Russell was a bit jammy, should have lost another 3 points to Antonelli and instead pulls back 18 on him, though I suppose it more or less just evens out Canada.
Burnham needs to win Makerfield. There's hardly any votes to be won there by saying he'd scrap the triple lock, but quite a few could potentially be lost. I'd treat this pronouncement with a pinch of salt.
In a GE not one tory wanker on here would vote for Burnham if he did scrap the TL. It's a catastrophically bad net electoral negative for everybody but the Greens so they aren't going to promise to do it or actually do it,
This conservative and pensioner most certainly would vote to scrap TL
Indeed I would go further and ensure that the pension itself was not awarded to millionaires
Obviously I'm with the ob consensus that the triple lock is stupid, but I'm all in favour of a universal pension. Means testing the pension is a massive disincentive to saving.
It is simply not affordable and new thinking is required
Financial Year
State Pension Spending (% of GDP)
Notes
1948 (approx.)
2.0%
Post-war level of state pension spending
1991–92
4.0%
1992–93
4.0%
1993–94
4.0%
1994–95
3.9%
1995–96
3.9%
1996–97
3.8%
1997–98
3.8%
1998–99
3.9%
2000s (typical range)
3.3–3.7%
Broadly stable before the financial crisis
2021–22
4.8%
Latest historical figure from the State Pension Age Review
2031–32 (projected)
4.9%
Official projection
2041–42 (projected)
5.5%
Official projection
2051–52 (projected)
6.2%
Official projection
2061–62 (projected)
7.3%
Official projection
2071–72 (projected)
8.1%
Official projection
It's just about affordable if we get the dependency ratio back down towards 3.0, but at it's at the moment nudging 3.6 and heading for 4.0.
Solutions;
Mum's have more kids, but they can't afford to stay at home and we need the workers.
Better support for families, but people resent free child care, long maternity leave and tend to support the two child cap.
People having children at an younger age, but don't get me started on single mums or teenage pregnancies.
Higher immigration, particularly people with or wanting to have children; Coming over here stealing our jobs and living on benefits (at the same time?)
Seems all the neceasrry measure to rebalance the population are unpopular and keeping on ignoring it unsustainable.
Peter.
Those are not the only policies, there are others on the supply side.
Childcare in France has a minimum of 1 carer for every 8-10 children in nursery. UK has 1 career for every 5. France is not a right-wing country, why does our childcare wage bill need to be twice theirs? Is our nursery care twice as good?
Families - why do we not encourage more caring within families? Grandparents are not entitled to Government subsidies if they are giving care within the parents' home. That seems silly.
My first visit to the cinema was as a four year old, to see E.T.
I’m told that I gave a loud and emotional running commentary to many of the scenes;
“His finger is better Daddy!” “He made the balls stay in the air!” “E.T. is poorly Mummy..” “Mummy.. He’s dead” “He’s ALIVE!!” “Daddy the bikes are FLYING!!”
My parents apologised to people sitting around us at the end of the film. Apparently the consensus was that I’d added to the entertainment
few will appreciate how grimly funny it is that this judge both issued a gagging order so that the filton 4 could not explain their motivation to the jury, and then also sentenced them according to a specific intent provision requiring them to have had a specific motivation https://x.com/ergo_praxis/status/2066049704811491467
I sympathise with the judge who has a problem. he has to act according to law, whatever his personal views. The defendants clearly don't think the law should apply to them.
There is a middle position: The government is wrong to extend terrorism to obviously non terrorist acts; and the defendants are wrong to try to get off a criminal charge by running a defence about motivation which in law isn't one.
The judge was right to stop them trying to do so, and is bound by law in the sentencing process to take motive into account. Motivation goes to mitigation/aggravation of an offence, not guilt.
Extending our traditional freedoms to protest to mean including breaking the law in serious ways a is a dangerous step, with fascistic overtones.
Finally, if the judge has got it wrong they can appeal.
I’m not disagreeing with everything you say there, but I wish to dispute the notion that protest that involves breaking the law has fascistic overtones. This country has a long tradition of protest that involves breaking the law, as do other Anglophone nations like the US.
The Suffragettes get mentioned often, but better examples include the Tolpuddle martyrs, the early years of trade unionism, some of the civil rights marches in Northern Ireland, helping slaves to escape, etc.
Except that causing lifechanging injuries to a police officer and £1m of damage to a private company, for a political cause, isn’t protesting it’s terrorism.
It's assault and criminal damage, surely.
Yes.
If it has a political motivation, it is also terrorism.
All terrorism can be defined as another crime. Terrorism is an extra layer of the motivation behind the crime, not a unique kind of crime in its own right.
Burnham needs to win Makerfield. There's hardly any votes to be won there by saying he'd scrap the triple lock, but quite a few could potentially be lost. I'd treat this pronouncement with a pinch of salt.
In a GE not one tory wanker on here would vote for Burnham if he did scrap the TL. It's a catastrophically bad net electoral negative for everybody but the Greens so they aren't going to promise to do it or actually do it,
This conservative and pensioner most certainly would vote to scrap TL
Indeed I would go further and ensure that the pension itself was not awarded to millionaires
Obviously I'm with the ob consensus that the triple lock is stupid, but I'm all in favour of a universal pension. Means testing the pension is a massive disincentive to saving.
It is simply not affordable and new thinking is required
Financial Year
State Pension Spending (% of GDP)
Notes
1948 (approx.)
2.0%
Post-war level of state pension spending
1991–92
4.0%
1992–93
4.0%
1993–94
4.0%
1994–95
3.9%
1995–96
3.9%
1996–97
3.8%
1997–98
3.8%
1998–99
3.9%
2000s (typical range)
3.3–3.7%
Broadly stable before the financial crisis
2021–22
4.8%
Latest historical figure from the State Pension Age Review
2031–32 (projected)
4.9%
Official projection
2041–42 (projected)
5.5%
Official projection
2051–52 (projected)
6.2%
Official projection
2061–62 (projected)
7.3%
Official projection
2071–72 (projected)
8.1%
Official projection
It's just about affordable if we get the dependency ratio back down towards 3.0, but at it's at the moment nudging 3.6 and heading for 4.0.
Solutions;
Mum's have more kids, but they can't afford to stay at home and we need the workers.
Better support for families, but people resent free child care, long maternity leave and tend to support the two child cap.
People having children at an younger age, but don't get me started on single mums or teenage pregnancies.
Higher immigration, particularly people with or wanting to have children; Coming over here stealing our jobs and living on benefits (at the same time?)
Seems all the neceasrry measure to rebalance the population are unpopular and keeping on ignoring it unsustainable.
Peter.
You seem to have omitted the glaringly obvious alternative solution of ...
Automation and efficiency, but people object to machines doing what people used to do.
Though we are going down that path. Which is not AI, it is just a continuation of automation that we have done and some have objected to since the age of the original Luddites.
few will appreciate how grimly funny it is that this judge both issued a gagging order so that the filton 4 could not explain their motivation to the jury, and then also sentenced them according to a specific intent provision requiring them to have had a specific motivation https://x.com/ergo_praxis/status/2066049704811491467
I sympathise with the judge who has a problem. he has to act according to law, whatever his personal views. The defendants clearly don't think the law should apply to them.
There is a middle position: The government is wrong to extend terrorism to obviously non terrorist acts; and the defendants are wrong to try to get off a criminal charge by running a defence about motivation which in law isn't one.
The judge was right to stop them trying to do so, and is bound by law in the sentencing process to take motive into account. Motivation goes to mitigation/aggravation of an offence, not guilt.
Extending our traditional freedoms to protest to mean including breaking the law in serious ways a is a dangerous step, with fascistic overtones.
Finally, if the judge has got it wrong they can appeal.
I’m not disagreeing with everything you say there, but I wish to dispute the notion that protest that involves breaking the law has fascistic overtones. This country has a long tradition of protest that involves breaking the law, as do other Anglophone nations like the US.
The Suffragettes get mentioned often, but better examples include the Tolpuddle martyrs, the early years of trade unionism, some of the civil rights marches in Northern Ireland, helping slaves to escape, etc.
Except that causing lifechanging injuries to a police officer and £1m of damage to a private company, for a political cause, isn’t protesting it’s terrorism.
It's assault and criminal damage, surely.
Yes.
If it has a political motivation, it is also terrorism.
All terrorism can be defined as another crime. Terrorism is an extra layer of the motivation behind the crime, not a unique kind of crime in its own right.
Wrong, it is a crime in its own right and has been for 26 years.
This is the latest (and increasingly desperate) excuse for this travesty. That terrorism only exists as an aggravating factor - a lie because the CPS have discrete terrorism charges available to them.
The fact is that criminal damage and terrorism are two crimes of entirely different quality and severity. The implications for the rest of your life are profoundly different- it’s not just the length of the sentence.
And the government is using this perversion on only one particular type of politically motivated behaviour. Have any of the far-right protestors burning houses and injuring police officers been similarly sentenced on trumped up terrorism convictions? No.
few will appreciate how grimly funny it is that this judge both issued a gagging order so that the filton 4 could not explain their motivation to the jury, and then also sentenced them according to a specific intent provision requiring them to have had a specific motivation https://x.com/ergo_praxis/status/2066049704811491467
I sympathise with the judge who has a problem. he has to act according to law, whatever his personal views. The defendants clearly don't think the law should apply to them.
There is a middle position: The government is wrong to extend terrorism to obviously non terrorist acts; and the defendants are wrong to try to get off a criminal charge by running a defence about motivation which in law isn't one.
The judge was right to stop them trying to do so, and is bound by law in the sentencing process to take motive into account. Motivation goes to mitigation/aggravation of an offence, not guilt.
Extending our traditional freedoms to protest to mean including breaking the law in serious ways a is a dangerous step, with fascistic overtones.
Finally, if the judge has got it wrong they can appeal.
I’m not disagreeing with everything you say there, but I wish to dispute the notion that protest that involves breaking the law has fascistic overtones. This country has a long tradition of protest that involves breaking the law, as do other Anglophone nations like the US.
The Suffragettes get mentioned often, but better examples include the Tolpuddle martyrs, the early years of trade unionism, some of the civil rights marches in Northern Ireland, helping slaves to escape, etc.
Except that causing lifechanging injuries to a police officer and £1m of damage to a private company, for a political cause, isn’t protesting it’s terrorism.
It's assault and criminal damage, surely.
Yes.
If it has a political motivation, it is also terrorism.
All terrorism can be defined as another crime. Terrorism is an extra layer of the motivation behind the crime, not a unique kind of crime in its own right.
Wrong, it is a crime in its own right and has been for 26 years.
This is the latest (and increasingly desperate) excuse for this travesty. That terrorism only exists as an aggravating factor - a lie because the CPS have discrete terrorism charges available to them.
The fact is that criminal damage and terrorism are two crimes of entirely different quality and severity. The implications for the rest of your life are profoundly different- it’s not just the length of the sentence.
And the government is using this perversion on only one particular type of politically motivated behaviour. Have any of the far-right protestors burning houses and injuring police officers been similarly sentenced on trumped up terrorism convictions? No.
Violence against person or property designed to intimidate the public or influence the government in furtherance of a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.
Have none of the far right rioters been hit with that? The hat seems to fit.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Burnham needs to win Makerfield. There's hardly any votes to be won there by saying he'd scrap the triple lock, but quite a few could potentially be lost. I'd treat this pronouncement with a pinch of salt.
In a GE not one tory wanker on here would vote for Burnham if he did scrap the TL. It's a catastrophically bad net electoral negative for everybody but the Greens so they aren't going to promise to do it or actually do it,
This conservative and pensioner most certainly would vote to scrap TL
Indeed I would go further and ensure that the pension itself was not awarded to millionaires
Obviously I'm with the ob consensus that the triple lock is stupid, but I'm all in favour of a universal pension. Means testing the pension is a massive disincentive to saving.
It is simply not affordable and new thinking is required
Financial Year
State Pension Spending (% of GDP)
Notes
1948 (approx.)
2.0%
Post-war level of state pension spending
1991–92
4.0%
1992–93
4.0%
1993–94
4.0%
1994–95
3.9%
1995–96
3.9%
1996–97
3.8%
1997–98
3.8%
1998–99
3.9%
2000s (typical range)
3.3–3.7%
Broadly stable before the financial crisis
2021–22
4.8%
Latest historical figure from the State Pension Age Review
2031–32 (projected)
4.9%
Official projection
2041–42 (projected)
5.5%
Official projection
2051–52 (projected)
6.2%
Official projection
2061–62 (projected)
7.3%
Official projection
2071–72 (projected)
8.1%
Official projection
It's just about affordable if we get the dependency ratio back down towards 3.0, but at it's at the moment nudging 3.6 and heading for 4.0.
Solutions;
Mum's have more kids, but they can't afford to stay at home and we need the workers.
Better support for families, but people resent free child care, long maternity leave and tend to support the two child cap.
People having children at an younger age, but don't get me started on single mums or teenage pregnancies.
Higher immigration, particularly people with or wanting to have children; Coming over here stealing our jobs and living on benefits (at the same time?)
Seems all the neceasrry measure to rebalance the population are unpopular and keeping on ignoring it unsustainable.
Peter.
You seem to have omitted the glaringly obvious alternative solution of ...
Automation and efficiency, but people object to machines doing what people used to do.
Though we are going down that path. Which is not AI, it is just a continuation of automation that we have done and some have objected to since the age of the original Luddites.
And just exactly do you keep these revenue creating automated factories here generating taxes if unlike millions of people they can easily be moved anywhere?
Income tax works because most people realistically can’t leave their country despite all the people who are forever claiming they’ll leave if someone they don’t like gets elected.
Robots like Capital are far more liquid than Labour.
Then there is the second problem; Circulation.
Most businesses can be more efficient using technology and AI, they can make a higher margin from their customers, but they still need customers.
If machines replace workers, workers stop being consumers and if consumers can’t consume factories automated or not can’t sell.
It’s the underlying problem with fewer and fewer people controlling more and more wealth and trickle down.
If what trickles down isn’t enough to water the plant the plant dies!
Burnham needs to win Makerfield. There's hardly any votes to be won there by saying he'd scrap the triple lock, but quite a few could potentially be lost. I'd treat this pronouncement with a pinch of salt.
In a GE not one tory wanker on here would vote for Burnham if he did scrap the TL. It's a catastrophically bad net electoral negative for everybody but the Greens so they aren't going to promise to do it or actually do it,
This conservative and pensioner most certainly would vote to scrap TL
Indeed I would go further and ensure that the pension itself was not awarded to millionaires
Obviously I'm with the ob consensus that the triple lock is stupid, but I'm all in favour of a universal pension. Means testing the pension is a massive disincentive to saving.
It is simply not affordable and new thinking is required
Financial Year
State Pension Spending (% of GDP)
Notes
1948 (approx.)
2.0%
Post-war level of state pension spending
1991–92
4.0%
1992–93
4.0%
1993–94
4.0%
1994–95
3.9%
1995–96
3.9%
1996–97
3.8%
1997–98
3.8%
1998–99
3.9%
2000s (typical range)
3.3–3.7%
Broadly stable before the financial crisis
2021–22
4.8%
Latest historical figure from the State Pension Age Review
2031–32 (projected)
4.9%
Official projection
2041–42 (projected)
5.5%
Official projection
2051–52 (projected)
6.2%
Official projection
2061–62 (projected)
7.3%
Official projection
2071–72 (projected)
8.1%
Official projection
It's just about affordable if we get the dependency ratio back down towards 3.0, but at it's at the moment nudging 3.6 and heading for 4.0.
Solutions;
Mum's have more kids, but they can't afford to stay at home and we need the workers.
Better support for families, but people resent free child care, long maternity leave and tend to support the two child cap.
People having children at an younger age, but don't get me started on single mums or teenage pregnancies.
Higher immigration, particularly people with or wanting to have children; Coming over here stealing our jobs and living on benefits (at the same time?)
Seems all the necessary measure to rebalance the population are unpopular and keeping on ignoring it unsustainable.
Peter.
they should slash NI, scrap the pension make it up to the individual. The spongers all get more than the pension in any case so anybody that works and puts away same amount will get far higher pension , so wins all round
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Burnham needs to win Makerfield. There's hardly any votes to be won there by saying he'd scrap the triple lock, but quite a few could potentially be lost. I'd treat this pronouncement with a pinch of salt.
In a GE not one tory wanker on here would vote for Burnham if he did scrap the TL. It's a catastrophically bad net electoral negative for everybody but the Greens so they aren't going to promise to do it or actually do it,
This conservative and pensioner most certainly would vote to scrap TL
Indeed I would go further and ensure that the pension itself was not awarded to millionaires
Obviously I'm with the ob consensus that the triple lock is stupid, but I'm all in favour of a universal pension. Means testing the pension is a massive disincentive to saving.
It is simply not affordable and new thinking is required
Financial Year
State Pension Spending (% of GDP)
Notes
1948 (approx.)
2.0%
Post-war level of state pension spending
1991–92
4.0%
1992–93
4.0%
1993–94
4.0%
1994–95
3.9%
1995–96
3.9%
1996–97
3.8%
1997–98
3.8%
1998–99
3.9%
2000s (typical range)
3.3–3.7%
Broadly stable before the financial crisis
2021–22
4.8%
Latest historical figure from the State Pension Age Review
2031–32 (projected)
4.9%
Official projection
2041–42 (projected)
5.5%
Official projection
2051–52 (projected)
6.2%
Official projection
2061–62 (projected)
7.3%
Official projection
2071–72 (projected)
8.1%
Official projection
It's just about affordable if we get the dependency ratio back down towards 3.0, but at it's at the moment nudging 3.6 and heading for 4.0.
Solutions;
Mum's have more kids, but they can't afford to stay at home and we need the workers.
Better support for families, but people resent free child care, long maternity leave and tend to support the two child cap.
People having children at an younger age, but don't get me started on single mums or teenage pregnancies.
Higher immigration, particularly people with or wanting to have children; Coming over here stealing our jobs and living on benefits (at the same time?)
Seems all the neceasrry measure to rebalance the population are unpopular and keeping on ignoring it unsustainable.
Peter.
Those are not the only policies, there are others on the supply side.
Childcare in France has a minimum of 1 carer for every 8-10 children in nursery. UK has 1 career for every 5. France is not a right-wing country, why does our childcare wage bill need to be twice theirs? Is our nursery care twice as good?
Families - why do we not encourage more caring within families? Grandparents are not entitled to Government subsidies if they are giving care within the parents' home. That seems silly.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
If he'd shown any sense of urgency over the last couple of years, he might not be about to lose his job.
Bluesky not restricted..because it's government "approved" of course..💩🧐
Bluesky has not been banned for kids in Australia. Apparently, so few kids use it is the reason it didn’t get added to the list initially. BlueSky is voluntarily applying the same rules, however.
few will appreciate how grimly funny it is that this judge both issued a gagging order so that the filton 4 could not explain their motivation to the jury, and then also sentenced them according to a specific intent provision requiring them to have had a specific motivation https://x.com/ergo_praxis/status/2066049704811491467
I sympathise with the judge who has a problem. he has to act according to law, whatever his personal views. The defendants clearly don't think the law should apply to them.
There is a middle position: The government is wrong to extend terrorism to obviously non terrorist acts; and the defendants are wrong to try to get off a criminal charge by running a defence about motivation which in law isn't one.
The judge was right to stop them trying to do so, and is bound by law in the sentencing process to take motive into account. Motivation goes to mitigation/aggravation of an offence, not guilt.
Extending our traditional freedoms to protest to mean including breaking the law in serious ways a is a dangerous step, with fascistic overtones.
Finally, if the judge has got it wrong they can appeal.
I’m not disagreeing with everything you say there, but I wish to dispute the notion that protest that involves breaking the law has fascistic overtones. This country has a long tradition of protest that involves breaking the law, as do other Anglophone nations like the US.
The Suffragettes get mentioned often, but better examples include the Tolpuddle martyrs, the early years of trade unionism, some of the civil rights marches in Northern Ireland, helping slaves to escape, etc.
Except that causing lifechanging injuries to a police officer and £1m of damage to a private company, for a political cause, isn’t protesting it’s terrorism.
It's assault and criminal damage, surely.
Yes.
If it has a political motivation, it is also terrorism.
All terrorism can be defined as another crime. Terrorism is an extra layer of the motivation behind the crime, not a unique kind of crime in its own right.
Wrong, it is a crime in its own right and has been for 26 years.
This is the latest (and increasingly desperate) excuse for this travesty. That terrorism only exists as an aggravating factor - a lie because the CPS have discrete terrorism charges available to them.
The fact is that criminal damage and terrorism are two crimes of entirely different quality and severity. The implications for the rest of your life are profoundly different- it’s not just the length of the sentence.
And the government is using this perversion on only one particular type of politically motivated behaviour. Have any of the far-right protestors burning houses and injuring police officers been similarly sentenced on trumped up terrorism convictions? No.
Violence against person or property designed to intimidate the public or influence the government in furtherance of a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.
Have none of the far right rioters been hit with that? The hat seems to fit.
Anybody who’s cut down a ULEZ camera too. Politically motivated criminal damage. Terrorists.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
I think I could name several million regular posters who aren’t “conventional liberal centre-left”.
Burnham needs to win Makerfield. There's hardly any votes to be won there by saying he'd scrap the triple lock, but quite a few could potentially be lost. I'd treat this pronouncement with a pinch of salt.
In a GE not one tory wanker on here would vote for Burnham if he did scrap the TL. It's a catastrophically bad net electoral negative for everybody but the Greens so they aren't going to promise to do it or actually do it,
This conservative and pensioner most certainly would vote to scrap TL
Indeed I would go further and ensure that the pension itself was not awarded to millionaires
Obviously I'm with the ob consensus that the triple lock is stupid, but I'm all in favour of a universal pension. Means testing the pension is a massive disincentive to saving.
It is simply not affordable and new thinking is required
Financial Year
State Pension Spending (% of GDP)
Notes
1948 (approx.)
2.0%
Post-war level of state pension spending
1991–92
4.0%
1992–93
4.0%
1993–94
4.0%
1994–95
3.9%
1995–96
3.9%
1996–97
3.8%
1997–98
3.8%
1998–99
3.9%
2000s (typical range)
3.3–3.7%
Broadly stable before the financial crisis
2021–22
4.8%
Latest historical figure from the State Pension Age Review
2031–32 (projected)
4.9%
Official projection
2041–42 (projected)
5.5%
Official projection
2051–52 (projected)
6.2%
Official projection
2061–62 (projected)
7.3%
Official projection
2071–72 (projected)
8.1%
Official projection
It's just about affordable if we get the dependency ratio back down towards 3.0, but at it's at the moment nudging 3.6 and heading for 4.0.
Solutions;
Mum's have more kids, but they can't afford to stay at home and we need the workers.
Better support for families, but people resent free child care, long maternity leave and tend to support the two child cap.
People having children at an younger age, but don't get me started on single mums or teenage pregnancies.
Higher immigration, particularly people with or wanting to have children; Coming over here stealing our jobs and living on benefits (at the same time?)
Seems all the neceasrry measure to rebalance the population are unpopular and keeping on ignoring it unsustainable.
Peter.
You seem to have omitted the glaringly obvious alternative solution of ...
Automation and efficiency, but people object to machines doing what people used to do.
Though we are going down that path. Which is not AI, it is just a continuation of automation that we have done and some have objected to since the age of the original Luddites.
And just exactly do you keep these revenue creating automated factories here generating taxes if unlike millions of people they can easily be moved anywhere?
Income tax works because most people realistically can’t leave their country despite all the people who are forever claiming they’ll leave if someone they don’t like gets elected.
Robots like Capital are far more liquid than Labour.
Then there is the second problem; Circulation.
Most businesses can be more efficient using technology and AI, they can make a higher margin from their customers, but they still need customers.
If machines replace workers, workers stop being consumers and if consumers can’t consume factories automated or not can’t sell.
It’s the underlying problem with fewer and fewer people controlling more and more wealth and trickle down.
If what trickles down isn’t enough to water the plant the plant dies!
Peter.
Fewer jobs != No jobs.
And you keep it in this country by having an attractive workforce (ie highly skilled) and an attractive tax rate.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
If he'd shown any sense of urgency over the last couple of years, he might not be about to lose his job.
What's a romantic chatbot?
"AI girlfriend"
Apparently really dangerous for kids mental health from what I have heard.
Not just kids, either.
The curfew is an interesting idea- one of the obvious visible harms of SM is keeping young people from the Land of Nod. But overall, this package leaves the politically difficult elephant (older adults driven mad by distorting slop filling their worldview) still in the room.
Romantic chatbot basically tells you you’re marvellous, handsome , hung like a bull etc or if you’re a woman have got marvellous tits and look like Sofia Loren when she was in her 20s!
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
Too torrid. But you'd be there obviously. And just from this page of this thread, so a tiny sample, Malcolm, Lucky, Blanche, Alga, RCS, Bart, TSE, Jim, Malmesbury, Contrarian, Williamglenn ... that's a dozen already.
It is literally insane simultaneously to think that 16 and 17 year olds are mature enough to vote but not mature enough to look at Instagram at 8:30pm. This is comically absurd. https://x.com/WalkerMarcus/status/2066140536667283877
Can we all agree that having business people running our Councils are a good thing?
Not in Leicestershire, it seems.
They are just closing down a schools meals service, serving 20k pupils in 117 schools, which has been profitable to the tune of £100k in 2025/6. Cost to the Council to close it down: £360k. There are 800 staff, so that may be a little light.
This is the Reform council that has budgeted £1.2m of taxpayers' money for "cost cutting consultants", I can tell them how they could have saved £360k.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
Too torrid. But you'd be there obviously. And just from this page of this thread, so a tiny sample, Malcolm, Lucky, Blanche, Alga, RCS, Bart, TSE, Jim, Malmesbury, Contrarian, Williamglenn ... that's a dozen already.
Can't move for all you not-centre-lefters.
Not centre-left but I'd say of that list at least RCS, TSE and myself are centre-right liberals. With others that I might call liberal but are more borderline.
Quite a few of the centre-right posters here are liberal centre-right. I would not say this site is biased to left, but I would say it is biased to liberal.
Burnham needs to win Makerfield. There's hardly any votes to be won there by saying he'd scrap the triple lock, but quite a few could potentially be lost. I'd treat this pronouncement with a pinch of salt.
In a GE not one tory wanker on here would vote for Burnham if he did scrap the TL. It's a catastrophically bad net electoral negative for everybody but the Greens so they aren't going to promise to do it or actually do it,
This conservative and pensioner most certainly would vote to scrap TL
Indeed I would go further and ensure that the pension itself was not awarded to millionaires
Obviously I'm with the ob consensus that the triple lock is stupid, but I'm all in favour of a universal pension. Means testing the pension is a massive disincentive to saving.
It is simply not affordable and new thinking is required
Financial Year
State Pension Spending (% of GDP)
Notes
1948 (approx.)
2.0%
Post-war level of state pension spending
1991–92
4.0%
1992–93
4.0%
1993–94
4.0%
1994–95
3.9%
1995–96
3.9%
1996–97
3.8%
1997–98
3.8%
1998–99
3.9%
2000s (typical range)
3.3–3.7%
Broadly stable before the financial crisis
2021–22
4.8%
Latest historical figure from the State Pension Age Review
2031–32 (projected)
4.9%
Official projection
2041–42 (projected)
5.5%
Official projection
2051–52 (projected)
6.2%
Official projection
2061–62 (projected)
7.3%
Official projection
2071–72 (projected)
8.1%
Official projection
It's just about affordable if we get the dependency ratio back down towards 3.0, but at it's at the moment nudging 3.6 and heading for 4.0.
Solutions;
Mum's have more kids, but they can't afford to stay at home and we need the workers.
Better support for families, but people resent free child care, long maternity leave and tend to support the two child cap.
People having children at an younger age, but don't get me started on single mums or teenage pregnancies.
Higher immigration, particularly people with or wanting to have children; Coming over here stealing our jobs and living on benefits (at the same time?)
Seems all the neceasrry measure to rebalance the population are unpopular and keeping on ignoring it unsustainable.
Peter.
You seem to have omitted the glaringly obvious alternative solution of ...
Automation and efficiency, but people object to machines doing what people used to do.
Though we are going down that path. Which is not AI, it is just a continuation of automation that we have done and some have objected to since the age of the original Luddites.
And just exactly do you keep these revenue creating automated factories here generating taxes if unlike millions of people they can easily be moved anywhere?
Income tax works because most people realistically can’t leave their country despite all the people who are forever claiming they’ll leave if someone they don’t like gets elected.
Robots like Capital are far more liquid than Labour.
Then there is the second problem; Circulation.
Most businesses can be more efficient using technology and AI, they can make a higher margin from their customers, but they still need customers.
If machines replace workers, workers stop being consumers and if consumers can’t consume factories automated or not can’t sell.
It’s the underlying problem with fewer and fewer people controlling more and more wealth and trickle down.
If what trickles down isn’t enough to water the plant the plant dies!
Peter.
Fewer jobs != No jobs.
And you keep it in this country by having an attractive workforce (ie highly skilled) and an attractive tax rate.
Your contradicting yourself.
You want to solve the problem with AI and Automation and then talk about an attractive workforce and tax rate.
AI and automation is what replaces the attractive workforce and even in combination there aren't enough of them working to create enough revenue. Equally if to keep them here you need low taxes then that doesn't raise enough revenue either.
That of course is before you even find the resources to train this attractive workforce and the investment needed to automate.
How do you sustain a service consumer economy if consumers can't afford to consume or buy services?
If the workforce shrinks even if skilled they won't genrate enough.
It's the "k" shaped recovery, you rely on the top one to be bigger than the bottom one so you have growth, the spending on the wealthy few compensates for the low spending of the majority. The problem is the few ultimately rely on the spending of the majority because they drive the service consumer economy.
The Agricultural revolution resulted in rural wage collapse and they didn't recover for almost fifty years. While people left the Country for the cities we still had a situation in the 1860-70 where their was food in London but near famine in places as close as Buckinghamshire, because people couldn't afford to eat.
I am not offering a magic solution, I don't think their is one, but a combination of ignoring the problem or pinning our hopes on a technological fix isn't going to help.
Using immigration, hopefully better managed than it has been, to increase the number of people of child bearing age is one solution that can work, but we also have to come up with a way of stopping too much wealth accumulating at the top so that the majority of the population have enough spending power to keep the show on the road.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
Too torrid. But you'd be there obviously. And just from this page of this thread, so a tiny sample, Malcolm, Lucky, Blanche, Alga, RCS, Bart, TSE, Jim, Malmesbury, Contrarian, Williamglenn ... that's a dozen already.
Can't move for all you not-centre-lefters.
I voted Lib Dem in the last election
It was because I knew and liked the candidate, rather than it being a vote for LD policies, but still..
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
I think I could name several million regular posters who aren’t “conventional liberal centre-left”.
But they are all banned
Ah yes. All these 'too cool for school' right wingers with opinions just too heretical for the centrists of PB to handle. Lol. Sure.
If he'd shown any sense of urgency over the last couple of years, he might not be about to lose his job.
D'you think SKS knows that one of his own MPs is aiming to bring the adult entertainment industry into school classrooms? From an email from CitizenGo.net, re 'Summer of Sex' [Samantha Niblett] knows children are being exposed to explicit material online, often alone, often traumatically. She is right about the problem. But her "solution" is to expose them to it again, this time inside the classroom, with the state's blessing and the adult industry's branding.
We're a very sick society. I'm awfully glad I don't have children/grandchildren.
It is literally insane simultaneously to think that 16 and 17 year olds are mature enough to vote but not mature enough to look at Instagram at 8:30pm. This is comically absurd. https://x.com/WalkerMarcus/status/2066140536667283877
10pm curfew would match polling hours.
We have given our daughter (since 11, now 12) limited access to social media but under restrictions - including that she agrees we can see anything she posts or receives. She also has multiple time limits set via Google's Family Link parental controls app, such as that TikTok specifically we have set a daily time limit on - and her phone overall becomes disabled at 7:30pm at a school night and 9:30pm on weekends.
Though interestingly Family Link is aimed for kids under 13, I would not want to lose all those controls next year and give her blanket access when she has her next birthday. I think healthy parental controls (though would probably adjust the timings as she gets older) should be for under 18s.
We used to joke 30 years ago about "just one more turn" preventing sleep while playing Civilization etc, but the electronic situation today is on a whole another level so I do think sensible time limitations are a really good idea. Sleep is important.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
Too torrid. But you'd be there obviously. And just from this page of this thread, so a tiny sample, Malcolm, Lucky, Blanche, Alga, RCS, Bart, TSE, Jim, Malmesbury, Contrarian, Williamglenn ... that's a dozen already.
Can't move for all you not-centre-lefters.
Not centre-left but I'd say of that list at least RCS, TSE and myself are centre-right liberals. With others that I might call liberal but are more borderline.
Quite a few of the centre-right posters here are liberal centre-right. I would not say this site is biased to left, but I would say it is biased to liberal.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
Too torrid. But you'd be there obviously. And just from this page of this thread, so a tiny sample, Malcolm, Lucky, Blanche, Alga, RCS, Bart, TSE, Jim, Malmesbury, Contrarian, Williamglenn ... that's a dozen already.
Can't move for all you not-centre-lefters.
I voted Lib Dem in the last election
It was because I knew and liked the candidate, rather than it being a vote for LD policies, but still..
Burnham needs to win Makerfield. There's hardly any votes to be won there by saying he'd scrap the triple lock, but quite a few could potentially be lost. I'd treat this pronouncement with a pinch of salt.
In a GE not one tory wanker on here would vote for Burnham if he did scrap the TL. It's a catastrophically bad net electoral negative for everybody but the Greens so they aren't going to promise to do it or actually do it,
This conservative and pensioner most certainly would vote to scrap TL
Indeed I would go further and ensure that the pension itself was not awarded to millionaires
Obviously I'm with the ob consensus that the triple lock is stupid, but I'm all in favour of a universal pension. Means testing the pension is a massive disincentive to saving.
It is simply not affordable and new thinking is required
Financial Year
State Pension Spending (% of GDP)
Notes
1948 (approx.)
2.0%
Post-war level of state pension spending
1991–92
4.0%
1992–93
4.0%
1993–94
4.0%
1994–95
3.9%
1995–96
3.9%
1996–97
3.8%
1997–98
3.8%
1998–99
3.9%
2000s (typical range)
3.3–3.7%
Broadly stable before the financial crisis
2021–22
4.8%
Latest historical figure from the State Pension Age Review
2031–32 (projected)
4.9%
Official projection
2041–42 (projected)
5.5%
Official projection
2051–52 (projected)
6.2%
Official projection
2061–62 (projected)
7.3%
Official projection
2071–72 (projected)
8.1%
Official projection
It's just about affordable if we get the dependency ratio back down towards 3.0, but at it's at the moment nudging 3.6 and heading for 4.0.
Solutions;
Mum's have more kids, but they can't afford to stay at home and we need the workers.
Better support for families, but people resent free child care, long maternity leave and tend to support the two child cap.
People having children at an younger age, but don't get me started on single mums or teenage pregnancies.
Higher immigration, particularly people with or wanting to have children; Coming over here stealing our jobs and living on benefits (at the same time?)
Seems all the neceasrry measure to rebalance the population are unpopular and keeping on ignoring it unsustainable.
Peter.
You seem to have omitted the glaringly obvious alternative solution of ...
Automation and efficiency, but people object to machines doing what people used to do.
Though we are going down that path. Which is not AI, it is just a continuation of automation that we have done and some have objected to since the age of the original Luddites.
And just exactly do you keep these revenue creating automated factories here generating taxes if unlike millions of people they can easily be moved anywhere?
Income tax works because most people realistically can’t leave their country despite all the people who are forever claiming they’ll leave if someone they don’t like gets elected.
Robots like Capital are far more liquid than Labour.
Then there is the second problem; Circulation.
Most businesses can be more efficient using technology and AI, they can make a higher margin from their customers, but they still need customers.
If machines replace workers, workers stop being consumers and if consumers can’t consume factories automated or not can’t sell.
It’s the underlying problem with fewer and fewer people controlling more and more wealth and trickle down.
If what trickles down isn’t enough to water the plant the plant dies!
Peter.
Fewer jobs != No jobs.
And you keep it in this country by having an attractive workforce (ie highly skilled) and an attractive tax rate.
Your contradicting yourself.
You want to solve the problem with AI and Automation and then talk about an attractive workforce and tax rate.
AI and automation is what replaces the attractive workforce and even in combination there aren't enough of them working to create enough revenue. Equally if to keep them here you need low taxes then that doesn't raise enough revenue either.
That of course is before you even find the resources to train this attractive workforce and the investment needed to automate.
How do you sustain a service consumer economy if consumers can't afford to consume or buy services?
If the workforce shrinks even if skilled they won't genrate enough.
It's the "k" shaped recovery, you rely on the top one to be bigger than the bottom one so you have growth, the spending on the wealthy few compensates for the low spending of the majority. The problem is the few ultimately rely on the spending of the majority because they drive the service consumer economy.
The Agricultural revolution resulted in rural wage collapse and they didn't recover for almost fifty years. While people left the Country for the cities we still had a situation in the 1860-70 where their was food in London but near famine in places as close as Buckinghamshire, because people couldn't afford to eat.
I am not offering a magic solution, I don't think their is one, but a combination of ignoring the problem or pinning our hopes on a technological fix isn't going to help.
Using immigration, hopefully better managed than it has been, to increase the number of people of child bearing age is one solution that can work, but we also have to come up with a way of stopping too much wealth accumulating at the top so that the majority of the population have enough spending power to keep the show on the road.
Peter.
There is no contradiction whatsoever.
Not everything gets automated. Some things do. Which means more output for fewer people, which boosts efficiency.
Same as has happened for hundreds of years.
McDonalds introducing self-service machines does not mean there are zero people working inside McDonalds. Quite the opposite if you look inside. Same with self-checkouts as supermarkets, they don't have zero staff either.
There is no reason why consumers can't afford to consume if they are well paid - and ensuring that people are in skilled, efficient jobs in a competitive labour market means they can be.
Immigration to boost population does not work as lump of labour is a fallacy.
Having a skilled population boosts efficiency, and immigration of highly skilled, valuable people can contribute to that which is great. Immigration of unskilled people as an alternative to investment does not boost anything.
Starmer yet again turning what might be a vote pleaser into something that will get trashed because of the ludicrous 16/17 year old curfew .
As was highlighted earlier in the thread you can vote but apparently can’t cope with social media . Didn’t anyone in No 10 think of this part of the announcement?
I despair at the ineptitude of this government who just seem to always find a way to shoot themselves in both feet !
Been out most of today (Beaulie motor museum with The John Cooper Mini Day). Take home from radio 5 is that Scotland seem to have won the World Cup. At least from the amount of hyperbole about a scrappy 1-0 against a team in the 80’s of world standings.
I genuinely wish English fans were more like the Scots - there for the party, no agro. But the reporting today has been mad.
Can we all agree that having business people running our Councils are a good thing?
Not in Leicestershire, it seems.
They are just closing down a schools meals service, serving 20k pupils in 117 schools, which has been profitable to the tune of £100k in 2025/6. Cost to the Council to close it down: £360k. There are 800 staff, so that may be a little light.
This is the Reform council that has budgeted £1.2m of taxpayers' money for "cost cutting consultants", I can tell them how they could have saved £360k.
Burnham needs to win Makerfield. There's hardly any votes to be won there by saying he'd scrap the triple lock, but quite a few could potentially be lost. I'd treat this pronouncement with a pinch of salt.
In a GE not one tory wanker on here would vote for Burnham if he did scrap the TL. It's a catastrophically bad net electoral negative for everybody but the Greens so they aren't going to promise to do it or actually do it,
This conservative and pensioner most certainly would vote to scrap TL
Indeed I would go further and ensure that the pension itself was not awarded to millionaires
Obviously I'm with the ob consensus that the triple lock is stupid, but I'm all in favour of a universal pension. Means testing the pension is a massive disincentive to saving.
It is simply not affordable and new thinking is required
Financial Year
State Pension Spending (% of GDP)
Notes
1948 (approx.)
2.0%
Post-war level of state pension spending
1991–92
4.0%
1992–93
4.0%
1993–94
4.0%
1994–95
3.9%
1995–96
3.9%
1996–97
3.8%
1997–98
3.8%
1998–99
3.9%
2000s (typical range)
3.3–3.7%
Broadly stable before the financial crisis
2021–22
4.8%
Latest historical figure from the State Pension Age Review
2031–32 (projected)
4.9%
Official projection
2041–42 (projected)
5.5%
Official projection
2051–52 (projected)
6.2%
Official projection
2061–62 (projected)
7.3%
Official projection
2071–72 (projected)
8.1%
Official projection
It's just about affordable if we get the dependency ratio back down towards 3.0, but at it's at the moment nudging 3.6 and heading for 4.0.
Solutions;
Mum's have more kids, but they can't afford to stay at home and we need the workers.
Better support for families, but people resent free child care, long maternity leave and tend to support the two child cap.
People having children at an younger age, but don't get me started on single mums or teenage pregnancies.
Higher immigration, particularly people with or wanting to have children; Coming over here stealing our jobs and living on benefits (at the same time?)
Seems all the neceasrry measure to rebalance the population are unpopular and keeping on ignoring it unsustainable.
Peter.
You seem to have omitted the glaringly obvious alternative solution of ...
Automation and efficiency, but people object to machines doing what people used to do.
Though we are going down that path. Which is not AI, it is just a continuation of automation that we have done and some have objected to since the age of the original Luddites.
And just exactly do you keep these revenue creating automated factories here generating taxes if unlike millions of people they can easily be moved anywhere?
Income tax works because most people realistically can’t leave their country despite all the people who are forever claiming they’ll leave if someone they don’t like gets elected.
Robots like Capital are far more liquid than Labour.
Then there is the second problem; Circulation.
Most businesses can be more efficient using technology and AI, they can make a higher margin from their customers, but they still need customers.
If machines replace workers, workers stop being consumers and if consumers can’t consume factories automated or not can’t sell.
It’s the underlying problem with fewer and fewer people controlling more and more wealth and trickle down.
If what trickles down isn’t enough to water the plant the plant dies!
Peter.
Fewer jobs != No jobs.
And you keep it in this country by having an attractive workforce (ie highly skilled) and an attractive tax rate.
Your contradicting yourself.
You want to solve the problem with AI and Automation and then talk about an attractive workforce and tax rate.
AI and automation is what replaces the attractive workforce and even in combination there aren't enough of them working to create enough revenue. Equally if to keep them here you need low taxes then that doesn't raise enough revenue either.
That of course is before you even find the resources to train this attractive workforce and the investment needed to automate.
How do you sustain a service consumer economy if consumers can't afford to consume or buy services?
If the workforce shrinks even if skilled they won't genrate enough.
It's the "k" shaped recovery, you rely on the top one to be bigger than the bottom one so you have growth, the spending on the wealthy few compensates for the low spending of the majority. The problem is the few ultimately rely on the spending of the majority because they drive the service consumer economy.
The Agricultural revolution resulted in rural wage collapse and they didn't recover for almost fifty years. While people left the Country for the cities we still had a situation in the 1860-70 where their was food in London but near famine in places as close as Buckinghamshire, because people couldn't afford to eat.
I am not offering a magic solution, I don't think their is one, but a combination of ignoring the problem or pinning our hopes on a technological fix isn't going to help.
Using immigration, hopefully better managed than it has been, to increase the number of people of child bearing age is one solution that can work, but we also have to come up with a way of stopping too much wealth accumulating at the top so that the majority of the population have enough spending power to keep the show on the road.
Peter.
There is no contradiction whatsoever.
Not everything gets automated. Some things do. Which means more output for fewer people, which boosts efficiency.
Same as has happened for hundreds of years.
McDonalds introducing self-service machines does not mean there are zero people working inside McDonalds. Quite the opposite if you look inside. Same with self-checkouts as supermarkets, they don't have zero staff either.
There is no reason why consumers can't afford to consume if they are well paid - and ensuring that people are in skilled, efficient jobs in a competitive labour market means they can be.
Immigration to boost population does not work as lump of labour is a fallacy.
Having a skilled population boosts efficiency, and immigration of highly skilled, valuable people can contribute to that which is great. Immigration of unskilled people as an alternative to investment does not boost anything.
When McDonalds trialled complete automation of the kitchen, they redeployed staff to provide more service in the front.
Every example of LLM, so far, is that they create assistants that need management and guidance by humans who are expert in the area.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Does unconventional authoritarian centre-left count?
For all those of you who didn't pick up what @Jim_Miller put down, in his graphic "blue" denotes "Republicans" and "red" denotes "Democrats". This is how we in the UK denote the centre-right and centre-left parties so the US usage in the book (published 1989) matches UK usage now.
If memory serves, the modern-day US usage of "red" to denote "Republicans" and "blue" to denote "Democrats" derives from television coverage of the 2000 US Presidential election: they (or one channel) used those colours, and the fuss over the election resulted in this colour convention sticking.
Been out most of today (Beaulie motor museum with The John Cooper Mini Day). Take home from radio 5 is that Scotland seem to have won the World Cup. At least from the amount of hyperbole about a scrappy 1-0 against a team in the 80’s of world standings.
I genuinely wish English fans were more like the Scots - there for the party, no agro. But the reporting today has been mad.
Oh and I see Raducanu choked again.
Ah, that might be why we saw several JC Minis today.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
I think I could name several million regular posters who aren’t “conventional liberal centre-left”.
Been out most of today (Beaulie motor museum with The John Cooper Mini Day). Take home from radio 5 is that Scotland seem to have won the World Cup. At least from the amount of hyperbole about a scrappy 1-0 against a team in the 80’s of world standings.
I genuinely wish English fans were more like the Scots - there for the party, no agro. But the reporting today has been mad.
Oh and I see Raducanu choked again.
Ah, that might be why we saw several JC Minis today.
Radacanu definitely didn't choke.
She looked leggy in first set, then played some excellent tennis in 2nd set.
Had it gone to 3rd,opponent was running on fumes.
She just needs to stay fit, play matches talent there, guts there today.
Been out most of today (Beaulie motor museum with The John Cooper Mini Day). Take home from radio 5 is that Scotland seem to have won the World Cup. At least from the amount of hyperbole about a scrappy 1-0 against a team in the 80’s of world standings.
I genuinely wish English fans were more like the Scots - there for the party, no agro. But the reporting today has been mad.
Oh and I see Raducanu choked again.
Great to see the Anglos are happy for the Jocks! I don’t think we Scots particularly care for all that reporting, or even listen to it. Still, balances out the profiles of David Beckham, the drama series Dear England, regular bulletins on the tat stolen from an England vehicle or episode 43 of 60 Years of Hurt from Baddiel. Endlessly fascinating to some I suppose,
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
Too torrid. But you'd be there obviously. And just from this page of this thread, so a tiny sample, Malcolm, Lucky, Blanche, Alga, RCS, Bart, TSE, Jim, Malmesbury, Contrarian, Williamglenn ... that's a dozen already.
Can't move for all you not-centre-lefters.
That's eleven, and the posting frequency is far less.
Against that there's Chris, NigelB, Bondegezou, Kinabulu, Foxy, MexicanPete, Roger, "Peter", Dura, OnlyLivingBoy, OldKingCole, Murali_S, Tres, Eabhal, FF43, Brixian59, Jonathan, RochdalePioneers, Nico67, SandyRentool, DecrepiterJohnL, DougSeal etc. which is double your count for a start, and the posting rate is far higher.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm personally fond of many of those posters. But you can't argue that's what dominates the site.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
He'd get at least half way there with just the reincarnations of Leon....
Been out most of today (Beaulie motor museum with The John Cooper Mini Day). Take home from radio 5 is that Scotland seem to have won the World Cup. At least from the amount of hyperbole about a scrappy 1-0 against a team in the 80’s of world standings.
I genuinely wish English fans were more like the Scots - there for the party, no agro. But the reporting today has been mad.
Oh and I see Raducanu choked again.
Ah, that might be why we saw several JC Minis today.
Radacanu definitely didn't choke.
She looked leggy in first set, then played some excellent tennis in 2nd set.
Had it gone to 3rd,opponent was running on fumes.
She just needs to stay fit, play matches talent there, guts there today.
Unfortunately media put undue pressure on her.
Give her a chance
No, certainly not a choke. Really good final actually. Great prep for the big W.
The Australian social media ban for under 16s has been a failure .
Parents have to take more responsibility instead of expecting governments to do the job for them . The public seem to want a ban and it polls well but sadly I just don’t see it working .
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
He'd get at least half way there with just the reincarnations of Leon....
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
Too torrid. But you'd be there obviously. And just from this page of this thread, so a tiny sample, Malcolm, Lucky, Blanche, Alga, RCS, Bart, TSE, Jim, Malmesbury, Contrarian, Williamglenn ... that's a dozen already.
Can't move for all you not-centre-lefters.
That's eleven, and the posting frequency is far less.
Against that there's Chris, NigelB, Bondegezou, Kinabulu, Foxy, MexicanPete, Roger, "Peter", Dura, OnlyLivingBoy, OldKingCole, Murali_S, Tres, Eabhal, FF43, Brixian59, Jonathan, RochdalePioneers, Nico67, SandyRentool, DecrepiterJohnL, DougSeal etc. which is double your count for a start, and the posting rate is far higher.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm personally fond of many of those posters. But you can't argue that's what dominates the site.
‘That's eleven, and the posting frequency is far less.’
Haven’t you got one of the highest post counts out of all of them?
Been out most of today (Beaulie motor museum with The John Cooper Mini Day). Take home from radio 5 is that Scotland seem to have won the World Cup. At least from the amount of hyperbole about a scrappy 1-0 against a team in the 80’s of world standings.
I genuinely wish English fans were more like the Scots - there for the party, no agro. But the reporting today has been mad.
Oh and I see Raducanu choked again.
Great to see the Anglos are happy for the Jocks! I don’t think we Scots particularly care for all that reporting, or even listen to it. Still, balances out the profiles of David Beckham, the drama series Dear England, regular bulletins on the tat stolen from an England vehicle or episode 43 of 60 Years of Hurt from Baddiel. Endlessly fascinating to some I suppose,
If he'd shown any sense of urgency over the last couple of years, he might not be about to lose his job.
D'you think SKS knows that one of his own MPs is aiming to bring the adult entertainment industry into school classrooms? From an email from CitizenGo.net, re 'Summer of Sex' [Samantha Niblett] knows children are being exposed to explicit material online, often alone, often traumatically. She is right about the problem. But her "solution" is to expose them to it again, this time inside the classroom, with the state's blessing and the adult industry's branding.
We're a very sick society. I'm awfully glad I don't have children/grandchildren.
Do you have a link to the full email, or could you post it?
Samantha Niblett is from this area - she defeated Heather Wheeler in South Derbyshire - and I am not aware that she is especially controversial. She is open about her bisexuality.
Given that her current "continuing sex education" initiative is branded "summer of sex", it's a touch difficult to see how that involves exposing children to material "in the classroom" when schools are closed for 6-8 weeks in the summer, when what Niblett has achieved is a slot for a Parliamentary debate in the autumn.
Are Citizen Go exaggerating? Those "targeting classrooms" claims look unfounded. The involvement of Cindy Gallop, whatever it is, is interesting - I'd call her someone promoting consensual, and I think self-published, porn, which is a different model to the big sites.
I'm a little familiar with Citizen Go, as I have been in occasional contact with their current Director, Caroline Farrow, since about 2008 when we were two of the few political bloggers (she was "Catechesis of Caroline") who commented on religion, and I donated to her appeal when she received very heavy handed police attention at the instigation of a person from the trans lobby.
Citizen Go cover similar ground to the Alliance Defending Freedom or Christian Concern, but from a background based in the Spanish Catholic Right, rather than in the morality focused US or UK conservative evangelical movement. Caroline is married to a former Anglican Vicar who "Swum the Tiber" to join the Roman Catholics, and is now in the Ordinariate iirc.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
Too torrid. But you'd be there obviously. And just from this page of this thread, so a tiny sample, Malcolm, Lucky, Blanche, Alga, RCS, Bart, TSE, Jim, Malmesbury, Contrarian, Williamglenn ... that's a dozen already.
Can't move for all you not-centre-lefters.
That's eleven, and the posting frequency is far less.
Against that there's Chris, NigelB, Bondegezou, Kinabulu, Foxy, MexicanPete, Roger, "Peter", Dura, OnlyLivingBoy, OldKingCole, Murali_S, Tres, Eabhal, FF43, Brixian59, Jonathan, RochdalePioneers, Nico67, SandyRentool, DecrepiterJohnL, DougSeal etc. which is double your count for a start, and the posting rate is far higher.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm personally fond of many of those posters. But you can't argue that's what dominates the site.
12. You didn't count you.
And that's not apples and pears. My 12 were just this page this thread. You've done a general trawl. If I did that I'd be listing lots more.
No, the charge of big leftish bias just isn't correct. A charge of 'liberal' bias maybe has more going for it. Not sure though. I'd need to check my files.
Been out most of today (Beaulie motor museum with The John Cooper Mini Day). Take home from radio 5 is that Scotland seem to have won the World Cup. At least from the amount of hyperbole about a scrappy 1-0 against a team in the 80’s of world standings.
I genuinely wish English fans were more like the Scots - there for the party, no agro. But the reporting today has been mad.
Oh and I see Raducanu choked again.
Great to see the Anglos are happy for the Jocks! I don’t think we Scots particularly care for all that reporting, or even listen to it. Still, balances out the profiles of David Beckham, the drama series Dear England, regular bulletins on the tat stolen from an England vehicle or episode 43 of 60 Years of Hurt from Baddiel. Endlessly fascinating to some I suppose,
I am happy for you/us.
I’m happy that you even consider the possibility of an ‘us’!
For all those of you who didn't pick up what @Jim_Miller put down, in his graphic "blue" denotes "Republicans" and "red" denotes "Democrats". This is how we in the UK denote the centre-right and centre-left parties so the US usage in the book (published 1989) matches UK usage now.
If memory serves, the modern-day US usage of "red" to denote "Republicans" and "blue" to denote "Democrats" derives from television coverage of the 2000 US Presidential election: they (or one channel) used those colours, and the fuss over the election resulted in this colour convention sticking.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
Too torrid. But you'd be there obviously. And just from this page of this thread, so a tiny sample, Malcolm, Lucky, Blanche, Alga, RCS, Bart, TSE, Jim, Malmesbury, Contrarian, Williamglenn ... that's a dozen already.
Can't move for all you not-centre-lefters.
That's eleven, and the posting frequency is far less.
Against that there's Chris, NigelB, Bondegezou, Kinabulu, Foxy, MexicanPete, Roger, "Peter", Dura, OnlyLivingBoy, OldKingCole, Murali_S, Tres, Eabhal, FF43, Brixian59, Jonathan, RochdalePioneers, Nico67, SandyRentool, DecrepiterJohnL, DougSeal etc. which is double your count for a start, and the posting rate is far higher.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm personally fond of many of those posters. But you can't argue that's what dominates the site.
12. You didn't count you.
And that's not apples and pears. My 12 were just this page this thread. You've done a general trawl. If I did that I'd be listing lots more.
No, the charge of big leftish bias just isn't correct. A charge of 'liberal' bias maybe has more going for it. Not sure though. I'd need to check my files.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
Too torrid. But you'd be there obviously. And just from this page of this thread, so a tiny sample, Malcolm, Lucky, Blanche, Alga, RCS, Bart, TSE, Jim, Malmesbury, Contrarian, Williamglenn ... that's a dozen already.
Can't move for all you not-centre-lefters.
That's eleven, and the posting frequency is far less.
Against that there's Chris, NigelB, Bondegezou, Kinabulu, Foxy, MexicanPete, Roger, "Peter", Dura, OnlyLivingBoy, OldKingCole, Murali_S, Tres, Eabhal, FF43, Brixian59, Jonathan, RochdalePioneers, Nico67, SandyRentool, DecrepiterJohnL, DougSeal etc. which is double your count for a start, and the posting rate is far higher.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm personally fond of many of those posters. But you can't argue that's what dominates the site.
12. You didn't count you.
And that's not apples and pears. My 12 were just this page this thread. You've done a general trawl. If I did that I'd be listing lots more.
No, the charge of big leftish bias just isn't correct. A charge of 'liberal' bias maybe has more going for it. Not sure though. I'd need to check my files.
I have Eabhal and DougSeal as being basically centre-right not centre-left, plus we have Barnes Observer, the Moth Collector from Devon, the Conservative chap from the Lake District (not doing well with names), and iirc AnneJGP, and at least 8 members of the Leonine Order.
Can I admit I just folded ! After being really underwhelmed before the WC started and having zero excitement and totally disgusted with FIFA I’m now back to watching some games !
I won’t be seeing as many as normal due to the time difference but my resistance has indeed crumbled !
Can I admit I just folded ! After being really underwhelmed before the WC started and having zero excitement and totally disgusted with FIFA I’m now back to watching some games !
I won’t be seeing as many as normal due to the time difference but my resistance has indeed crumbled !
Times are not great and seems to be some odd gaps between games. And England, France, Argentina, Spain etc yet to start, so not into it yet, but I’ll be watching on Wednesday. If England progress (and Scotland) then it will get going.
Can I admit I just folded ! After being really underwhelmed before the WC started and having zero excitement and totally disgusted with FIFA I’m now back to watching some games !
I won’t be seeing as many as normal due to the time difference but my resistance has indeed crumbled !
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
Too torrid. But you'd be there obviously. And just from this page of this thread, so a tiny sample, Malcolm, Lucky, Blanche, Alga, RCS, Bart, TSE, Jim, Malmesbury, Contrarian, Williamglenn ... that's a dozen already.
Can't move for all you not-centre-lefters.
That's eleven, and the posting frequency is far less.
Against that there's Chris, NigelB, Bondegezou, Kinabulu, Foxy, MexicanPete, Roger, "Peter", Dura, OnlyLivingBoy, OldKingCole, Murali_S, Tres, Eabhal, FF43, Brixian59, Jonathan, RochdalePioneers, Nico67, SandyRentool, DecrepiterJohnL, DougSeal etc. which is double your count for a start, and the posting rate is far higher.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm personally fond of many of those posters. But you can't argue that's what dominates the site.
12. You didn't count you.
And that's not apples and pears. My 12 were just this page this thread. You've done a general trawl. If I did that I'd be listing lots more.
No, the charge of big leftish bias just isn't correct. A charge of 'liberal' bias maybe has more going for it. Not sure though. I'd need to check my files.
I have Eabhal and DougSeal as being basically centre-right not centre-left, plus we have Barnes Observer, the Moth Collector from Devon, the Conservative chap from the Lake District (not doing well with names), and iirc AnneJGP, and at least 8 members of the Leonine Order.
I'm delighted not to be pigeon-holed !
Meh, in aggregate I’m probably marginally to the left of centre compared with the electorate as a whole. But it really depends on how you weight my various views - on immigration, ECHR etc I’m quite right wing. I’m also very hawkish, would be dropping the parachute regiment into Crimea if I had my way.
And tbh I do play Devil’s Advocate a lot because the right wingers on here are often completely deranged compared with those I actually know in person, who are variations on DavidL. My “real” persona is instinctively more on the right, particularly on economics.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
Too torrid. But you'd be there obviously. And just from this page of this thread, so a tiny sample, Malcolm, Lucky, Blanche, Alga, RCS, Bart, TSE, Jim, Malmesbury, Contrarian, Williamglenn ... that's a dozen already.
Can't move for all you not-centre-lefters.
That's eleven, and the posting frequency is far less.
Against that there's Chris, NigelB, Bondegezou, Kinabulu, Foxy, MexicanPete, Roger, "Peter", Dura, OnlyLivingBoy, OldKingCole, Murali_S, Tres, Eabhal, FF43, Brixian59, Jonathan, RochdalePioneers, Nico67, SandyRentool, DecrepiterJohnL, DougSeal etc. which is double your count for a start, and the posting rate is far higher.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm personally fond of many of those posters. But you can't argue that's what dominates the site.
12. You didn't count you.
And that's not apples and pears. My 12 were just this page this thread. You've done a general trawl. If I did that I'd be listing lots more.
No, the charge of big leftish bias just isn't correct. A charge of 'liberal' bias maybe has more going for it. Not sure though. I'd need to check my files.
I have Eabhal and DougSeal as being basically centre-right not centre-left, plus we have Barnes Observer, the Moth Collector from Devon, the Conservative chap from the Lake District (not doing well with names), and iirc AnneJGP, and at least 8 members of the Leonine Order.
I'm delighted not to be pigeon-holed !
Meh, in aggregate I’m probably marginally to the left of centre compared with the electorate as a whole. But it really depends on how you weight my various views - on immigration, ECHR etc I’m quite right wing. I’m also very hawkish, would be dropping the parachute regiment into Crimea if I had my way.
And tbh I do play Devil’s Advocate a lot because the right wingers on here are often completely deranged compared with those I actually know in person, who are variations on DavidL. My “real” persona is instinctively more on the right, particularly on economics.
Can I just say, when I am in Edinburgh I'd be delighted to meet you for a pint or two. I am trialling in Dundee this coming week but will hopefully be around the week after if that is any interest to you.
Can we all agree that having business people running our Councils are a good thing?
Not in Leicestershire, it seems.
They are just closing down a schools meals service, serving 20k pupils in 117 schools, which has been profitable to the tune of £100k in 2025/6. Cost to the Council to close it down: £360k. There are 800 staff, so that may be a little light.
This is the Reform council that has budgeted £1.2m of taxpayers' money for "cost cutting consultants", I can tell them how they could have saved £360k.
Not the first time I've read one of your comments, clicked on the link, and found you've given a rather carefully edited take.
That's why the link is there. I'll see if I can adjust the way I summarise.
I don't find the sort-of-justification given - we are closing it because they are leaving - very convincing; I'd think of it the other way around - more "they are leaving it because we are closing the service". Nor the stuff about "unsustainable profits". My assessment is more that they decided what they were going to do based on a snapshot, and did not consider the possibility that the financial situation could continue to recover after Covid.
That's my concern for Reform in places they control; they are making far too many damaging decisions without appropriate experience or thought. I'd make the same point about the closure of Adult Education Centres in Derbyshire. It is quite DOGE-y.
It's one for the people of Leicestershire to decide, whenever their next election happens.
Can I admit I just folded ! After being really underwhelmed before the WC started and having zero excitement and totally disgusted with FIFA I’m now back to watching some games !
I won’t be seeing as many as normal due to the time difference but my resistance has indeed crumbled !
I think I'm going to give in and watch the England/Ireland world cup match on Tuesday.
I don't normally bother with T20, but it is England v Ireland.
Question. Is there any major politician committed to removing the state pension triple lock?
From what I'm hearing on this thread, doing so would be absolute political gold dust. I'm amazed all our politicians are failing to appreciate the magic.
you mistake PB for public opinion, not all out there have the mullah that posters here have.
Regular pb.com posters are overwhelmingly males over the age of 60 who either don't work, don't need to work, or officially work but barely bother.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
Except I could right now off the top of my head list out 50 regular posters who are not at all conventional liberal centre-left.
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
Go on then. Name the 50.
Too torrid. But you'd be there obviously. And just from this page of this thread, so a tiny sample, Malcolm, Lucky, Blanche, Alga, RCS, Bart, TSE, Jim, Malmesbury, Contrarian, Williamglenn ... that's a dozen already.
Can't move for all you not-centre-lefters.
That's eleven, and the posting frequency is far less.
Against that there's Chris, NigelB, Bondegezou, Kinabulu, Foxy, MexicanPete, Roger, "Peter", Dura, OnlyLivingBoy, OldKingCole, Murali_S, Tres, Eabhal, FF43, Brixian59, Jonathan, RochdalePioneers, Nico67, SandyRentool, DecrepiterJohnL, DougSeal etc. which is double your count for a start, and the posting rate is far higher.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm personally fond of many of those posters. But you can't argue that's what dominates the site.
12. You didn't count you.
And that's not apples and pears. My 12 were just this page this thread. You've done a general trawl. If I did that I'd be listing lots more.
No, the charge of big leftish bias just isn't correct. A charge of 'liberal' bias maybe has more going for it. Not sure though. I'd need to check my files.
I have Eabhal and DougSeal as being basically centre-right not centre-left, plus we have Barnes Observer, the Moth Collector from Devon, the Conservative chap from the Lake District (not doing well with names), and iirc AnneJGP, and at least 8 members of the Leonine Order.
I'm delighted not to be pigeon-holed !
First time anyone’s called me centre right in my life! I’ve been quiet because I self identify as left liberal but interested to see other’s perceptions of me differ from my own. I was a member of the LDs for a very short period and even joined the mailing list of the local Co-Operative Party but that may just be tribalism.
Comments
As you can see, the color coding is correct. (My apologies for the quality of the photo.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_C._Martis
Childcare in France has a minimum of 1 carer for every 8-10 children in nursery. UK has 1 career for every 5. France is not a right-wing country, why does our childcare wage bill need to be twice theirs? Is our nursery care twice as good?
Families - why do we not encourage more caring within families? Grandparents are not entitled to Government subsidies if they are giving care within the parents' home. That seems silly.
(Those interested in betting on United States elections may want to buy data from Dave Leip, the author of that atlas.
I’m told that I gave a loud and emotional running commentary to many of the scenes;
“His finger is better Daddy!”
“He made the balls stay in the air!”
“E.T. is poorly Mummy..”
“Mummy.. He’s dead”
“He’s ALIVE!!”
“Daddy the bikes are FLYING!!”
My parents apologised to people sitting around us at the end of the film. Apparently the consensus was that I’d added to the entertainment
If it has a political motivation, it is also terrorism.
All terrorism can be defined as another crime. Terrorism is an extra layer of the motivation behind the crime, not a unique kind of crime in its own right.
Automation and efficiency, but people object to machines doing what people used to do.
Though we are going down that path. Which is not AI, it is just a continuation of automation that we have done and some have objected to since the age of the original Luddites.
This is the latest (and increasingly desperate) excuse for this travesty. That terrorism only exists as an aggravating factor - a lie because the CPS have discrete terrorism charges available to them.
The fact is that criminal damage and terrorism are two crimes of entirely different quality and severity. The implications for the rest of your life are profoundly different- it’s not just the length of the sentence.
And the government is using this perversion on only one particular type of politically motivated behaviour. Have any of the far-right protestors burning houses and injuring police officers been similarly sentenced on trumped up terrorism convictions? No.
Have none of the far right rioters been hit with that? The hat seems to fit.
He wins when he's in the best car or lucky
True greats like Senna, Verstappen could win in decent Cars.
Hamilton is the equivalent of a flat track bully.
Once a Blue nose always a Blue nose.
Income tax works because most people realistically can’t leave their country despite all the people who are forever claiming they’ll leave if someone they don’t like gets elected.
Robots like Capital are far more liquid than Labour.
Then there is the second problem; Circulation.
Most businesses can be more efficient using technology and AI, they can make a higher margin from their customers, but they still need customers.
If machines replace workers, workers stop being consumers and if consumers can’t consume factories automated or not can’t sell.
It’s the underlying problem with fewer and fewer people controlling more and more wealth and trickle down.
If what trickles down isn’t enough to water the plant the plant dies!
Peter.
Opinions tend to be conventional liberal centre-left, with a few exceptions.
NEW: Starmer will announce an ‘Australia plus’ teen social media ban on breakfast TV tomorrow
- Expected to include the same 10 apps as Aus: TikTok, YouTube, X, Instagram among them
- ‘Romantic’ chatbots banned
- 16 + 17 yr olds will have a curfew
https://x.com/KatieTarrant_/status/2066078139223048387
If he'd shown any sense of urgency over the last couple of years, he might not be about to lose his job.
I've taken a bite of Restore at under 5% at 5/1 too
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise...
I'm not going to, all will be relieved to hear, but I definitely could.
But they are all banned
And you keep it in this country by having an attractive workforce (ie highly skilled) and an attractive tax rate.
Fancy discussing it somewhere more private?
Apparently really dangerous for kids mental health from what I have heard.
The curfew is an interesting idea- one of the obvious visible harms of SM is keeping young people from the Land of Nod. But overall, this package leaves the politically difficult elephant (older adults driven mad by distorting slop filling their worldview) still in the room.
Can't move for all you not-centre-lefters.
It is literally insane simultaneously to think that 16 and 17 year olds are mature enough to vote but not mature enough to look at Instagram at 8:30pm. This is comically absurd.
https://x.com/WalkerMarcus/status/2066140536667283877
Not in Leicestershire, it seems.
They are just closing down a schools meals service, serving 20k pupils in 117 schools, which has been profitable to the tune of £100k in 2025/6. Cost to the Council to close it down: £360k. There are 800 staff, so that may be a little light.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr47r0xe9qro
This is the Reform council that has budgeted £1.2m of taxpayers' money for "cost cutting consultants", I can tell them how they could have saved £360k.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24w7e9knjo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fXkSyBKapc
Quite a few of the centre-right posters here are liberal centre-right. I would not say this site is biased to left, but I would say it is biased to liberal.
Your contradicting yourself.
You want to solve the problem with AI and Automation and then talk about an attractive workforce and tax rate.
AI and automation is what replaces the attractive workforce and even in combination there aren't enough of them working to create enough revenue. Equally if to keep them here you need low taxes then that doesn't raise enough revenue either.
That of course is before you even find the resources to train this attractive workforce and the investment needed to automate.
How do you sustain a service consumer economy if consumers can't afford to consume or buy services?
If the workforce shrinks even if skilled they won't genrate enough.
It's the "k" shaped recovery, you rely on the top one to be bigger than the bottom one so you have growth, the spending on the wealthy few compensates for the low spending of the majority. The problem is the few ultimately rely on the spending of the majority because they drive the service consumer economy.
The Agricultural revolution resulted in rural wage collapse and they didn't recover for almost fifty years. While people left the Country for the cities we still had a situation in the 1860-70 where their was food in London but near famine in places as close as Buckinghamshire, because people couldn't afford to eat.
I am not offering a magic solution, I don't think their is one, but a combination of ignoring the problem or pinning our hopes on a technological fix isn't going to help.
Using immigration, hopefully better managed than it has been, to increase the number of people of child bearing age is one solution that can work, but we also have to come up with a way of stopping too much wealth accumulating at the top so that the majority of the population have enough spending power to keep the show on the road.
Peter.
It was because I knew and liked the candidate, rather than it being a vote for LD policies, but still..
I’m so glad that I didn’t vote for Kruger
[Samantha Niblett] knows children are being exposed to explicit material online, often alone, often traumatically. She is right about the problem. But her "solution" is to expose them to it again, this time inside the classroom, with the state's blessing and the adult industry's branding.
We're a very sick society. I'm awfully glad I don't have children/grandchildren.
We have given our daughter (since 11, now 12) limited access to social media but under restrictions - including that she agrees we can see anything she posts or receives. She also has multiple time limits set via Google's Family Link parental controls app, such as that TikTok specifically we have set a daily time limit on - and her phone overall becomes disabled at 7:30pm at a school night and 9:30pm on weekends.
Though interestingly Family Link is aimed for kids under 13, I would not want to lose all those controls next year and give her blanket access when she has her next birthday. I think healthy parental controls (though would probably adjust the timings as she gets older) should be for under 18s.
We used to joke 30 years ago about "just one more turn" preventing sleep while playing Civilization etc, but the electronic situation today is on a whole another level so I do think sensible time limitations are a really good idea. Sleep is important.
Not everything gets automated. Some things do. Which means more output for fewer people, which boosts efficiency.
Same as has happened for hundreds of years.
McDonalds introducing self-service machines does not mean there are zero people working inside McDonalds. Quite the opposite if you look inside. Same with self-checkouts as supermarkets, they don't have zero staff either.
There is no reason why consumers can't afford to consume if they are well paid - and ensuring that people are in skilled, efficient jobs in a competitive labour market means they can be.
Immigration to boost population does not work as lump of labour is a fallacy.
Having a skilled population boosts efficiency, and immigration of highly skilled, valuable people can contribute to that which is great. Immigration of unskilled people as an alternative to investment does not boost anything.
As was highlighted earlier in the thread you can vote but apparently can’t cope with social media . Didn’t anyone in No 10 think of this part of the announcement?
I despair at the ineptitude of this government who just seem to always find a way to shoot themselves in both feet !
I genuinely wish English fans were more like the Scots - there for the party, no agro. But the reporting today has been mad.
Oh and I see Raducanu choked again.
Every example of LLM, so far, is that they create assistants that need management and guidance by humans who are expert in the area.
If memory serves, the modern-day US usage of "red" to denote "Republicans" and "blue" to denote "Democrats" derives from television coverage of the 2000 US Presidential election: they (or one channel) used those colours, and the fuss over the election resulted in this colour convention sticking.
Splotíla navéki velíkaya Dad!
Da zdrávstvuyet sózdannyy vóley naródov
Yedínyy, mogúchiy Centrism Centrists!
Not to mention a big building on the Thames where governments used to announce policies.
Surely kids will find ways of contacting each other in exactly the same ways; just through things that aren’t officially classified as “social media”?
She looked leggy in first set, then played some excellent tennis in 2nd set.
Had it gone to 3rd,opponent was running on fumes.
She just needs to stay fit, play matches talent there, guts there today.
Unfortunately media put undue pressure on her.
Give her a chance
30 odd bills in first parliamentary session, huge amount of legislation passed now in to next wave.
Not like last 2 years of Tories, doing feck all other than growing long grass to kick everything in to
I don’t think we Scots particularly care for all that reporting, or even listen to it. Still, balances out the profiles of David Beckham, the drama series Dear England, regular bulletins on the tat stolen from an England vehicle or episode 43 of 60 Years of Hurt from Baddiel. Endlessly fascinating to some I suppose,
Against that there's Chris, NigelB, Bondegezou, Kinabulu, Foxy, MexicanPete, Roger, "Peter", Dura, OnlyLivingBoy, OldKingCole, Murali_S, Tres, Eabhal, FF43, Brixian59, Jonathan, RochdalePioneers, Nico67, SandyRentool, DecrepiterJohnL, DougSeal etc. which is double your count for a start, and the posting rate is far higher.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm personally fond of many of those posters. But you can't argue that's what dominates the site.
Parents have to take more responsibility instead of expecting governments to do the job for them . The public seem to want a ban and it polls well but sadly I just don’t see it working .
24.
Haven’t you got one of the highest post counts out of all of them?
Samantha Niblett is from this area - she defeated Heather Wheeler in South Derbyshire - and I am not aware that she is especially controversial. She is open about her bisexuality.
The Citizen Go petition is here: https://citizengo.org/en-gb/fm/18013-say-no-to-labour-s--summer-of-sex-
Given that her current "continuing sex education" initiative is branded "summer of sex", it's a touch difficult to see how that involves exposing children to material "in the classroom" when schools are closed for 6-8 weeks in the summer, when what Niblett has achieved is a slot for a Parliamentary debate in the autumn.
Are Citizen Go exaggerating? Those "targeting classrooms" claims look unfounded. The involvement of Cindy Gallop, whatever it is, is interesting - I'd call her someone promoting consensual, and I think self-published, porn, which is a different model to the big sites.
I'm a little familiar with Citizen Go, as I have been in occasional contact with their current Director, Caroline Farrow, since about 2008 when we were two of the few political bloggers (she was "Catechesis of Caroline") who commented on religion, and I donated to her appeal when she received very heavy handed police attention at the instigation of a person from the trans lobby.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-47638527
The police later NFAd it.
Citizen Go cover similar ground to the Alliance Defending Freedom or Christian Concern, but from a background based in the Spanish Catholic Right, rather than in the morality focused US or UK conservative evangelical movement. Caroline is married to a former Anglican Vicar who "Swum the Tiber" to join the Roman Catholics, and is now in the Ordinariate iirc.
They have some fairly lurid petitions on their site:
https://citizengo.org/en-gb
And that's not apples and pears. My 12 were just this page this thread. You've done a general trawl. If I did that I'd be listing lots more.
No, the charge of big leftish bias just isn't correct. A charge of 'liberal' bias maybe has more going for it. Not sure though. I'd need to check my files.
@Donwillioni
About to watch the World Cup in the pub when a fella said to me ‘I bet you can’t name 3 Qatar players’
I replied - George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton
#worldcup
I'm delighted not to be pigeon-holed !
I won’t be seeing as many as normal due to the time difference but my resistance has indeed crumbled !
But that could be a deep and narrow tendency. Or tall and narrow, like the bloody great prongs he wants everywhere.
And tbh I do play Devil’s Advocate a lot because the right wingers on here are often completely deranged compared with those I actually know in person, who are variations on DavidL. My “real” persona is instinctively more on the right, particularly on economics.
I don't find the sort-of-justification given - we are closing it because they are leaving - very convincing; I'd think of it the other way around - more "they are leaving it because we are closing the service". Nor the stuff about "unsustainable profits". My assessment is more that they decided what they were going to do based on a snapshot, and did not consider the possibility that the financial situation could continue to recover after Covid.
That's my concern for Reform in places they control; they are making far too many damaging decisions without appropriate experience or thought. I'd make the same point about the closure of Adult Education Centres in Derbyshire. It is quite DOGE-y.
It's one for the people of Leicestershire to decide, whenever their next election happens.
I don't normally bother with T20, but it is England v Ireland.