fiction is generally an easy read as well as profound. Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Conrad, Greene are all excellent page turners. On the other hand despite trying several times I never get far with Rushdie or Joyce as both are so turgid.
I see Badenoch has once again visited the Magic Money Tree. "Help with Energy Bills" - well, yes, but what kind of help and from where? Is she going to compel energy companies to reduce prices? Is there going to be Government money to help with bills, if so, how much and from where is the shortfall to be met?
As for drilling in the North Sea, I yield willingly to the knowledge of @Richard_Tyndall and others on the subject. I presume even if we started tomorrow, any new North Sea oil wouldn't be piped ashore for some weeks or months or years? I presume we'd need refinery capacity for example.
To be fair, "Fuel Britannia" is quite catchy albeit meaningless.
It's utter crap.
It would take many months.
It may get more tax receipts but would be sold at global prices at a loss.
Fuel Britannia lorry with a conservative logo when the pump price is £2 is a real vote winner?
Cue "Clueless Kemi robbin us" stickers
She's clueless
Vast majority of under 30s and majority of under 50s very pro renewables
Like with her rush to war, her rush to oil is the polar opposite of visionary or progressive.
Of “the” markets, it’s actually the European Market the UK gas bills shaped by, not world market. Being up to eyebrows in mud and goo, I missed Richard T saying drilling for more Gas in the proposed new UK North Sea fields, DEFINITELY lowers UK Gas bills. No one can promise that.
Has anyone on PB explained how such a small UK contribution to the European network, from new Gas wells proposed for Jackdaw and Cambo for example, will shape Gas Price UK pays for it? Richard T knows this industry well, he knows it’s not possible.
UK has long been price takers, not price makers. At the proposed level of input being argued over, with these new licenses on hold, most the oil sold into the Euro market, UK bills are hardly going anywhere.
All Oil and gas resource from the UK North Sea is owned by private companies, not UK. Once a company is granted a licence to drill, the oil and gas belong to that company. And they sell it on international markets at prices good for them. What stops them? What is actually stopping about 80% of it going abroad and not to UK, which is about normal?
We’ve sold the cake. You can’t sell cake, and still own and control and eat same cake you sold off. I can’t hear anyone talking about quasi-nationalisation. Though Kemi was so in bed with policies of the unions at PMQs yesterday, she might be talking about Nationalisation by after Easter. Farage also loves a bit of Nationalisation too - it obviously fits the Britain First ideology.
As has been explained multiple times, the companies that extract oil and gas pay the U.K. government tax. Lots of it.
When the oil and gas prices zoom up, the U.K. government gets more tax.
This offsets the effect of rising oil prices - they can use the extra revenue to subsidise consumers or reduce taxes elsewhere.
Since we will be using oil and gas for a number of years, even under the most aggressive net zero plans, why not get some financial benefit here?
Okay let’s talk money. 🙂
Unlike Green Lobby, I am open minded how much more drilling licenses UK needs to issue, but let’s at least agree how much income it brings in to us, so we have some sort of scale exactly what the UK government can buy with it. I am happy to go first, so you can all laugh and shake your heads at my pathetic excuse of research.
This is how UK has been taxing. All these taxes are on profits from extraction, pre refining. Ring Fence Corporation Tax (30%): A fixed permanent tax on profits from oil and gas extraction in the UK. Supplementary Charge (10%): An additional fixed charge on these same profits. Energy Profits Levy (38%): is that "windfall tax" introduced in 2022 and increased to 38% on 1 November 2024, sounds good so far for helping UK coffers Malmsy? 🤑 But there’s a question how much this tax regime now deterring exploratory drilling and license applications. Don’t just take it from me posting it here research for yourselves, how this amount of tax along with depleting basin trickier to explore and extract from is deterring investment new license interest, especially regarding gas - major operators are on record explicitly stating these reasons for their scaling back and exiting going on.
Part two we come to the “sweeteners” cost of which we agree gets extracted from gross UK gets in tax, for a Net we get we can actually spend. It’s pointless talking gross. The UK government provides several significant "sweeteners"—primarily through tax relief—to encourage companies to invest in the North Sea. Companies can claim an 80% allowance on expenditure specifically used to decarbonise their production. For every £100 a company spends on "green" tech for their rigs, they reduce their tax bill by approximately £109. Companies combine different tax reliefs to drastically lower upfront cost of new projects. By stacking standard capital allowances specific reliefs, companies sometimes reclaim up to 91p for every £1 they invest. The post-tax cost of a big project like ongoing Rosebank can be as low as 9p on the pound for the private company. This important if you argue for quick fix from new drilling. What happens with new drilling, according to OBR, if the bigger projects like Rosebank and Jackdaw are approved and move into full construction, net tax revenue for UK government in the following few years could actually decrease or stay broadly flat - because of "first-year capital allowances" companies can deduct nearly 100% of their construction costs from their tax bills immediately. For the new Rosebank license alone that tax breaks can mean UK "foots the bill" for up to 84-91% of these new development costs. The cost of these "sweeteners" to UK is measured in billions of pounds—mostly tax the state chooses not to collect to encourage companies to keep drilling. What was double for the 91% relief rate is £19.6 billion less for UK between 2023 and 2026, according to the OBR.
Also while we are in detail on money, shall we add in who pays decommissioning costs from older fields? The Green Lobby likes to bring that up, but I’m sure renewables have decommissioning costs too for UK taxpayer to fund up to half the cost.
I see Badenoch has once again visited the Magic Money Tree. "Help with Energy Bills" - well, yes, but what kind of help and from where? Is she going to compel energy companies to reduce prices? Is there going to be Government money to help with bills, if so, how much and from where is the shortfall to be met?
As for drilling in the North Sea, I yield willingly to the knowledge of @Richard_Tyndall and others on the subject. I presume even if we started tomorrow, any new North Sea oil wouldn't be piped ashore for some weeks or months or years? I presume we'd need refinery capacity for example.
To be fair, "Fuel Britannia" is quite catchy albeit meaningless.
It's utter crap.
It would take many months.
It may get more tax receipts but would be sold at global prices at a loss.
Fuel Britannia lorry with a conservative logo when the pump price is £2 is a real vote winner?
Cue "Clueless Kemi robbin us" stickers
She's clueless
Vast majority of under 30s and majority of under 50s very pro renewables
Like with her rush to war, her rush to oil is the polar opposite of visionary or progressive.
Of “the” markets, it’s actually the European Market the UK gas bills shaped by, not world market. Being up to eyebrows in mud and goo, I missed Richard T saying drilling for more Gas in the proposed new UK North Sea fields, DEFINITELY lowers UK Gas bills. No one can promise that.
Has anyone on PB explained how such a small UK contribution to the European network, from new Gas wells proposed for Jackdaw and Cambo for example, will shape Gas Price UK pays for it? Richard T knows this industry well, he knows it’s not possible.
UK has long been price takers, not price makers. At the proposed level of input being argued over, with these new licenses on hold, most the oil sold into the Euro market, UK bills are hardly going anywhere.
All Oil and gas resource from the UK North Sea is owned by private companies, not UK. Once a company is granted a licence to drill, the oil and gas belong to that company. And they sell it on international markets at prices good for them. What stops them? What is actually stopping about 80% of it going abroad and not to UK, which is about normal?
We’ve sold the cake. You can’t sell cake, and still own and control and eat same cake you sold off. I can’t hear anyone talking about quasi-nationalisation. Though Kemi was so in bed with policies of the unions at PMQs yesterday, she might be talking about Nationalisation by after Easter. Farage also loves a bit of Nationalisation too - it obviously fits the Britain First ideology.
As has been explained multiple times, the companies that extract oil and gas pay the U.K. government tax. Lots of it.
When the oil and gas prices zoom up, the U.K. government gets more tax.
This offsets the effect of rising oil prices - they can use the extra revenue to subsidise consumers or reduce taxes elsewhere.
Since we will be using oil and gas for a number of years, even under the most aggressive net zero plans, why not get some financial benefit here?
Okay let’s talk money. 🙂
Unlike Green Lobby, I am open minded how much more drilling licenses UK needs to issue, but let’s at least agree how much income it brings in to us, so we have some sort of scale exactly what the UK government can buy with it. I am happy to go first, so you can all laugh and shake your heads at my pathetic excuse of research.
This is how UK has been taxing. All these taxes are on profits from extraction, pre refining. Ring Fence Corporation Tax (30%): A fixed permanent tax on profits from oil and gas extraction in the UK. Supplementary Charge (10%): An additional fixed charge on these same profits. Energy Profits Levy (38%): is that "windfall tax" introduced in 2022 and increased to 38% on 1 November 2024, sounds good so far for helping UK coffers Malmsy? 🤑 But there’s a question how much this tax regime now deterring exploratory drilling and license applications. Don’t just take it from me posting it here research for yourselves, how this amount of tax along with depleting basin trickier to explore and extract from is deterring investment new license interest, especially regarding gas - major operators are on record explicitly stating these reasons for their scaling back and exiting going on.
Part Two. And we come to the “sweeteners” cost of which we agree gets extracted from gross UK gets in tax, for a Net we get we can actually spend. It’s pointless talking gross. The UK government provides several significant "sweeteners"—primarily through tax relief—to encourage companies to invest in the North Sea. Companies can claim an 80% allowance on expenditure specifically used to decarbonise their production. For every £100 a company spends on "green" tech for their rigs, they reduce their tax bill by approximately £109. Companies combine different tax reliefs to drastically lower upfront cost of new projects. By stacking standard capital allowances specific reliefs, companies sometimes reclaim up to 91p for every £1 they invest. The post-tax cost of a big project like ongoing Rosebank can be as low as 9p on the pound for the private company. This important if you argue for quick fix from new drilling. What happens with new drilling, according to OBR, if the bigger projects like Rosebank and Jackdaw are approved and move into full construction, net tax revenue for UK government in the following few years could actually decrease or stay broadly flat - because of "first-year capital allowances" companies can deduct nearly 100% of their construction costs from their tax bills immediately. For the new Rosebank license alone that tax breaks can mean UK "foots the bill" for up to 84-91% of these new development costs. The cost of these "sweeteners" to UK is measured in billions of pounds—mostly tax the state chooses not to collect to encourage companies to keep drilling. What was double for the 91% relief rate is £19.6 billion less for UK between 2023 and 2026, according to the OBR.
Also while we are in detail on money, shall we add in who pays decommissioning costs from older fields? The Green Lobby likes to bring that up, but I’m sure renewables have decommissioning costs too for UK taxpayer to fund up to half the cost.
As promised, here are my income figures, as given by OBR for you to laugh at and help make more accurate.
As I say, I’m not signed up to the Green Lobby, i’m open minded and want what is best for UK - I am keen to be put right on the following actual net income figures - NET revenue, which is the total tax paid minus for decommissioning costs and all the sweetners I listed above. 2020 to 2021: £0.3 billion 2021 to 2022: £1.4 billion 2022 to 2023: £9.9 billion "near record high" was driven by the surge in gas prices following the invasion of Ukraine and the initial 25% Energy Profits Levy (windfall tax). 2023 to 2024: £6.1 billion 2024 to 2025: £4.5 billion
And the following OBR forecast figures
OBR 5-Year Revenue Forecast (Net Receipts if no new drilling) * 2025–2026: £2.7 billion (Forecast) * 2026–2027: £2.4 billion (Forecast) * 2027–2028: £2.2 billion (Forecast) * 2028–2029: £2.1 billion (Forecast) * 2029–2030: £2.0 billion But what can’t be in any forecasts, with or without new drilling, is knowing, despite fluctuations, what average price a barrel will be each year. No one can. It’s the same with trying to guess what changes UK could do with the taxes and sweeteners. Forecasting net income for UK government is like wild cat forecasting. 🙂
The only books I read or listen to these days are biographies, or history books, or politics.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Any particular reason? I know people who have never really read fiction - which baffles me anyway - but shifting from doing so to not is different.
I just don't have the time, I was a prodigious reader of fiction, I love my sci-fi.
Plus it's a downside of WFH, I usually WFH 2 days a week, and I used to read during my train journeys.
For the last 3 decades I have aimed to read at least 100 books year. For the first 20 years I averaged between 80 and 90 but the last 8 years I have been averaging between 100 and 120 a year.
I didn't read much for some years, but for the last 6 years have done about 150 a year - cheating with some pretty short easy stuff in fairness.
On track for about 50 in 2026 as a whole though - trying to work through my unplayed Steam library instead!
I use my reading rate as an excuse to keep buying books. I have about 6000 books in my collection and have read about 4500 of them. I am 60 years old and at 100 books a year, if I live to be 80 then I can justify buying at least 500 more books.
I am sure once I reach that number I will find another excuse to keep buying.
I do keep on buying books.
I have a rule which I have broken is that the size of my main TV now exceeds the size of my bookcase.
That’s not many books. We have 10m of Billy book cases just upstairs
When we got the shoffice built, we put in about 4m of full-height Billies. The scary thing is how little impact that had on the overloadedness of the other bookcases in the rest of the house.
My approach is to keep only reference works* and unread books. I very rarely re-read a book no matter how much I enjoyed it, so give them away to friends or charity shops.
* I have quite a lot of cookery, gardening, natural history guides and travel guides, but the rest are the "to be read" section.
Comments
President Trump has posted on Truth Social, extending a pause on striking Iranian energy plants, which he announced on Monday.
He also says talks between the US and Iran are "ongoing".
The post says:
"As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time. Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP"
A man who confronted a team of journalists working for Al Jazeera during an altercation after the Golders Green ambulance attacks was a volunteer Metropolitan Police officer.
The crew of journalists were reporting on an arson attack which targeted Hatzola ambulances - a Jewish community-run service - on Monday when they were confronted by a group of people telling them to leave the area.
One of the individuals has been identified as David Soffer, a Met Police special constable, as first reported by Declassified UK then confirmed by the BBC. He was seen calling one of the team "you donkey, you dog" in Arabic.
The Met has referred the incident to its professional standards team for assessment.
Videos from the scene show a group of people from the Jewish community shouting: "Go home" and "Al Jazeera off our streets".
Reporters from the Press Association also heard the journalists called "terrorist sympathisers".
Soffer, who is also a technology businessman, then arrived and told them to "go back to Qatar".
In Arabic, he continued: "Go from here you donkey... go from here you donkey, you dog".
He then called one of the team a dog again and, in Hebrew, he and one of the Al Jazeera staff then call each other donkeys.
At one stage, Soffer warned another person next to him to not be violent. When he was told to calm down, he insisted he was calm.
A female reporter told Soffer "shame on you" after she believed he suggested that she was an antisemite. He told her he could define his own racism.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9d45ejxz5qo
Besides, isn't launching a podcast what politicians do when they acknowledge that their career is on a downward slope?
Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.
Maybe AI will save us.
Was that our lucky streak? Did we p*ss it all up the wall on the way out the door? Did some Prussian guy pick a fight with us and we just couldn't leave it? Dunno.
Was that our lucky streak? Did we p*ss it all up the wall on the way out the door? Did some Prussian guy pick a fight with us and we just couldn't leave it? Dunno.
Part of the problem (one we share with France) is exceptionalism. We expect, no demand, to be more successful and more powerful than our peers. And when we fail to be, we declare we are the worst, uniquely awful. When the reality is we’re in the middle of the middle of the pack.
On his way to the G7 meeting, Marco Rubio says Donald Trump will have to “examine” his engagement in Ukraine in response to Europe’s refusal to secure the Strait to Hormuz from Iranian attacks.
This is what Europeans feared: payback.
They are so fucking petty.
If our costs to do things are 10x some other countries and the timescales 10x longer, then we can't afford anything and can't get it done either.
If we want to live in a country where a 15 foot long footbridge over a creek costs £250K, then we can't complain when there aren't many footbridges over creeks.
https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2026-03-26/farage-dismisses-reform-candidate-nazi-salute-as-fawlty-towers-impression
The hope is that eventually they will become ever cheaper, but right now the NHS has to choose where the limited money goes.
She also plays podcasts at double speed.
Her children, my grandchildren, all talk at double speed. I can hardly understand them.
The Iranians, unsurprisingly, accuse Trump of lying.
An 80 year old on average costs the NHS 8 times what a 20 year old does.
Add in inflation in pharma and medical devices (plus wage inflation, and normal GDP growth) and the doubling really isn’t so surprising.
I’ve no doubt there are political choices at play too, but the argument that demographics isn’t a huge problem just doesn’t add up.
I haven't read any fiction since before the pandemic.
Tumbleweed….
There are plenty of us on here who opposed the EU on sovereignty grounds who are equally critical of the US, Russia and China for the same reason.
There are a number of more recent reports from OBR, Scottish Fiscal Commission etc etc that make the same point. To be fair on the Conservatives, this significantly slowed during 2010-2016, though that's primarily due to real terms cuts in NHS pay.
What do you suggest - we are euthanised ?
Plus it's a downside of WFH, I usually WFH 2 days a week, and I used to read during my train journeys.
TBH - with two MRIs and a major operation, I won't be far behind you over the last decade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCjYg08tkLc
I find a lot of fiction quite stressful to a level I think is quite unusual. It genuinely causes unpleasant stress hormones. Usually when I do try fiction on telly I opt out long before the end because I find the stress it causes unpleasant.
On track for about 50 in 2026 as a whole though - trying to work through my unplayed Steam library instead!
I used to read two books a week, I just don't have the energy/time these days.
I get one audiobook a month from Audible and that's enough for me which pains me.
2 years ago I would not have imagined that in Edinburgh, Kings Cross, and Euston stations last week I needed passenger assist to take me to and from the trains in a wheelchair
One of the reasons we have not downsized is to ensure that should my wife and I, or one of us, need prolonged nursing care in a care home it would not cost the taxpayer anything
Indeed, part of the worry with assisted suicide is the idea some older people might get pressured into feeling like a burden that they should then do something about it, which I'd hope no-one would want.
Block out a hardcore reading weekend of some breezy 200 page crime thrillers and you can get through half a dozen then and there!
ETA: As for the 100k posts, the key is to never stop and think about whether to post something and just react instinctively.
I am sure once I reach that number I will find another excuse to keep buying.
My 'unread' pile always never seems to get lower than 20 though...
I have a rule which I have broken is that the size of my main TV now exceeds the size of my bookcase.
Imagine Roger Allam doing his best world-weary voice as Peter Mannion as he says "fund necessary public services through broad-based increases in taxation".
David Willets pointed this out fifteen years ago;
However, the size of this dividend depends on when you born. The biggest beneficiaries are baby boomers born in the mid-1950s (such as Lord Willetts), who are set for a ‘welfare dividend’ of £291,000 over the course of their lives – paying on average £941,000 worth of tax, and receiving £1,231,000 worth of public services from the welfare state in return.
In contrast, the smallest post-war beneficiaries are set to be young millennials born in 1996. They are set to receive a far smaller ‘welfare dividend’ of just £132,000 (£962,000 of tax paid for £1,095,000 worth of public service benefits). The pre-war 1931 cohort have done even worse, because they were too young to benefit from post-war education expansions but paid the higher taxes that made them possible.
https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/press-releases/young-millennials-are-being-short-changed-by-the-state/
(Of course, two brains Willetts didn't help matters by his role in University fees, but you can't have everything.)
It's not mostly an Undeserving Them getting the money, it's Us. Whether we're deserving or not is another matter.
Fixing lifestyles and getting people to be responsible is laudable and the right thing to do, but it won’t stop every Tubbs from turning up at A and E again…
There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.
If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the 'medicine closet' and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice!
― Umberto Eco
(No, I've never read anything by him)
I've read 'For the Record', but don't really have any others.
https://bsky.app/profile/chadbourn.bsky.social/post/3mhymdm46lc2m
Doesn't mean the Trump claims are true, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Iranians were posturing as well. Why not?
He made this point that a lot of his political career was down to good fortune
His first Secretary of State (first at Transport then the DHSS) was Norman Fowler who he followed for the first six years of the Thatcher government happened to be a friend and somebody who was happy for Ken Clarke to do well.
He did wonder if he worked for somebody else whether he would have done quite so well.
Also he got on well with Lord Young in a job share which sometimes ends very badly for others.
The Iranians have already said this is a lie
The stock market took it biggest dip since the start of the war just before he posted this
Crime and Punishment is a novel, but one that dissects the psychology of the criminal better than non-fiction. Ditto the best of Conrad or Greene.
That analysis identifies demographics as a small part of a total increase (it doesn’t use your phrasing of “very small”), but it doesn’t ascribe the rest of the increase to political choice. It also highlights relative prices and technology. These are also very important. I and others have repeatedly noted that healthcare inflation runs ahead of general inflation. We keep getting better at treating ill health, with new drugs and other technology.
Ultimately, yes, any and all state healthcare spending is a political choice. Whatever the pressures on costs, we elect politicians who choose how much to spend. But the claim made was that, “Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still.” That remains true. You’re saying it doesn’t have to rise a huge amount, but it still does have to rise for service levels to stand still.
Just finished The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak. Wonderful book. But before that it was The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, and found it pretty mediocre. Sort of sub-Dumas mystery fiction.
I guess you need a persuasive politician to make the case for more preventative health.
Funny money is his thing.
https://x.com/maxseddon/status/2037291578641756188
NEW: Vladimir Putin has asked oligarchs to donate to Russia’s budget in a bid to stabilise the country’s finances
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJfHw71KKsk
“A historic moment in the European Parliament: The so-called “firewall” against right-wing parties has fallen.
Right-wing populists and conservatives joined forces and pushed through a major motion on the new Return Regulation.
Some Key points:
✅ Outsourcing asylum procedures via external return hubs
✅ DNA testing to verify the age of illegal migrants
✅ Lifetime entry bans for illegals
This is a big step toward a remigration architecture in Europe.
Congratulations to @Mary_Khan94 @AlexJungbluth @TomaszFroelich @Rene_Aust and all the other politicians who contributed.
Now the work begins.
As European patriots, we must spread this message to national and regional level. We must coordinate political parties, media, and activists.
The USA has the National Rifle Association.
Europe needs a Continental Remigration Association.
If we build it, we can save this continent. Massive white pill today.”
https://x.com/martinsellner_/status/2037148895390601265?s=46
Though personally I just think it's entertaining, and so things like describing reality or providing moral insight are just bonuses rather than the point.
Pure fun is the key, whether it is a noble laureate or less acclaimed author (fun can include enjoying harrowing fiction too in this context).
Indeed, if a book is praised for everything but the story it is telling, I'd consider that a red flag.
Edit: you should definitely read him if your reading muscles are still in good fettle.
Unlike Green Lobby, I am open minded how much more drilling licenses UK needs to issue, but let’s at least agree how much income it brings in to us, so we have some sort of scale exactly what the UK government can buy with it.
I am happy to go first, so you can all laugh and shake your heads at my pathetic excuse of research.
This is how UK has been taxing.
All these taxes are on profits from extraction, pre refining.
Ring Fence Corporation Tax (30%): A fixed permanent tax on profits from oil and gas extraction in the UK.
Supplementary Charge (10%): An additional fixed charge on these same profits.
Energy Profits Levy (38%): is that "windfall tax" introduced in 2022 and increased to 38% on 1 November 2024,
sounds good so far for helping UK coffers Malmsy? 🤑
But there’s a question how much this tax regime now deterring exploratory drilling and license applications. Don’t just take it from me posting it here research for yourselves, how this amount of tax along with depleting basin trickier to explore and extract from is deterring investment new license interest, especially regarding gas - major operators are on record explicitly stating these reasons for their scaling back and exiting going on.
The UK government provides several significant "sweeteners"—primarily through tax relief—to encourage companies to invest in the North Sea.
Companies can claim an 80% allowance on expenditure specifically used to decarbonise their production. For every £100 a company spends on "green" tech for their rigs, they reduce their tax bill by approximately £109. Companies combine different tax reliefs to drastically lower upfront cost of new projects. By stacking standard capital allowances specific reliefs, companies sometimes reclaim up to 91p for every £1 they invest. The post-tax cost of a big project like ongoing Rosebank can be as low as 9p on the pound for the private company. This important if you argue for quick fix from new drilling. What happens with new drilling, according to OBR, if the bigger projects like Rosebank and Jackdaw are approved and move into full construction, net tax revenue for UK government in the following few years could actually decrease or stay broadly flat - because of "first-year capital allowances" companies can deduct nearly 100% of their construction costs from their tax bills immediately. For the new Rosebank license alone that tax breaks can mean UK "foots the bill" for up to 84-91% of these new development costs.
The cost of these "sweeteners" to UK is measured in billions of pounds—mostly tax the state chooses not to collect to encourage companies to keep drilling. What was double for the 91% relief rate is £19.6 billion less for UK between 2023 and 2026, according to the OBR.
Also while we are in detail on money, shall we add in who pays decommissioning costs from older fields? The Green Lobby likes to bring that up, but I’m sure renewables have decommissioning costs too for UK taxpayer to fund up to half the cost.
As I say, I’m not signed up to the Green Lobby, i’m open minded and want what is best for UK - I am keen to be put right on the following actual net income figures -
NET revenue, which is the total tax paid minus for decommissioning costs and all the sweetners I listed above.
2020 to 2021: £0.3 billion
2021 to 2022: £1.4 billion
2022 to 2023: £9.9 billion "near record high" was driven by the surge in gas prices following the invasion of Ukraine and the initial 25% Energy Profits Levy (windfall tax).
2023 to 2024: £6.1 billion
2024 to 2025: £4.5 billion
And the following OBR forecast figures
OBR 5-Year Revenue Forecast (Net Receipts if no new drilling)
* 2025–2026: £2.7 billion (Forecast)
* 2026–2027: £2.4 billion (Forecast)
* 2027–2028: £2.2 billion (Forecast)
* 2028–2029: £2.1 billion (Forecast)
* 2029–2030: £2.0 billion
But what can’t be in any forecasts, with or without new drilling, is knowing, despite fluctuations, what average price a barrel will be each year. No one can. It’s the same with trying to guess what changes UK could do with the taxes and sweeteners. Forecasting net income for UK government is like wild cat forecasting. 🙂
* I have quite a lot of cookery, gardening, natural history guides and travel guides, but the rest are the "to be read" section.