Firstly, can I say sorry if I flagged you as spam, using a tablet which means that the icons are too small for my big fingers.
C more than a joke.
2 million jobs would say otherwise. GO never really practiced austerity. Spending £80 billion more than you take in in tax is not austerity, its profligacy. But at least he's hoping to reduce that profligacy.
You can't just pretend there was no inherited situation in 2010.
Firstly, can I say sorry if I flagged you as spam, using a tablet which means that the icons are too small for my big fingers.
Corbyn is being underestimated. He is a long term MP after all, which means that he knows of the levers of power, probably better than all of the government front bench put together.
He also seems to be better attuned to the attitude of the majority of the UK. Austerity has never worked, and the austerity as practiced by GO is no more than a joke.
2 million jobs would say otherwise. GO never really practiced austerity. Spending £80 billion more than you take in in tax is not austerity, its profligacy. But at least he's hoping to reduce that profligacy.
Austerity is the change from the starting point. From a day zero of May 2010 Osborne has changed things so that next year he takes £100bn more in taxes than he'll be spending - relative to what was inherited.
You can't just pretend there was no inherited situation in 2010.
Absolutely. The left need to get a grip, the shouts of cuts and impending doom havent worked because even now, the Government is spending far more, compared to recent history than what a government would normally spend on the public sector. He will truly be a master politician if he manages to get spending down to 35%. The 35% to 40% oscillation seems to be the optimum level of state spending, in which the necessary things that people want can be provided, but business and individuals are not strangled in taxation.
Firstly, can I say sorry if I flagged you as spam, using a tablet which means that the icons are too small for my big fingers.
Corbyn is being underestimated. He is a long term MP after all, which means that he knows of the levers of power, probably better than all of the government front bench put together.
He also seems to be better attuned to the attitude of the majority of the UK. Austerity has never worked, and the austerity as practiced by GO is no more than a joke.
2 million jobs would say otherwise. GO never really practiced austerity. Spending £80 billion more than you take in in tax is not austerity, its profligacy. But at least he's hoping to reduce that profligacy.
Austerity is the change from the starting point. From a day zero of May 2010 Osborne has changed things so that next year he takes £100bn more in taxes than he'll be spending - relative to what was inherited.
You can't just pretend there was no inherited situation in 2010.
So the UK government bailed out the (let's be honest here, criminal) banks and financial sectors, the Labour government nearly succeeds in recovery. DC and Go lie their way into a coalition and manage to waste 5 years in perpetuating a myth of Austerity?
If austerity is a myth, it is one all sides have participated in (hence making it even more unlikely to be a myth) - after all, if there has not been austerity, it cannot have been purely a Cameron and Osborne perpetuated myth, since Labour just spent five years telling us how hard the pair have been cutting services to the bone and then some with their cutting.
Which bone are you talking about? The ribs of the poor and impoverished or the spare ribs on the plate?
GO never really practiced austerity. Spending £80 billion more than you take in in tax is not austerity, its profligacy. But at least he's hoping to reduce that profligacy.
Some on here have been criticized by Tories for questioning the rate at which Osborne has reduced the deficit - that is to say the Tories think Osborne has been cutting as fast as he can without risking the economic recovery.
Personally I think Osborne could have gone further and earlier and it would probably have needed tax rises (though I guess there was an election and all that entails). But I'm confident that if things go wrong in the next few years, it will be because we haven't got rid of the deficit.
In theory that should leave Labour with nowhere to go as they have been, in my opinion, living in cloud cuckoo land with respect to the deficit. But then again the Tories weren't exactly shouting from the rooftops that Brown was spending too much and it didn't stop them from winning in 2010.
Interesting point, but they didn't win a majority, they had (as the SNP thought in 2007) tnthe plastic bendy cards of the LibDems to bail them out
Labour went in to the 2015 General Election knowing that they couldn't win a majority and seemed fairly unconcerned by this fact. I can't claim to have seen the Tories winning a majority, but there were a few things that were nagging away at me and one of them was that Labour, and Miliband in particular, seemed unconcerned by the rise of the SNP.
Firstly, can I say sorry if I flagged you as spam, using a tablet which means that the icons are too small for my big fingers.
Corbyn is being underestimated. He is a long term MP after all, which means that he knows of the levers of power, probably better than all of the government front bench put together.
He also seems to be better attuned to the attitude of the majority of the UK. Austerity has never worked, and the austerity as practiced by GO is no more than a joke.
2 million jobs would say otherwise. GO never really practiced austerity. Spending £80 billion more than you take in in tax is not austerity, its profligacy. But at least he's hoping to reduce that profligacy.
Austerity is the change from the starting point. From a day zero of May 2010 Osborne has changed things so that next year he takes £100bn more in taxes than he'll be spending - relative to what was inherited.
You can't just pretend there was no inherited situation in 2010.
So the UK government bailed out the (let's be honest here, criminal) banks and financial sectors, the Labour government nearly succeeds in recovery. DC and Go lie their way into a coalition and manage to waste 5 years in perpetuating a myth of Austerity?
If austerity is a myth, it is one all sides have participated in (hence making it even more unlikely to be a myth) - after all, if there has not been austerity, it cannot have been purely a Cameron and Osborne perpetuated myth, since Labour just spent five years telling us how hard the pair have been cutting services to the bone and then some with their cutting.
Which bone are you talking about? The ribs of the poor and impoverished or the spare ribs on the plate?
Not even through the skin of public sector largesse - the amount of waste is abominable, and the scope for further reduction in spending palpable. Well done GO.
GO never really practiced austerity. Spending £80 billion more than you take in in tax is not austerity, its profligacy. But at least he's hoping to reduce that profligacy.
Some on here have been criticized by Tories for questioning the rate at which Osborne has reduced the deficit - that is to say the Tories think Osborne has been cutting as fast as he can without risking the economic recovery.
Personally I think Osborne could have gone further and earlier and it would probably have needed tax rises (though I guess there was an election and all that entails). But I'm confident that if things go wrong in the next few years, it will be because we haven't got rid of the deficit.
In theory that should leave Labour with nowhere to go as they have been, in my opinion, living in cloud cuckoo land with respect to the deficit. But then again the Tories weren't exactly shouting from the rooftops that Brown was spending too much and it didn't stop them from winning in 2010.
Interesting point, but they didn't win a majority, they had (as the SNP thought in 2007) tnthe plastic bendy cards of the LibDems to bail them out
Labour went in to the 2015 General Election knowing that they couldn't win a majority and seemed fairly unconcerned by this fact. I can't claim to have seen the Tories winning a majority, but there were a few things that were nagging away at me and one of them was that Labour, and Miliband in particular, seemed unconcerned by the rise of the SNP.
No comment. Miliband didn't appreciate the danger of the SNP and was unconcerned with them. Too many wonkers in the Westminster Bubble around him.
GO never really practiced austerity. Spending £80 billion more than you take in in tax is not austerity, its profligacy. But at least he's hoping to reduce that profligacy.
Some on here have been criticized by Tories for questioning the rate at which Osborne has reduced the deficit - that is to say the Tories think Osborne has been cutting as fast as he can without risking the economic recovery.
Personally I think Osborne could have gone further and earlier and it would probably have needed tax rises (though I guess there was an election and all that entails). But I'm confident that if things go wrong in the next few years, it will be because we haven't got rid of the deficit.
In theory that should leave Labour with nowhere to go as they have been, in my opinion, living in cloud cuckoo land with respect to the deficit. But then again the Tories weren't exactly shouting from the rooftops that Brown was spending too much and it didn't stop them from winning in 2010.
Interesting point, but they didn't win a majority, they had (as the SNP thought in 2007) tnthe plastic bendy cards of the LibDems to bail them out
Labour went in to the 2015 General Election knowing that they couldn't win a majority and seemed fairly unconcerned by this fact. I can't claim to have seen the Tories winning a majority, but there were a few things that were nagging away at me and one of them was that Labour, and Miliband in particular, seemed unconcerned by the rise of the SNP.
No comment. Miliband didn't appreciate the danger of the SNP and was unconcerned with them. Too many wonkers in the Westminster Bubble around him.
As a last point for tonight, in 2007 the Labour party in Scotland had a large operation to launch in the election, but due to the the incorrect analysis, didn't pull the trigger. Cost too much.
I do wonder about this Corbyn business. Putting someone on a ballot when you don't want them to win isn't very clever.
Good piece by Mr. Antifrank.
In random news, I just got the digital soundtrack of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Perplexing. Plays on Windows Media Player, but for some reason the tracks aren't being added to All Music [shoved my favourite tracks onto their own playlist].
I do wonder about this Corbyn business. Putting someone on a ballot when you don't want them to win isn't very clever.
Good piece by Mr. Antifrank.
In random news, I just got the digital soundtrack of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Perplexing. Plays on Windows Media Player, but for some reason the tracks aren't being added to All Music [shoved my favourite tracks onto their own playlist].
I've written a piece for tomorrow saying why Labour should elect Corbyn
Firstly, can I say sorry if I flagged you as spam, using a tablet which means that the icons are too small for my big fingers.
Corbyn is being underestimated. He is a long term MP after all, which means that he knows of the levers of power, probably better than all of the government front bench put together.
He also seems to be better attuned to the attitude of the majority of the UK. Austerity has never worked, and the austerity as practiced by GO is no more than a joke.
2 million jobs would say otherwise. GO never really practiced austerity. Spending £80 billion more than you take in in tax is not austerity, its profligacy. But at least he's hoping to reduce that profligacy.
Austerity is the change from the starting point. From a day zero of May 2010 Osborne has changed things so that next year he takes £100bn more in taxes than he'll be spending - relative to what was inherited.
You can't just pretend there was no inherited situation in 2010.
So the UK government bailed out the (let's be honest here, criminal) banks and financial sectors, the Labour government nearly succeeds in recovery. DC and Go lie their way into a coalition and manage to waste 5 years in perpetuating a myth of Austerity?
No, no and no. Where do you get this ignorance from?
Labour screwed up with the banks and financial sectors. Both in changing the regulations (with New Labour's new regulations being the ones that failed) and in the bailouts which were totally irresponsible, not necessary and destroyed moral hazard. Blame Brown for that bailouts they were his dumb idea, should have let them fail like Lehman Brothers or the Icelandic banks and bail out the depositors as the regulations said should have happned.
The Labour government never succeeded in recovery. How can you claim that when they bequeathed the worst budget deficit in the entire OECD. Do you feel no self-respect at all?
They spent five years cutting the deficit while growing the economy, while constrained by coalition.
Antifrank's done another piece of great detective work here, I think the parties should be required to produce this sort of summary at the start of each new parliament.
Catching up on the earlier thread re the BBC, putting the BBC to one side, I think what's becoming very clear is that us SKY users all seem to be shelling out £50 - £100 a month. I can almost hear the phone call in 10 years time - "Were you a SKY subscriber in 2000 to 2025 ?"
I am surprised at the amounts people appear to be paying for Sky. I have Sky basic package plus Arts, Kids and.... another one I forget - so basically basic plus three extras which gives me just about every channel they have outside of Movies and Sport (The former I like tio buy the DVDs and the latter I am not interested in) I also have Sky Broadband.
The whole lot is £43 a month. A lot less than some people are saying they are paying.
I might have to do another piece, comparing to him Hannibal, Sunday Times have a piece saying Labour MPs are plotting to oust Corbyn were he to become leader.
Firstly, can I say sorry if I flagged you as spam, using a tablet which means that the icons are too small for my big fingers.
Corbyn is being underestimated. He is a long term MP after all, which means that he knows of the levers of power, probably better than all of the government front bench put together.
He also seems to be better attuned to the attitude of the majority of the UK. Austerity has never worked, and the austerity as practiced by GO is no more than a joke.
2 million jobs would say otherwise. GO never really practiced austerity. Spending £80 billion more than you take in in tax is not austerity, its profligacy. But at least he's hoping to reduce that profligacy.
Austerity is the change from the starting point. From a day zero of May 2010 Osborne has changed things so that next year he takes £100bn more in taxes than he'll be spending - relative to what was inherited.
You can't just pretend there was no inherited situation in 2010.
So the UK government bailed out the (let's be honest here, criminal) banks and financial sectors, the Labour government nearly succeeds in recovery. DC and Go lie their way into a coalition and manage to waste 5 years in perpetuating a myth of Austerity?
If austerity is a myth, it is one all sides have participated in (hence making it even more unlikely to be a myth) - after all, if there has not been austerity, it cannot have been purely a Cameron and Osborne perpetuated myth, since Labour just spent five years telling us how hard the pair have been cutting services to the bone and then some with their cutting.
Which bone are you talking about? The ribs of the poor and impoverished or the spare ribs on the plate?
Not even through the skin of public sector largesse - the amount of waste is abominable, and the scope for further reduction in spending palpable. Well done GO.
Oh well, I must admit stupidity gets it. Local government and the public sector is, believe it or not, (and I really do not give a proverbial one way or another) is extremely cost conscious. The departments get given a budget and for the most part restrain themselves with in it.
Then, again, you get idiots who come along and scrape the bones to get some extra nutrition out.
Mr. Eagles, being serious, if Corbyn became leader you could compare it to the surprise the Romans felt when they suddenly discovered 30-40,000 or so Carthaginians had crossed the Alps in winter. And brought some elephants with them.
George Osborne has done remarkably well in different circumstances but anyone who thinks that an economy that still needs to be boosted with £80bn of excess demand by government borrowing 7 years after the recession ended, needs interest rates at an historical low of 0.5% for more than 6 years now, has had the monetary stimulus of £270bn of QE and with all 3 of these accelerators nailed to the floor can achieve little more than trend growth is anything other than close to terminally sick is just completely deluded.
We have all forgotten just how extraordinary these times are. Things go on as normal. This is not normal. It is nothing like it. Nothing at all. Any one of these levers being ramped to maximum would cause serious distortions in the economy. With all 3 at max for record periods we are through the looking glass and have no idea of what is coming next. Inflation should be roaring by now. It is at zero. How weird is that? But we pretend it is normal.
Antifrank's done another piece of great detective work here, I think the parties should be required to produce this sort of summary at the start of each new parliament.
Catching up on the earlier thread re the BBC, putting the BBC to one side, I think what's becoming very clear is that us SKY users all seem to be shelling out £50 - £100 a month. I can almost hear the phone call in 10 years time - "Were you a SKY subscriber in 2000 to 2025 ?"
I am surprised at the amounts people appear to be paying for Sky. I have Sky basic package plus Arts, Kids and.... another one I forget - so basically basic plus three extras which gives me just about every channel they have outside of Movies and Sport (The former I like tio buy the DVDs and the latter I am not interested in) I also have Sky Broadband.
The whole lot is £43 a month. A lot less than some people are saying they are paying.
I think I'm paying £104 a month to Sky just for their channels.
3 Sky HD boxes dotted around the house, every channel including Sports, Movies, Liverpool FC channel (for £7 a month) and some Asian channels.
Firstly, can I say sorry if I flagged you as spam, using a tablet which means that the icons are too small for my big fingers.
Corbyn is being underestimated. He is a long term MP after all, which means that he knows of the levers of power, probably better than all of the government front bench put together.
He also seems to be better attuned to the attitude of the majority of the UK. Austerity has never worked, and the austerity as practiced by GO is no more than a joke.
2 million jobs would say otherwise. GO never really practiced austerity. Spending £80 billion more than you take in in tax is not austerity, its profligacy. But at least he's hoping to reduce that profligacy.
Austerity is the change from the starting point. From a day zero of May 2010 Osborne has changed things so that next year he takes £100bn more in taxes than he'll be spending - relative to what was inherited.
You can't just pretend there was no inherited situation in 2010.
So the UK government bailed out the (let's be honest here, criminal) banks and financial sectors, the Labour government nearly succeeds in recovery. DC and Go lie their way into a coalition and manage to waste 5 years in perpetuating a myth of Austerity?
If austerity is a myth, it is one all sides have participated in (hence making it even more unlikely to be a myth) - after all, if there has not been austerity, it cannot have been purely a Cameron and Osborne perpetuated myth, since Labour just spent five years telling us how hard the pair have been cutting services to the bone and then some with their cutting.
Which bone are you talking about? The ribs of the poor and impoverished or the spare ribs on the plate?
Hmm, I'm trained to expect nothing but bad news when it comes to Scottish independence - even the win last year has not led to an upside - so I'm assuming that with an unexpected Tory majority government, support for Independence has taken a commanding lead?
Oh well, I must admit stupidity gets it. Local government and the public sector is, believe it or not, (and I really do not give a proverbial one way or another) is extremely cost conscious. The departments get given a budget and for the most part restrain themselves with in it.
Then, again, you get idiots who come along and scrape the bones to get some extra nutrition out.
Here are a couple of earth-shattering thoughts for you:
- budgets could be too generous - functions operated by the local governments/public sector may be unnecessary
So, just to play along with your hilarious comments, even if institutions operated within budgets - which I know for a fact many do not - there could still be an awful amount of profligacy.
Mr. Eagles, being serious, if Corbyn became leader you could compare it to the surprise the Romans felt when they suddenly discovered 30-40,000 or so Carthaginians had crossed the Alps in winter. And brought some elephants with them.
Or I might compare it to the event that took place on the Ides of the March, 44 BC
Hmm, I'm trained to expect nothing but bad news when it comes to Scottish independence - even the win last year has not led to an upside - so I'm assuming that with an unexpected Tory majority government, support for Independence has taken a commanding lead?
Mr. Eagles, wouldn't Corbyn's election be more akin to the crossing of the Rubicon? Years of juicy civil war before Caesar's political career reached its peak, and then abruptly declined.
Mr. Eagles, wouldn't Corbyn's election be more akin to the crossing of the Rubicon? Years of juicy civil war before Caesar's political career reached its peak, and then abruptly declined.
Mr. Eagles, being serious, if Corbyn became leader you could compare it to the surprise the Romans felt when they suddenly discovered 30-40,000 or so Carthaginians had crossed the Alps in winter. And brought some elephants with them.
Which Jeremy would be more entertaining as leader of the Labour Party - Corbyn or Clarkson?
Firstly, can I say sorry if I flagged you as spam, using a tablet which means that the icons are too small for my big fingers.
Corbyn is being underestimated. He is a long term MP after all, which means that he knows of the levers of power, probably better than all of the government front bench put together.
He also seems to be better attuned to the attitude of the majority of the UK. Austerity has never worked, and the austerity as practiced by GO is no more than a joke.
2 million jobs would say otherwise. GO never really practiced austerity. Spending £80 billion more than you take in in tax is not austerity, its profligacy. But at least he's hoping to reduce that profligacy.
Austerity is the change from the starting point. From a day zero of May 2010 Osborne has changed things so that next year he takes £100bn more in taxes than he'll be spending - relative to what was inherited.
You can't just pretend there was no inherited situation in 2010.
So the UK government bailed out the (let's be honest here, criminal) banks and financial sectors, the Labour government nearly succeeds in recovery. DC and Go lie their way into a coalition and manage to waste 5 years in perpetuating a myth of Austerity?
No, no and no. Where do you get this ignorance from?
Labour screwed up with the banks and financial sectors. Both in changing the regulations (with New Labour's new regulations being the ones that failed) and in the bailouts which were totally irresponsible, not necessary and destroyed moral hazard. Blame Brown for that bailouts they were his dumb idea, should have let them fail like Lehman Brothers or the Icelandic banks and bail out the depositors as the regulations said should have happned.
The Labour government never succeeded in recovery. How can you claim that when they bequeathed the worst budget deficit in the entire OECD. Do you feel no self-respect at all?
They spent five years cutting the deficit while growing the economy, while constrained by coalition.
Criminals who are not in prison for their actions. Sorry, but what do you not get? If you or I went into a bank and stole a thousand pounds, we would go to prison for 10 years.
Mr. Eagles, being serious, if Corbyn became leader you could compare it to the surprise the Romans felt when they suddenly discovered 30-40,000 or so Carthaginians had crossed the Alps in winter. And brought some elephants with them.
Which Jeremy would be more entertaining as leader of the Labour Party - Corbyn or Clarkson?
Off topic - Ant-Man rocks, two extra scenes, one mid credits, one after all the credits.
Is the second one worth staying for?
On a purely superficial basis, it's good to see Evangeline Lilly getting prominent roles - I'm sure she'd said once she might 'quit' acting after Lost, and it's good that was nonsense talk, if it was reported correctly.
Some people are criticising the Marvel movies for being formulaic production line type creations. Which is probably true, but the formula has worked surprisingly well so far, which is fair enough.
Antifrank's done another piece of great detective work here, I think the parties should be required to produce this sort of summary at the start of each new parliament.
Catching up on the earlier thread re the BBC, putting the BBC to one side, I think what's becoming very clear is that us SKY users all seem to be shelling out £50 - £100 a month. I can almost hear the phone call in 10 years time - "Were you a SKY subscriber in 2000 to 2025 ?"
I am surprised at the amounts people appear to be paying for Sky. I have Sky basic package plus Arts, Kids and.... another one I forget - so basically basic plus three extras which gives me just about every channel they have outside of Movies and Sport (The former I like tio buy the DVDs and the latter I am not interested in) I also have Sky Broadband.
The whole lot is £43 a month. A lot less than some people are saying they are paying.
I pay a lot for Sky but then its multiple packages all in one. I have the full Sky TV pack (including Sports and Movies), plus phone, plus fibre broadband - plus unlimited phone calls including unlimited international phone calls (my in-laws live in Canada so my wife loves that part of the package, she calls her parents all the time).
It may be about £100 a month I pay but that's many packages all rolled into one. Not bought a DVD in years as the library of on-demand TV and movies for Sky now is fantastic, especially with fibre broadband. The quality of what I get I have no complaints about and am happy to keep paying.
Off topic - Ant-Man rocks, two extra scenes, one mid credits, one after all the credits.
Is the second one worth staying for?
On a purely superficial basis, it's good to see Evangeline Lilly getting prominent roles - I'm sure she'd said once she might 'quit' acting after Lost, and it's good that was nonsense talk, if it was reported correctly.
Yes, both scenes are worth staying for.
The second one sets up [Redacted], and you don't want to miss it.
That said, I'm not getting too carried away with this Corbyn talk. I'd guess the non-bonkers Labour chaps will just put their preferences in an order to maximise the prospects of someone who isn't a communist becoming leader.
On Sky packages, it took me 2 hours to get them to change my subscription to remove the movies package, on the basis that I never watched any of the movie channels. Two goddamn hours. They just kept offering me deals to keep it for a bit less than before. The weirdest part was where I said no, and the guy 'thanked' me for hearing out this wonderful offer I was refusing, at which point I simply had to ask if they were being sarcastic. They claimed not.
No, no and no. Where do you get this ignorance from?
Labour screwed up with the banks and financial sectors. Both in changing the regulations (with New Labour's new regulations being the ones that failed) and in the bailouts which were totally irresponsible, not necessary and destroyed moral hazard. Blame Brown for that bailouts they were his dumb idea, should have let them fail like Lehman Brothers or the Icelandic banks and bail out the depositors as the regulations said should have happned.
The Labour government never succeeded in recovery. How can you claim that when they bequeathed the worst budget deficit in the entire OECD. Do you feel no self-respect at all?
They spent five years cutting the deficit while growing the economy, while constrained by coalition.
Criminals who are not in prison for their actions. Sorry, but what do you not get? If you or I went into a bank and stole a thousand pounds, we would go to prison for 10 years.
These SOB's stole money by boosting the bonuses.
If they stole money prove it in the courts. Your Labour party were in office when all this happened.
We still have the concept of innocent until proven guilty as much as you may not care for it.
Businesses fail, its part of life. Just because Gordon Brown was too egotistical to want to let them fail on his watch and walking into the Commons proclaiming he'd "saved the world".
Firstly, can I say sorry if I flagged you as spam, using a tablet which means that the icons are too small for my big fingers.
Corbyn is being underestimated. He is a long term MP after all, which means that he knows of the levers of power, probably better than all of the government front bench put together.
He also seems to be better attuned to the attitude of the majority of the UK. Austerity has never worked, and the austerity as practiced by GO is no more than a joke.
2 million jobs would say otherwise. GO never really practiced austerity. Spending £80 billion more than you take in in tax is not austerity, its profligacy. But at least he's hoping to reduce that profligacy.
Austerity is the change from the starting point. From a day zero of May 2010 Osborne has changed things so that next year he takes £100bn more in taxes than he'll be spending - relative to what was inherited.
You can't just pretend there was no inherited situation in 2010.
So the UK government bailed out the (let's be honest here, criminal) banks and financial sectors, the Labour government nearly telling us how hard the pair have been cutting services to the bone and then some with their cutting.
Which bone are you talking about? The ribs of the poor and impoverished or the spare ribs on the plate?
Not even through the skin of public sector largesse - the amount of waste is abominable, and the scope for further reduction in spending palpable. Well done GO.
Oh well, I must admit stupidity gets it. Local government and the public sector is, believe it or not, (and I really do not give a proverbial one way or another) is extremely cost conscious. The departments get given a budget and for the most part restrain themselves with in it.
It would be better if public servants were incentivised to under-spend their budgets, rather than spending right up to the limit.
On Sky packages, it took me 2 hours to get them to change my subscription to remove the movies package, on the basis that I never watched any of the movie channels. Two goddamn hours. They just kept offering me deals to keep it for a bit less than before. The weirdest part was where I said no, and the guy 'thanked' me for hearing out this wonderful offer I was refusing, at which point I simply had to ask if they were being sarcastic. They claimed not.
You can change it online. Log onto your account and untick the movies package.
Someone made a comment the other day that Corbyn's views have been exaggerated somewhat, in that he is not as extreme a lefty as is being portrayed. Which is probably true, given the marvelous extremes of insane leftism (the discussions on the hatred between the CPGB-ML and Trotskyites, and other such tales in recent days have been delightful), and was also said of Ed M (and was true), while not helping in the least.
Mr. kle4, caught a bit of Question Time with him on it, immediately after the Tunisia attack. He referred to 'austerity' in his answer as to the causes of the atrocity.
Anyway, I am off for the night. One shudders to think what historical misunderstanding Mr. Eagles will inflict upon us all tomorrow.
On Sky packages, it took me 2 hours to get them to change my subscription to remove the movies package, on the basis that I never watched any of the movie channels. Two goddamn hours. They just kept offering me deals to keep it for a bit less than before. The weirdest part was where I said no, and the guy 'thanked' me for hearing out this wonderful offer I was refusing, at which point I simply had to ask if they were being sarcastic. They claimed not.
You can change it online. Log onto your account and untick the movies package.
Hmm, I'm trained to expect nothing but bad news when it comes to Scottish independence - even the win last year has not led to an upside - so I'm assuming that with an unexpected Tory majority government, support for Independence has taken a commanding lead?
Before the election I was confidently predicting Yes to poll 55% plus after the election (ie by the end of the year). The SNP winning seats will provide a virtuous circle boost in polling for their agenda, it always does (even if its not real). The Tory majority may exaggerate that further.
Unfortunately many scoffed at that at the time but none were willing to take me up on a bet. Oh well, I still expect it this year even if its not tomorrow.
Someone made a comment the other day that Corbyn's views have been exaggerated somewhat, in that he is not as extreme a lefty as is being portrayed. Which is probably true, given the marvelous extremes of insane leftism (the discussions on the hatred between the CPGB-ML and Trotskyites, and other such tales in recent days have been delightful), and was also said of Ed M (and was true), while not helping in the least.
Somebody needs to tell Mr Corbyn that he's not so extreme left-wing then. He didn't seem to realise that when on QT.
Someone made a comment the other day that Corbyn's views have been exaggerated somewhat, in that he is not as extreme a lefty as is being portrayed. Which is probably true, given the marvelous extremes of insane leftism (the discussions on the hatred between the CPGB-ML and Trotskyites, and other such tales in recent days have been delightful), and was also said of Ed M (and was true), while not helping in the least.
Somebody needs to tell Mr Corbyn that he's not so extreme left-wing then. He didn't seem to realise that when on QT.
To the loony left/right even people like Corbyn are not true left/right, even if they think they are. It's great.
Someone made a comment the other day that Corbyn's views have been exaggerated somewhat, in that he is not as extreme a lefty as is being portrayed. Which is probably true, given the marvelous extremes of insane leftism (the discussions on the hatred between the CPGB-ML and Trotskyites, and other such tales in recent days have been delightful), and was also said of Ed M (and was true), while not helping in the least.
Somebody needs to tell Mr Corbyn that he's not so extreme left-wing then. He didn't seem to realise that when on QT.
To the loony left/right even people like Corbyn are not true left/right, even if they think they are. It's great.
It makes an interesting contrast to the idea that self-identification to a group is what matters.
Mr. Eagles, being serious, if Corbyn became leader you could compare it to the surprise the Romans felt when they suddenly discovered 30-40,000 or so Carthaginians had crossed the Alps in winter. And brought some elephants with them.
Which Jeremy would be more entertaining as leader of the Labour Party - Corbyn or Clarkson?
Antifrank's done another piece of great detective work here, I think the parties should be required to produce this sort of summary at the start of each new parliament.
Catching up on the earlier thread re the BBC, putting the BBC to one side, I think what's becoming very clear is that us SKY users all seem to be shelling out £50 - £100 a month. I can almost hear the phone call in 10 years time - "Were you a SKY subscriber in 2000 to 2025 ?"
I am surprised at the amounts people appear to be paying for Sky. I have Sky basic package plus Arts, Kids and.... another one I forget - so basically basic plus three extras which gives me just about every channel they have outside of Movies and Sport (The former I like tio buy the DVDs and the latter I am not interested in) I also have Sky Broadband.
The whole lot is £43 a month. A lot less than some people are saying they are paying.
I agree - I have pretty much every package I could want, including Movies, and it costs me £47.50 per month. And I still think it's too high, so it's next on my list to squeeze. After all, austerity is a mindset...
Perhaps the higher amounts include phone and broadband?
Panelbase polled 1,002 voters in Scotland and 956 voters in the rest of the UK from June 26 to July 3 - they found
51% of English voters would vote to leave the EU
66% of Scots would vote to remain in the EU
Further evidence of a difference in attitudes to EU membership is seen in the poll’s finding that 42% of Scots believe the UK’s interests are better served by a closer relationship to Europe than to America (12%). In the rest of Britain the figures are 36% and 18% respectively, indicating greater support for a more transatlantic relationship.
George Osborne has done remarkably well in different circumstances but anyone who thinks that an economy that still needs to be boosted with £80bn of excess demand by government borrowing 7 years after the recession ended, needs interest rates at an historical low of 0.5% for more than 6 years now, has had the monetary stimulus of £270bn of QE and with all 3 of these accelerators nailed to the floor can achieve little more than trend growth is anything other than close to terminally sick is just completely deluded.
We have all forgotten just how extraordinary these times are. Things go on as normal. This is not normal. It is nothing like it. Nothing at all. Any one of these levers being ramped to maximum would cause serious distortions in the economy. With all 3 at max for record periods we are through the looking glass and have no idea of what is coming next. Inflation should be roaring by now. It is at zero. How weird is that? But we pretend it is normal.
What a load of utter rubbish. Procurement, service delivery and internal management structures are often appalling in the public sector. A local authority i know has lost a 1/3 of its budget (more was lost to low investment income from interest, than from government reducing grants). The services it delivers to the public is no worse now than it was five years ago, yet it is doing it on a lot less.
Just watched Dont Blame the Council. They had decided to go into the private sector and hunt for business. They got asked to do a cleanup in a backyard of a cafe where someone had done some "human fouling", a job that is nothing to do with the council, but they are looking for business.
The job involved four men, two vans, a supervisor and a pressure jet wash over thirty minutes (not including the time to get there).
He charged the business £15. Yes, £15. The real price of that job would have been about £300 in costs on that level of manning.
Of course a one man band would have done it for about £100, but if he needed a gang of lads and two vans you would have been looking at £500. You cant just go and soak up all the private sector work by undercutting because you are charging the marginal costs for the job, not the real costs.
They had no idea, he seemed to think that this £15 was going into the pot to help the council's finances. Absolutely no idea.
Mr. Eagles, wouldn't Corbyn's election be more akin to the crossing of the Rubicon? Years of juicy civil war before Caesar's political career reached its peak, and then abruptly declined.
Abrupt decline in electability?
Well, that's one way of describing the Ides of March, I suppose!
I'm confused - the top line says 'proof' was found, but then it poses the Hitler monkey thing as a question in the next line. Come on, Sunday Sport, consistency please.
I'm confused - the top line says 'proof' was found, but then it poses the Hitler monkey thing as a question in the next line. Come on, Sunday Sport, consistency please.
Good night all
No: you are quite wrong.
There's *proof* it was a Nazi mission...the question is whether it was Hitler...?
After all, the Americans assassinated him in 1937 and replaced him with a simulacrum personally controlled by FDR.
No, no and no. Where do you get this ignorance from?
Labour screwed up with the banks and financial sectors. Both in changing the regulations (with New Labour's new regulations being the ones that failed) and in the bailouts which were totally irresponsible, not necessary and destroyed moral hazard. Blame Brown for that bailouts they were his dumb idea, should have let them fail like Lehman Brothers or the Icelandic banks and bail out the depositors as the regulations said should have happned.
The Labour government never succeeded in recovery. How can you claim that when they bequeathed the worst budget deficit in the entire OECD. Do you feel no self-respect at all?
They spent five years cutting the deficit while growing the economy, while constrained by coalition.
Criminals who are not in prison for their actions. Sorry, but what do you not get? If you or I went into a bank and stole a thousand pounds, we would go to prison for 10 years.
These SOB's stole money by boosting the bonuses.
If they stole money prove it in the courts. Your Labour party were in office when all this happened.
We still have the concept of innocent until proven guilty as much as you may not care for it.
Businesses fail, its part of life. Just because Gordon Brown was too egotistical to want to let them fail on his watch and walking into the Commons proclaiming he'd "saved the world".
Agreed, it would be interesting to see what would happen in court, if there was even an outside chance of it happening. How ever, it seems that the system is covering up the guilty and letting the innocent pay the price.
GO never really practiced austerity. Spending £80 billion more than you take in in tax is not austerity, its profligacy. But at least he's hoping to reduce that profligacy.
snip
Personally I think Osborne could have gone further and earlier and it would probably have needed tax rises (though I guess there was an election and all that entails). But I'm confident that if things go wrong in the next few years, it will be because we haven't got rid of the deficit.
snip
There was a LD chief secretary and Deputy PM. Lets not forget that there were tax rises - VAT. I look at that as the price we all pay for the collapse of the casino banking tax base. The deficit is one thing - and it has 2 components, cyclical and structural. The structural part turned out to be bigger than expected and Osborne did not speed up cuts to fill the gap, he chose to take longer. The structural deficit is the reason for spending cuts. We can never fill the structural deficit with taxes or growth - its spending beyond the trend capability of the economy to pay for. The govt has just announced 17bn of cuts and is programmed to announce another 20bn in November. £37bn - its a lot of money and the difficulties of cutting it should highlight the folly of bequeathing a deficit of £160bn...
The other thing - is continuing after this; making a success of smaller government, learning to live within our means.
No, no and no. Where do you get this ignorance from?
Labour screwed up with the banks and financial sectors. Both in changing the regulations (with New Labour's new regulations being the ones that failed) and in the bailouts which were totally irresponsible, not necessary and destroyed moral hazard. Blame Brown for that bailouts they were his dumb idea, should have let them fail like Lehman Brothers or the Icelandic banks and bail out the depositors as the regulations said should have happned.
The Labour government never succeeded in recovery. How can you claim that when they bequeathed the worst budget deficit in the entire OECD. Do you feel no self-respect at all?
They spent five years cutting the deficit while growing the economy, while constrained by coalition.
Criminals who are not in prison for their actions. Sorry, but what do you not get? If you or I went into a bank and stole a thousand pounds, we would go to prison for 10 years.
These SOB's stole money by boosting the bonuses.
If they stole money prove it in the courts. Your Labour party were in office when all this happened.
We still have the concept of innocent until proven guilty as much as you may not care for it.
Businesses fail, its part of life. Just because Gordon Brown was too egotistical to want to let them fail on his watch and walking into the Commons proclaiming he'd "saved the world". blockquote>
Oh, pardon me for correcting the perfect, I am not a member of the Labour party, LibDems, SNP or the Conservative party. I just take pleasure in annoying the 1‰
Is Nighthawks going to return to PB at some point?
Not in the short term.
That's a great shame. It's very easy to go straight to the comments and skip over anything from Don Brind or that references the LibDems - but Nighthawks was always unmissable thread header reading.
Two of the most well-known LD posters on the VoteUK forum have left the national party over Tim Farron's election as leader.
Please name them. Otherwise I fear that I will not be able to sleep tonight.
I don't they will be the last to leave - a liberal party leader who didn't vote for marriage equality and pushes his Christianity is not going to be universally popular with real Liberals
Is Nighthawks going to return to PB at some point?
Not in the short term.
That's a great shame. It's very easy to go straight to the comments and skip over anything from Don Brind or that references the LibDems - but Nighthawks was always unmissable thread header reading.
It was fun doing it, also gave me an opportunity to increase PBers knowledge of history.
Sadly, my work/life balance isn't conducive to doing nighthawks on a regular basis at the moment.
Plus, nighthawks hasn't been a regular since last summer anyway, 'cause of the Indyref, then the conference season, then the election campaign.
George Osborne has done remarkably well in different circumstances but anyone who thinks that an economy that still needs to be boosted with £80bn of excess demand by government borrowing 7 years after the recession ended, needs interest rates at an historical low of 0.5% for more than 6 years now, has had the monetary stimulus of £270bn of QE and with all 3 of these accelerators nailed to the floor can achieve little more than trend growth is anything other than close to terminally sick is just completely deluded.
We have all forgotten just how extraordinary these times are. Things go on as normal. This is not normal. It is nothing like it. Nothing at all. Any one of these levers being ramped to maximum would cause serious distortions in the economy. With all 3 at max for record periods we are through the looking glass and have no idea of what is coming next. Inflation should be roaring by now. It is at zero. How weird is that? But we pretend it is normal.
Its not so much simply that we're terminally sick (though we were left in a very perilous position on a cliff edge) as that we're swimming against a very counter-productive tide.
If the whole global economy is booming then even some mistakes by us mean we can float along enjoying the current. With the whole eurozone (our major trading market) mired in contraction for so long we're having to swim against the tide. (Edit - and this is without getting into the dangers of China slowing down, America's troubles, Japan etc)
For another metaphor we're currently essentially trying to run up on a downwards escalator. Yes we're giving it everything we've got to grow normally but if we weren't we'd have been carried down or at best staying still.
There've been spates of stories about this since 2002 when schools were told to have a "zero tolerance" policy as part of No Child Left Behind. It wasn't just black children, I remember a FIVE year old boy arrested for sexual abuse because he'd kissed a classmate.
Zero tolerance should not mean Police arrest children for being children.
I've managed to combine two of PB's favourite topics for the morning thread.
Scottish Independence and the In/Out EU referendum.
Should be a humdinger.
May be in an age of austerity they should save money by combining the referendum?
(A) Should the UK leave the EU and Scotland leave the UK?
Would be popular... You could even use AV to determine the result...
This one's tricky because they're connected, maybe inversely, eg UK wants to leave the EU Scotland doesn't want to leave the UK
But If Scotland leaves the UK the UK doesn't want to leave the EU (UK is smaller and has a big EU land border) And If the UK leaves the EU Scotland wants to leave the UK
Mr. Eagles, being serious, if Corbyn became leader you could compare it to the surprise the Romans felt when they suddenly discovered 30-40,000 or so Carthaginians had crossed the Alps in winter. And brought some elephants with them.
Which Jeremy would be more entertaining as leader of the Labour Party - Corbyn or Clarkson?
(for entertaining, read disastrous....)
Jeremy Paxman
How about the following leaders? :
Conservative: Jeremy Clarkson Labour: Jeremy Corbyn Liberal Democrats: Jeremy Paxman Green: Jeremy Vine UKIP: Jeremy Bamber
Comments
https://twitter.com/SundayTimesScot/status/622503265406701568
I do wonder about this Corbyn business. Putting someone on a ballot when you don't want them to win isn't very clever.
Good piece by Mr. Antifrank.
In random news, I just got the digital soundtrack of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Perplexing. Plays on Windows Media Player, but for some reason the tracks aren't being added to All Music [shoved my favourite tracks onto their own playlist].
Labour screwed up with the banks and financial sectors. Both in changing the regulations (with New Labour's new regulations being the ones that failed) and in the bailouts which were totally irresponsible, not necessary and destroyed moral hazard. Blame Brown for that bailouts they were his dumb idea, should have let them fail like Lehman Brothers or the Icelandic banks and bail out the depositors as the regulations said should have happned.
The Labour government never succeeded in recovery. How can you claim that when they bequeathed the worst budget deficit in the entire OECD. Do you feel no self-respect at all?
They spent five years cutting the deficit while growing the economy, while constrained by coalition.
The whole lot is £43 a month. A lot less than some people are saying they are paying.
Edit: The Indy have the story too
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CKOT-HHWsAArlVQ.jpg
Then, again, you get idiots who come along and scrape the bones to get some extra nutrition out.
We have all forgotten just how extraordinary these times are. Things go on as normal. This is not normal. It is nothing like it. Nothing at all. Any one of these levers being ramped to maximum would cause serious distortions in the economy. With all 3 at max for record periods we are through the looking glass and have no idea of what is coming next. Inflation should be roaring by now. It is at zero. How weird is that? But we pretend it is normal.
3 Sky HD boxes dotted around the house, every channel including Sports, Movies, Liverpool FC channel (for £7 a month) and some Asian channels.
I consider it a bargain.
- budgets could be too generous
- functions operated by the local governments/public sector may be unnecessary
So, just to play along with your hilarious comments, even if institutions operated within budgets - which I know for a fact many do not - there could still be an awful amount of profligacy.
(for entertaining, read disastrous....)
These SOB's stole money by boosting the bonuses.
Off topic - Ant-Man rocks, two extra scenes, one mid credits, one after all the credits.
On a purely superficial basis, it's good to see Evangeline Lilly getting prominent roles - I'm sure she'd said once she might 'quit' acting after Lost, and it's good that was nonsense talk, if it was reported correctly.
Some people are criticising the Marvel movies for being formulaic production line type creations. Which is probably true, but the formula has worked surprisingly well so far, which is fair enough.
It may be about £100 a month I pay but that's many packages all rolled into one. Not bought a DVD in years as the library of on-demand TV and movies for Sky now is fantastic, especially with fibre broadband. The quality of what I get I have no complaints about and am happy to keep paying.
The second one sets up [Redacted], and you don't want to miss it.
That said, I'm not getting too carried away with this Corbyn talk. I'd guess the non-bonkers Labour chaps will just put their preferences in an order to maximise the prospects of someone who isn't a communist becoming leader.
We still have the concept of innocent until proven guilty as much as you may not care for it.
Businesses fail, its part of life. Just because Gordon Brown was too egotistical to want to let them fail on his watch and walking into the Commons proclaiming he'd "saved the world".
Anyway, I am off for the night. One shudders to think what historical misunderstanding Mr. Eagles will inflict upon us all tomorrow.
Unfortunately many scoffed at that at the time but none were willing to take me up on a bet. Oh well, I still expect it this year even if its not tomorrow.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul 8m8 minutes ago
Good survey of new intake of Conservative MPs http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2015/07/18/antifrank-hanging-tough-the-conservative-intake-of-2015/ … (But Craig Mackinlay, Thanet S, was *deputy* UKIP leader '97)
Constituency - SNP 53% Lab 22% Cons 15%, LD 5%, Greens 2% UKIP 2%
List - SNP 48% Lab 21%, Con 15%, Greens 6%, LD 5%, UKIP 2%
Fieldwork 26/6 to 3/7
SNP 73 (+4) Lab 27 (-10) Con 18 (+3) Greens 5 (+2) LD 6 (+1)
Perhaps the higher amounts include phone and broadband?
51% of English voters would vote to leave the EU
66% of Scots would vote to remain in the EU
Further evidence of a difference in attitudes to EU membership is seen in the poll’s finding that 42% of Scots believe the UK’s interests are better served by a closer relationship to Europe than to America (12%). In the rest of Britain the figures are 36% and 18% respectively, indicating greater support for a more transatlantic relationship.
*Consumer price* inflation is zero.
*Asset price* inflation is roaring away
What a load of utter rubbish. Procurement, service delivery and internal management structures are often appalling in the public sector. A local authority i know has lost a 1/3 of its budget (more was lost to low investment income from interest, than from government reducing grants). The services it delivers to the public is no worse now than it was five years ago, yet it is doing it on a lot less.
Just watched Dont Blame the Council. They had decided to go into the private sector and hunt for business. They got asked to do a cleanup in a backyard of a cafe where someone had done some "human fouling", a job that is nothing to do with the council, but they are looking for business.
The job involved four men, two vans, a supervisor and a pressure jet wash over thirty minutes (not including the time to get there).
He charged the business £15. Yes, £15. The real price of that job would have been about £300 in costs on that level of manning.
Of course a one man band would have done it for about £100, but if he needed a gang of lads and two vans you would have been looking at £500. You cant just go and soak up all the private sector work by undercutting because you are charging the marginal costs for the job, not the real costs.
They had no idea, he seemed to think that this £15 was going into the pot to help the council's finances. Absolutely no idea.
Well, that's one way of describing the Ides of March, I suppose!
Good night all
Thankyou Mock the Week...
There's *proof* it was a Nazi mission...the question is whether it was Hitler...?
After all, the Americans assassinated him in 1937 and replaced him with a simulacrum personally controlled by FDR.
(edited to add time & poster as I forgot to use quote.
The deficit is one thing - and it has 2 components, cyclical and structural. The structural part turned out to be bigger than expected and Osborne did not speed up cuts to fill the gap, he chose to take longer.
The structural deficit is the reason for spending cuts. We can never fill the structural deficit with taxes or growth - its spending beyond the trend capability of the economy to pay for. The govt has just announced 17bn of cuts and is programmed to announce another 20bn in November. £37bn - its a lot of money and the difficulties of cutting it should highlight the folly of bequeathing a deficit of £160bn...
The other thing - is continuing after this; making a success of smaller government, learning to live within our means.
I've managed to combine two of PB's favourite topics for the morning thread.
Scottish Independence and the In/Out EU referendum.
Should be a humdinger.
Sadly, my work/life balance isn't conducive to doing nighthawks on a regular basis at the moment.
Plus, nighthawks hasn't been a regular since last summer anyway, 'cause of the Indyref, then the conference season, then the election campaign.
If the whole global economy is booming then even some mistakes by us mean we can float along enjoying the current. With the whole eurozone (our major trading market) mired in contraction for so long we're having to swim against the tide. (Edit - and this is without getting into the dangers of China slowing down, America's troubles, Japan etc)
For another metaphor we're currently essentially trying to run up on a downwards escalator. Yes we're giving it everything we've got to grow normally but if we weren't we'd have been carried down or at best staying still.
http://www.cbs46.com/story/17621353/six-year-old-arrested-at-school-for-tempertantrum-speaks-out
Zero tolerance should not mean Police arrest children for being children.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33578949
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/17/don-quixote-airport-building-cost-1bn-sold-china-10000
(A) Should the UK leave the EU and Scotland leave the UK?
Would be popular... You could even use AV to determine the result...
Que?
The morning thread.
I've managed to combine two of PB's favourite topics for the morning thread.
Scottish Independence and the In/Out EU referendum.
Should be a humdinger.
May be in an age of austerity they should save money by combining the referendum?
(A) Should the UK leave the EU and Scotland leave the UK?
Would be popular... You could even use AV to determine the result...
I've gone much better than that, I call both the Nats and Kippers, Nazis in the morning thread.
Muzzies are the new Nazis shirley?
UK wants to leave the EU
Scotland doesn't want to leave the UK
But
If Scotland leaves the UK the UK doesn't want to leave the EU (UK is smaller and has a big EU land border)
And
If the UK leaves the EU Scotland wants to leave the UK
Conservative: Jeremy Clarkson
Labour: Jeremy Corbyn
Liberal Democrats: Jeremy Paxman
Green: Jeremy Vine
UKIP: Jeremy Bamber