No job security? We cannot employ people, we are desperate to give job security but we get no applications for our vacancies. Reading the posts on here you would think that Boys from the Blackstuff could be a reflection of current Britain. I was looking for a job in the early 1980s. There were none. Now there are 1000s of vacancies and not just in minimum wage zero hours contracts. We have had a vacancy for a mechanical estimator paying £22 per hour for a year.
Silly question is £22 an hour the actual market rate and are you using appropriate agencies to pro-actively find candidates are hoping suitable candidates find the advert on your website.
Before long we'll have to accept that public sector workers don't pay tax. They receive money from the Treasury but none is returned, all contributions come from private industry.
Mr Evershed talks about unfunded state pensions, its one big ponzi scheme and we all know what happens to them. It looks likely that Mrs May will be holding the parcel when the music stops, it will start when property downturns.
You do talk some twaddle mate!
I'm happy for you reply.
Tell me what the income tax take would be if everybody worked in the public sector.
Firstly, I'd never advocate running the country where everyone worked in the public sector (aka communism) but it clearly could be done and would still generate government funds through taxation, but mostly through the profits of production (which the government would necessarily control in such a situation.) In such a situation, income tax take could be as high or low as the government decided.
Well you've dodged the question which makes my point. As has been pointed out state and public sector pensions are massively underfunded, it has to be accepted that cannot go on indefinitely.
And of course I'm happy for you to give me an example of where govt controlled production has led to prosperity.
Ah now, here's a point we agree on... the massively underfunded pensions cannot go on indefinitely. As a country we need to pay for public services - tax the rich (includes me luckily) a bit more!
Yes tax the rich why didn't we think of that before
No job security? We cannot employ people, we are desperate to give job security but we get no applications for our vacancies. Reading the posts on here you would think that Boys from the Blackstuff could be a reflection of current Britain. I was looking for a job in the early 1980s. There were none. Now there are 1000s of vacancies and not just in minimum wage zero hours contracts. We have had a vacancy for a mechanical estimator paying £22 per hour for a year.
For a year? What happens after that?
We use a 73 year old retired estimator as a sub contractor and have to pay him £25 per hour. He turns down work from other companies on a daily basis.
And you have spectacularly missed the point. Again.
At the meeting where they decided to paint a giant lie on the side of a bus and promote it every day for a month, the number on the lie is not the issue
Had this been a campaign using the rules that advertisers have to follow the reason the bus ad couldn't have run was not just the number on the side of the bus (which as Izzy says made little difference) but they would have had to paint a disclaimer in similar size type that the costs of trading elsewhere were likely to be at least as much as the amount saved.
No job security? We cannot employ people, we are desperate to give job security but we get no applications for our vacancies. Reading the posts on here you would think that Boys from the Blackstuff could be a reflection of current Britain. I was looking for a job in the early 1980s. There were none. Now there are 1000s of vacancies and not just in minimum wage zero hours contracts. We have had a vacancy for a mechanical estimator paying £22 per hour for a year.
For a year? What happens after that?
We use a 73 year old retired estimator as a sub contractor and have to pay him £25 per hour. He turns down work from other companies on a daily basis.
So the skills just aren't available. Your best bet is to find a suitable candidate and train them up....
The actual issue you have revealed there is the typical UK one that companies aren't willing to train people and pay them properly once trained...
No doubt this afternoon Don and Macron will be doing "business"...
I find it astonishing the Donald gave a big interview to a religious channel before his departure. Says it all about the God bothering States really. What a sorry state of affairs that the 'free' world is led by these baboons.
No job security? We cannot employ people, we are desperate to give job security but we get no applications for our vacancies. Reading the posts on here you would think that Boys from the Blackstuff could be a reflection of current Britain. I was looking for a job in the early 1980s. There were none. Now there are 1000s of vacancies and not just in minimum wage zero hours contracts. We have had a vacancy for a mechanical estimator paying £22 per hour for a year.
Silly question is £22 an hour the actual market rate and are you using appropriate agencies to pro-actively find candidates are hoping suitable candidates find the advert on your website.
There are no candidates. One of the failures of the current University system is that people no longer take engineering. They go for an easier degrees which is then no help in finding work. My recommendation for a highly paid secure career is to take engineering at UNI.
No job security? We cannot employ people, we are desperate to give job security but we get no applications for our vacancies. Reading the posts on here you would think that Boys from the Blackstuff could be a reflection of current Britain. I was looking for a job in the early 1980s. There were none. Now there are 1000s of vacancies and not just in minimum wage zero hours contracts. We have had a vacancy for a mechanical estimator paying £22 per hour for a year.
For a year? What happens after that?
We use a 73 year old retired estimator as a sub contractor and have to pay him £25 per hour. He turns down work from other companies on a daily basis.
So the skills just aren't available. Your best bet is to find a suitable candidate and train them up....
The actual issue you have revealed there is the typical UK one that companies aren't willing to train people and pay them properly once trained...
There was no train station in the 1970s , although the train from eastleigh airport ( 6 minute drive by car) now called Southampton Parkway took the same time as today. There are hundreds of small towns like Hedge End around the country where normal people live and work quite happily and maintain a very good standard of living, especially compared to the 1970s and 80s. There is just too much doom and gloom written on this site which is not relective of vast swathes of the UK.
Yes, no argument we are healthier and have more things (gadgets, appliances and conveniences) than the 1970s. We are richer too at least in those terms.
I would argue that if you have adequate financial provision and your health, it's a grand time to be alive and no serious person would gainsay that but I suspect many of us feel a nagging sense that too many people don't have that security or health and for them life is difficult.
It's not "doom and gloom" to point out the problems in society and argue about the best possible solutions - indeed, I'd argue it's a sign of a healthy and balanced society that we consider these issues.
There were homeless people in the 1970s, there are homeless people now. It's not to ignore progress to say people live better now than they did 40 years ago but it's not wrong to discuss housing and ask why there are homeless people and what we can do to help.
You are right to argue one-sided pessimism is foolish, so also is one-sided optimism.
No job security? We cannot employ people, we are desperate to give job security but we get no applications for our vacancies. Reading the posts on here you would think that Boys from the Blackstuff could be a reflection of current Britain. I was looking for a job in the early 1980s. There were none. Now there are 1000s of vacancies and not just in minimum wage zero hours contracts. We have had a vacancy for a mechanical estimator paying £22 per hour for a year.
For a year? What happens after that?
We use a 73 year old retired estimator as a sub contractor and have to pay him £25 per hour. He turns down work from other companies on a daily basis.
So the skills just aren't available. Your best bet is to find a suitable candidate and train them up....
The actual issue you have revealed there is the typical UK one that companies aren't willing to train people and pay them properly once trained...
We currently have 12 apprentices. At 21 if they pass an electrcian or plumber will earn £42,000 per year. Unbelieveably we struggle to employ apprentices because of this mad rule that they have to say in training or eduction till 18. 10 years ago we would have had 200 applications for an apprenticeship , this year we have had 3. Schools persuade them to stay on between 16-18 and do a geography A-Level rather than become a trade apprentice.
No job security? We cannot employ people, we are desperate to give job security but we get no applications for our vacancies. Reading the posts on here you would think that Boys from the Blackstuff could be a reflection of current Britain. I was looking for a job in the early 1980s. There were none. Now there are 1000s of vacancies and not just in minimum wage zero hours contracts. We have had a vacancy for a mechanical estimator paying £22 per hour for a year.
Silly question is £22 an hour the actual market rate and are you using appropriate agencies to pro-actively find candidates are hoping suitable candidates find the advert on your website.
There are no candidates. One of the failures of the current University system is that people no longer take engineering. They go for an easier degrees which is then no help in finding work. My recommendation for a highly paid secure career is to take engineering at UNI.
But if the contract is only for a year you're looking at, what, £40k? Not enough to build a reserve against the need for searching again after a year, not long enough to tempt anyone into the area from outside. It's the in and out nature of employment that's making it harder to find employment or retain employees.
How anyone can think that this Country is going through Austerity is beyond me. As a child of the 1970s we had nothing, our playground was wasteland of which there was vast swathes. (Just look at the playgrounds in parks today) Our textbooks at school had been used by previous generations. We had regular power cuts. There was no money for anything and we had no sense of entitlement. This Country has been through a revolution. Go to any City Centre and look at the huge amounts of money that have and continue to be spent in regenration. We have record employment and very low unemployment. The economy is booming. If you just read this site you would think we were in Greece's position and had 10 million unemployed.
Economic growth = only benefits the rich, and exacerbates inequality.
To say that economic growth only benefits the rich is nonsense. I agree that house prices have gone up to much, but whose fault is that? In terms of normal living costs, there have been huge falls in costs compared to 1997. Look at food, clothing, electrical products etc. Unfortunately as a nation we are obseesed with housing and dont seem to mind paying a hugh percentage of our income on it. I dont think you can blame politicians for that...
You absolutely can blame politicians for the dismal rate of housebuilding over the last two decades.
Yup, they could repeal the planning laws and the problem would solve itself in about 2 years.
I don't think I'd go quite so far as that...
That said, the chronic undersupply of housing is surely a strategic national priority at least as great as (say) the need to go ahead with HS2 - and we appear quite happy to ride over planning restrictions, and find the money, for that.
A smaller example might be the willingness of the government to underwrite around £3bn last year in local authority commercial property speculation (not development), at the same time as maintaining strict cash limits on their ability to build new council housing.
No job security? We cannot employ people, we are desperate to give job security but we get no applications for our vacancies. Reading the posts on here you would think that Boys from the Blackstuff could be a reflection of current Britain. I was looking for a job in the early 1980s. There were none. Now there are 1000s of vacancies and not just in minimum wage zero hours contracts. We have had a vacancy for a mechanical estimator paying £22 per hour for a year.
For a year? What happens after that?
We use a 73 year old retired estimator as a sub contractor and have to pay him £25 per hour. He turns down work from other companies on a daily basis.
So the skills just aren't available. Your best bet is to find a suitable candidate and train them up....
The actual issue you have revealed there is the typical UK one that companies aren't willing to train people and pay them properly once trained...
We currently have 12 apprentices. At 21 if they pass an electrcian or plumber will earn £42,000 per year. Unbelieveably we struggle to employ apprentices because of this mad rule that they have to say in training or eduction till 18. 10 years ago we would have had 200 applications for an apprenticeship , this year we have had 3. Schools persuade them to stay on between 16-18 and do a geography A-Level rather than become a trade apprentice.
The eldest Eek Jr will be seeking an engineering degree apprenticeship in 3 years time - she sees zero point in spending £50k to get a degree when she can earn money while doing the same...
I think debating whether the £350m a week poster was a lie or not during the referendum campaign, exhaustively, is pointless.
And yet it's clearly not pointless.
It was a lie.
The guy that invented the lie says it crucial.
The Brexit headbangers still claim black is white
Bloody hell. There are so many valid arguments against Brexit that a thousand monkeys with typewriters would come up with several by lunchtime, but you still manage to home unerringly in on the only two which have no validity at all. There is no doubt the bus thing was massively instrumental in getting a leave result, but what we are looking at is the difference which would have been made by using the correct figure; it is not the difference made by the claim overall, because there is nothing illegitimate in saying "we give huge sum x to the EU every week, let's spend it on the NHS", if your x is valid. Nobody claims that x was under 100m, and the claim that the difference between the correct figure and 350m changed lots of votes - i.e. that there are significant numbers of people who would be swayed by 350m a week but would say naah, 250m a week is neither here nor there, let's stick with Brussels - is almost certainly nonsense. With numbers this large 250m a week does not have a markedly different "feel" to me than 350m a week, and I am not a thick prole (nor a leave voter) whereas on your case all leave voters are thick proles. So why do you expect them to discriminate so finely between the two figures?
I agree. The £350 million a week for the NHS wasn't the biggest lie of the Leave campaign.
The biggest lie was the one that the EU would be desperate to do a post Brexit deal on our terms.....
Brexit was only ever a right wing ideological take over of the Tories by people who cannot cope with liberalism or progress....to be so alienated from the EU...on the whole an urbane, progressive and liberal grouping, you just have to be an zealot nutjob......
I think that is right: I had no real idea what a complex nightmare the mechanics of brexiting would turn out to be. To be fair, there was a limit to how much Remain could have made of this without being accused of running even more of a Project Fear than they actually did.
And you have spectacularly missed the point. Again.
At the meeting where they decided to paint a giant lie on the side of a bus and promote it every day for a month, the number on the lie is not the issue
Had this been a campaign using the rules that advertisers have to follow the reason the bus ad couldn't have run was not just the number on the side of the bus (which as Izzy says made little difference) but they would have had to paint a disclaimer in similar size type that the costs of trading elsewhere were likely to be at least as much as the amount saved.
There's still time to get on your private plane and protest about Trump's "state" visit to France this afternoon Rog...
Before long we'll have to accept that public sector workers don't pay tax. They receive money from the Treasury but none is returned, all contributions come from private industry.
Mr Evershed talks about unfunded state pensions, its one big ponzi scheme and we all know what happens to them. It looks likely that Mrs May will be holding the parcel when the music stops, it will start when property downturns.
You do talk some twaddle mate!
I'm happy for you reply.
Tell me what the income tax take would be if everybody worked in the public sector.
Firstly, I'd never advocate running the country where everyone worked in the public sector (aka communism) but it clearly could be done and would still generate government funds through taxation, but mostly through the profits of production (which the government would necessarily control in such a situation.) In such a situation, income tax take could be as high or low as the government decided.
Well you've dodged the question which makes my point. As has been pointed out state and public sector pensions are massively underfunded, it has to be accepted that cannot go on indefinitely.
And of course I'm happy for you to give me an example of where govt controlled production has led to prosperity.
Ah now, here's a point we agree on... the massively underfunded pensions cannot go on indefinitely. As a country we need to pay for public services - tax the rich (includes me luckily) a bit more!
Yes tax the rich why didn't we think of that before
We have to make the choice between tax rises or continuing decline of public services.
Health, social care and pensions expenditure are all very heavily age dependent. We have an increasing number of elderly, with a steady* number of people of working age supporting them. If we do not tax them more heavily, or get sick elderly people to fund themselves via a "dementia tax", then we should expect those services to become more strained.
* contrary to popular perception, the population is increasing at both ends of the scale (elderly and children) but not of working age. Immigration is smoothing out the bumps of our population pyramid, by maintaining a constant working population. This is the explanation for why we have skill shortages at the same time as an increasing population.
No job security? We cannot employ people, we are desperate to give job security but we get no applications for our vacancies. Reading the posts on here you would think that Boys from the Blackstuff could be a reflection of current Britain. I was looking for a job in the early 1980s. There were none. Now there are 1000s of vacancies and not just in minimum wage zero hours contracts. We have had a vacancy for a mechanical estimator paying £22 per hour for a year.
Silly question is £22 an hour the actual market rate and are you using appropriate agencies to pro-actively find candidates are hoping suitable candidates find the advert on your website.
There are no candidates. One of the failures of the current University system is that people no longer take engineering. They go for an easier degrees which is then no help in finding work. My recommendation for a highly paid secure career is to take engineering at UNI.
But if the contract is only for a year you're looking at, what, £40k? Not enough to build a reserve against the need for searching again after a year, not long enough to tempt anyone into the area from outside. It's the in and out nature of employment that's making it harder to find employment or retain employees.
We have had the vacancy for a year, its a permanent position
Mr. Jonathan, bit harsh on Churchill to make that the cut-off. Could do the same with Constantine the Great and you'd be left with a paranoid wife- and son-killing swine. [Not that bad things should be removed from the record, but nor should good].
I recently watched the film 'Churchill' and if it's to be believed he was an interfering buffoon who was barely tolerated by the military and usually ignored. As a film it was saved by one electrifying scene where he had an audience with King George which I'll see if I can find.
And now we see why you're nicknamed Rogerdamus. You watch a film and dismiss a leader; the rest of us talk about facts, stats and history.
I did add the disclaimer 'If it is to be believed'. The story was about his fight against the tactics of D-Day and then his demand to be in the landing party and as tyson says it includes a sideways glance at his alcoholism and depression. As with most trailers it's missed the best scene in the film. But for what it's worth.....
Theresa May - We ask for our leaders to be honest and candid... But when they admit to crying because they've blown an unloseable election it just comes across as self-serving and a tad... Pathetic?
No job security? We cannot employ people, we are desperate to give job security but we get no applications for our vacancies. Reading the posts on here you would think that Boys from the Blackstuff could be a reflection of current Britain. I was looking for a job in the early 1980s. There were none. Now there are 1000s of vacancies and not just in minimum wage zero hours contracts. We have had a vacancy for a mechanical estimator paying £22 per hour for a year.
Silly question is £22 an hour the actual market rate and are you using appropriate agencies to pro-actively find candidates are hoping suitable candidates find the advert on your website.
There are no candidates. One of the failures of the current University system is that people no longer take engineering. They go for an easier degrees which is then no help in finding work. My recommendation for a highly paid secure career is to take engineering at UNI.
I think many who study engineering decide they can make more money in finance/banking and prefer to do that.
No job security? We cannot employ people, we are desperate to give job security but we get no applications for our vacancies. Reading the posts on here you would think that Boys from the Blackstuff could be a reflection of current Britain. I was looking for a job in the early 1980s. There were none. Now there are 1000s of vacancies and not just in minimum wage zero hours contracts. We have had a vacancy for a mechanical estimator paying £22 per hour for a year.
Silly question is £22 an hour the actual market rate and are you using appropriate agencies to pro-actively find candidates are hoping suitable candidates find the advert on your website.
There are no candidates. One of the failures of the current University system is that people no longer take engineering. They go for an easier degrees which is then no help in finding work. My recommendation for a highly paid secure career is to take engineering at UNI.
But if the contract is only for a year you're looking at, what, £40k? Not enough to build a reserve against the need for searching again after a year, not long enough to tempt anyone into the area from outside. It's the in and out nature of employment that's making it harder to find employment or retain employees.
We have had the vacancy for a year, its a permanent position
Mr. Jonathan, bit harsh on Churchill to make that the cut-off. Could do the same with Constantine the Great and you'd be left with a paranoid wife- and son-killing swine. [Not that bad things should be removed from the record, but nor should good].
I recently watched the film 'Churchill' and if it's to be believed he was an interfering buffoon who was barely tolerated by the military and usually ignored. As a film it was saved by one electrifying scene where he had an audience with King George which I'll see if I can find.
And now we see why you're nicknamed Rogerdamus. You watch a film and dismiss a leader; the rest of us talk about facts, stats and history.
I did add the disclaimer 'If it is to be believed'. The story was about his fight against the tactics of D-Day and then his demand to be in the landing party and as tyson says it includes a sideways glance at his alcoholism and depression. As with most trailers it's missed the best scene in the film. But for what it's worth.....
I have fairly recently read a non-fiction account which says pretty much exactly what your film says about him in the last 2 years of the war. Unfortunately I can't remember what the book was. It's an account which should be read by all those who justify their drink intake by saying it never did Churchill any harm.
There was no train station in the 1970s , although the train from eastleigh airport ( 6 minute drive by car) now called Southampton Parkway took the same time as today. There are hundreds of small towns like Hedge End around the country where normal people live and work quite happily and maintain a very good standard of living, especially compared to the 1970s and 80s. There is just too much doom and gloom written on this site which is not relective of vast swathes of the UK.
This all comes back to land and housing. As you and currystar both say, we are much more prosperous and live better lives in many ways. Capitalism continues to be the engine of income growth and improved technology it always has been.
The problem is that in this country, housing is so expensive that for many people the income growth has not been high enough to keep up. That contributes to many people, especially among the young, having to save a huge amount for a housing deposit, and increasingly higher rents eating into their ability to save that huge amounts. It makes people feel powerless and that they're on the wrong side of a rentier system, where other people are getting rich from their labour. And it's not just first time buyers. There's a lot of people in two bedroom flats that can't see a three bedroom place ever being in their reach. Their whole lives are put on hold for years and decades, as they can't even think about starting families until they have more space. They interpret this as the whole of capitalism not working, when really it's as simple as not enough houses for the surging population.
We need radical reform to build enough houses, or else we'll become an ever more polarised and angry society. I don't want a planning free-for-all, which would end up with horrible urban sprawl ruining the south east of the country. Yet small incremental developments on the side of existing towns causes a lot of anger for not many more new homes.
What we need is more new towns in places that are currently "green belt" but aren't that attractive countryside. We could have a system where new green belt is added, square mile for square mile, for every new town that is built. And we should make sure these new towns are built with smart planning and housing density in mind.
Theresa May - We ask for our leaders to be honest and candid... But when they admit to crying because they've blown an unloseable election it just comes across as self-serving and a tad... Pathetic?
It's ludicrous. If it was combined with an apology and admittance she'd screwed it all up, cost colleagues their job and weakened the country then fine, although she'd have to resign, this is just poor me, poor me nonsense.
I think debating whether the £350m a week poster was a lie or not during the referendum campaign, exhaustively, is pointless.
And yet it's clearly not pointless.
It was a lie.
The guy that invented the lie says it crucial.
The Brexit headbangers still claim black is white
Bloody hell. There are so many valid arguments against Brexit that a thousand monkeys with typewriters would come up with several by lunchtime, but you still manage to home unerringly in on the only two which have no validity at all. There is no doubt the bus thing was massively instrumental in getting a leave result, but what we are looking at is the difference which would have been made by using the correct figure; it is not the difference made by the claim overall, because there is nothing illegitimate in saying "we give huge sum x to the EU every week, let's spend it on the NHS", if your x is valid. Nobody claims that x was under 100m, and the claim that the difference between the correct figure and 350m changed lots of votes - i.e. that there are significant numbers of people who would be swayed by 350m a week but would say naah, 250m a week is neither here nor there, let's stick with Brussels - is almost certainly nonsense. With numbers this large 250m a week does not have a markedly different "feel" to me than 350m a week, and I am not a thick prole (nor a leave voter) whereas on your case all leave voters are thick proles. So why do you expect them to discriminate so finely between the two figures?
I agree. The £350 million a week for the NHS wasn't the biggest lie of the Leave campaign.
The biggest lie was the one that the EU would be desperate to do a post Brexit deal on our terms.....
Brexit was only ever a right wing ideological take over of the Tories by people who cannot cope with liberalism or progress....to be so alienated from the EU...on the whole an urbane, progressive and liberal grouping, you just have to be an zealot nutjob......
I think that is right: I had no real idea what a complex nightmare the mechanics of brexiting would turn out to be. To be fair, there was a limit to how much Remain could have made of this without being accused of running even more of a Project Fear than they actually did.
The reason Remain didn't point this out is because pro-Europeans have been pretending for years that the EU was this small thing that wasn't very intrusive into our lives and society. When actually they had allowed it to become deeply enmeshed without ever asking the British people.
And you have spectacularly missed the point. Again.
At the meeting where they decided to paint a giant lie on the side of a bus and promote it every day for a month, the number on the lie is not the issue
Had this been a campaign using the rules that advertisers have to follow the reason the bus ad couldn't have run was not just the number on the side of the bus (which as Izzy says made little difference) but they would have had to paint a disclaimer in similar size type that the costs of trading elsewhere were likely to be at least as much as the amount saved.
Under those rules, the claims of impending recession and households losing £4,300 income by Remain would have not been allowed either. Leave would have won 65-35.
Theresa May - We ask for our leaders to be honest and candid... But when they admit to crying because they've blown an unloseable election it just comes across as self-serving and a tad... Pathetic?
It's ludicrous. If it was combined with an apology and admittance she'd screwed it all up, cost colleagues their job and weakened the country then fine, although she'd have to resign, this is just poor me, poor me nonsense.
I don't know if it is creepier if it was a spontaneous admission, or one which had been planned and focus-grouped in advance. It'll make a lovely bit of montage for Theresa: the movie if she fights another election (montage obv beginning with her running girlishly through the wheat fields).
The reason Remain didn't point this out is because pro-Europeans have been pretending for years that the EU was this small thing that wasn't very intrusive into our lives and society. When actually they had allowed it to become deeply enmeshed without ever asking the British people.
Indeed.
As someone on here said a while ago we thought we was joining a "common market" not Hotel California....
Theresa May - We ask for our leaders to be honest and candid... But when they admit to crying because they've blown an unloseable election it just comes across as self-serving and a tad... Pathetic?
It's ludicrous. If it was combined with an apology and admittance she'd screwed it all up, cost colleagues their job and weakened the country then fine, although she'd have to resign, this is just poor me, poor me nonsense.
She apologised to the entire parliamentary parties and apologised to the colleagues whose seats had been lost. Some people just have such bitter hatred of Theresa May, someone who has shown loyalty, diligence and character her whole career, they refuse to acknowledge it.
I think a big part of it is because she is female. People dislike politicians on the other side of both sexes, but there is always a nastiness to it when it's a woman involved.
Mr. Jonathan, bit harsh on Churchill to make that the cut-off. Could do the same with Constantine the Great and you'd be left with a paranoid wife- and son-killing swine. [Not that bad things should be removed from the record, but nor should good].
I recently watched the film 'Churchill' and if it's to be believed he was an interfering buffoon who was barely tolerated by the military and usually ignored. As a film it was saved by one electrifying scene where he had an audience with King George which I'll see if I can find.
And now we see why you're nicknamed Rogerdamus. You watch a film and dismiss a leader; the rest of us talk about facts, stats and history.
I did add the disclaimer 'If it is to be believed'. The story was about his fight against the tactics of D-Day and then his demand to be in the landing party and as tyson says it includes a sideways glance at his alcoholism and depression. As with most trailers it's missed the best scene in the film. But for what it's worth.....
Churchill was undoubtably the man of the moment in 1940-41, but the rest of his career is much patchier. His actions in WW1, in Iraq in 1920's, opposition to Indian Independence, and later actions during the war, and his 1951 government all lead a lot to be desired. Idols often have feet of clay.
My grandmother lost an uncle on the day of the landings at ANZAC Bay, not born in Oz, but serving with their forces as he was working there in 1914. Australians also feel that Churchill denuded the Far East of troops and modern equipment, leading to a real threat to Australia itself in 1942. It is a large part of why Australia became more aligned with US foreign policy than British in the post war period, sending troops to Vietnam, for example.
Theresa May - We ask for our leaders to be honest and candid... But when they admit to crying because they've blown an unloseable election it just comes across as self-serving and a tad... Pathetic?
It's ludicrous. If it was combined with an apology and admittance she'd screwed it all up, cost colleagues their job and weakened the country then fine, although she'd have to resign, this is just poor me, poor me nonsense.
I don't know if it is creepier if it was a spontaneous admission, or one which had been planned and focus-grouped in advance. It'll make a lovely bit of montage for Theresa: the movie if she fights another election (montage obv beginning with her running girlishly through the wheat fields).
She doesnt appear to know how to be. Seems uncomfortable in her skin as PM. Everything that has happened since she called the election seems manufactured, but really shoddily, whilst Jezza just does his Jezza thing that comes naturally to him. He's natural, she's awkward and people are starting to want someone friendly and empathetic, not someone who has to choose her words deliberately. It's just not her time. It's the Boris and Clarke's of the Tory party that beat fit the national mood. Or maybe Damian Greene. Bit wooden but likeable chap. Or that housing minister that broke down talking about Grenfell. Natural heart, not cold Tory pragmatism.
Theresa May - We ask for our leaders to be honest and candid... But when they admit to crying because they've blown an unloseable election it just comes across as self-serving and a tad... Pathetic?
It's ludicrous. If it was combined with an apology and admittance she'd screwed it all up, cost colleagues their job and weakened the country then fine, although she'd have to resign, this is just poor me, poor me nonsense.
She apologised to the entire parliamentary parties and apologised to the colleagues whose seats had been lost. Some people just have such bitter hatred of Theresa May, someone who has shown loyalty, diligence and character her whole career, they refuse to acknowledge it.
I think a big part of it is because she is female. People dislike politicians on the other side of both sexes, but there is always a nastiness to it when it's a woman involved.
Yes but she did that after Brady ordered her to. It wasn't her natural response. That's the problem. There's nothing wrong with her functionally as a politician , it's just not the time for that sort of politician. Empathy and likeability are key right now. She'd have made a good 2010 PM, or as the successor to Blair, but we are past the post Blair knee jerk and back on a likeability junket.
Theresa May - We ask for our leaders to be honest and candid... But when they admit to crying because they've blown an unloseable election it just comes across as self-serving and a tad... Pathetic?
It's ludicrous. If it was combined with an apology and admittance she'd screwed it all up, cost colleagues their job and weakened the country then fine, although she'd have to resign, this is just poor me, poor me nonsense.
I don't know if it is creepier if it was a spontaneous admission, or one which had been planned and focus-grouped in advance. It'll make a lovely bit of montage for Theresa: the movie if she fights another election (montage obv beginning with her running girlishly through the wheat fields).
She doesnt appear to know how to be. Seems uncomfortable in her skin as PM. Everything that has happened since she called the election seems manufactured, but really shoddily, whilst Jezza just does his Jezza thing that comes naturally to him. He's natural, she's awkward and people are starting to want someone friendly and empathetic, not someone who has to choose her words deliberately. It's just not her time. It's the Boris and Clarke's of the Tory party that beat fit the national mood. Or maybe Damian Greene. Bit wooden but likeable chap. Or that housing minister that broke down talking about Grenfell. Natural heart, not cold Tory pragmatism.
I have heard this sort of subjective interpretation of how someone "seems" about everyone from Tony Blair to Barack Obama to Gordon Brown. If the media likes their policies and the narrative is going well, they are either charismatic or refreshingly authentic. If the media doesn't like their policies or they've received a political setback, they are smarmy empty vessels or awkward and uncomfortable.
That's an extremely good example of why a comprehensive deal is essential for the EU27 as well as for the UK. Crashing out to WTO terms without a deal would be disastrous for both sides.
Mr. Jonathan, bit harsh on Churchill to make that the cut-off. Could do the same with Constantine the Great and you'd be left with a paranoid wife- and son-killing swine. [Not that bad things should be removed from the record, but nor should good].
I recently watched the film 'Churchill' and if it's to be believed he was an interfering buffoon who was barely tolerated by the military and usually ignored. As a film it was saved by one electrifying scene where he had an audience with King George which I'll see if I can find.
And now we see why you're nicknamed Rogerdamus. You watch a film and dismiss a leader; the rest of us talk about facts, stats and history.
I did add the disclaimer 'If it is to be believed'. The story was about his fight against the tactics of D-Day and then his demand to be in the landing party and as tyson says it includes a sideways glance at his alcoholism and depression. As with most trailers it's missed the best scene in the film. But for what it's worth.....
I have fairly recently read a non-fiction account which says pretty much exactly what your film says about him in the last 2 years of the war. Unfortunately I can't remember what the book was. It's an account which should be read by all those who justify their drink intake by saying it never did Churchill any harm.
But by that point, Britain no longer had the ability to lose the war, so it didn't really matter in the grand scheme.
Theresa May - We ask for our leaders to be honest and candid... But when they admit to crying because they've blown an unloseable election it just comes across as self-serving and a tad... Pathetic?
It's ludicrous. If it was combined with an apology and admittance she'd screwed it all up, cost colleagues their job and weakened the country then fine, although she'd have to resign, this is just poor me, poor me nonsense.
I don't know if it is creepier if it was a spontaneous admission, or one which had been planned and focus-grouped in advance. It'll make a lovely bit of montage for Theresa: the movie if she fights another election (montage obv beginning with her running girlishly through the wheat fields).
She doesnt appear to know how to be. Seems uncomfortable in her skin as PM. Everything that has happened since she called the election seems manufactured, but really shoddily, whilst Jezza just does his Jezza thing that comes naturally to him. He's natural, she's awkward and people are starting to want someone friendly and empathetic, not someone who has to choose her words deliberately. It's just not her time. It's the Boris and Clarke's of the Tory party that beat fit the national mood. Or maybe Damian Greene. Bit wooden but likeable chap. Or that housing minister that broke down talking about Grenfell. Natural heart, not cold Tory pragmatism.
I have heard this sort of subjective interpretation of how someone "seems" about everyone from Tony Blair to Barack Obama to Gordon Brown. If the media likes their policies and the narrative is going well, they are either charismatic or refreshingly authentic. If the media doesn't like their policies or they've received a political setback, they are smarmy empty vessels or awkward and uncomfortable.
There is that, yes, but with May it is uncomfortable listening to her speak. It's stilted. That's how she is and it's unfair but it does come over. It's because things are going badly it's noticeable of course, but noticeable it is, regardless.
Edit - yes it's a subjective interpretation. All politics is when it comes to the electorate. It's the individuals view of the personalities and policies on offer.
The fact that the Government lacks a stable majority - which may become tiny as a result of by-election reverses - does actually give a new PM the justification to seek a new mandate at some point. This would be more akin to Wilson calling an early election in 1966 and October 1974 rather than May in 2017 or Brown's botched election plans in 2007. What did for May was the fact that she already had a reasonable de facto majority and her repeated denial of any intention to call an early election. If we get a new PM in 2019 and he/she seeks to call an election I am not sure it would backfire in the same way. The FTPA ,however, might well get in the way as I am not sure that Corbyn would bow so meekly again given the changed Parliamentary arithmetic. There would now be at least some possibility of him obtaining an affirmative Vote of Confidence should it come to that.
Theresa May - We ask for our leaders to be honest and candid... But when they admit to crying because they've blown an unloseable election it just comes across as self-serving and a tad... Pathetic?
It's ludicrous. If it was combined with an apology and admittance she'd screwed it all up, cost colleagues their job and weakened the country then fine, although she'd have to resign, this is just poor me, poor me nonsense.
She apologised to the entire parliamentary parties and apologised to the colleagues whose seats had been lost. Some people just have such bitter hatred of Theresa May, someone who has shown loyalty, diligence and character her whole career, they refuse to acknowledge it.
I think a big part of it is because she is female. People dislike politicians on the other side of both sexes, but there is always a nastiness to it when it's a woman involved.
Yes but she did that after Brady ordered her to. It wasn't her natural response. That's the problem. There's nothing wrong with her functionally as a politician , it's just not the time for that sort of politician. Empathy and likeability are key right now. She'd have made a good 2010 PM, or as the successor to Blair, but we are past the post Blair knee jerk and back on a likeability junket.
It was her natural response and she was always going to do it. Brady nor anyone else "ordered" the Prime Minister to do anything.
Read my post below. This "likeability" bit is just subjective. People liked May just fine until a manifesto came out that threatened their homes/inheritances. When May gets back on to governing and Jeremy Corbyn next comes unstuck, the polls will move again and suddenly there will be stories about how May regained her mojo by finding her true comfortable self again. Of course, it will take longer for the narrative to switch because the media class is full of arch-Remainers that still think we should ignore democracy, but that's part of the circus.
There was no train station in the 1970s , although the train from eastleigh airport ( 6 minute drive by car) now called Southampton Parkway took the same time as today. There are hundreds of small towns like Hedge End around the country where normal people live and work quite happily and maintain a very good standard of living, especially compared to the 1970s and 80s. There is just too much doom and gloom written on this site which is not relective of vast swathes of the UK.
This all comes back to land and housing. As you and currystar both say, we are much more prosperous and live better lives in many ways. Capitalism continues to be the engine of income growth and improved technology it always has been.
The problem is that in this country, housing is so expensive that for many people the income growth has not been high enough to keep up. That contributes to many people, especially among the young, having to save a huge amount for a housing deposit, and increasingly higher rents eating into their ability to save that huge amounts. It makes people feel powerless and that they're on the wrong side of a rentier system, where other people are getting rich from their labour. And it's not just first time buyers. There's a lot of people in two bedroom flats that can't see a three bedroom place ever being in their reach. Their whole lives are put on hold for years and decades, as they can't even think about starting families until they have more space. They interpret this as the whole of capitalism not working, when really it's as simple as not enough houses for the surging population.
We need radical reform to build enough houses, or else we'll become an ever more polarised and angry society. I don't want a planning free-for-all, which would end up with horrible urban sprawl ruining the south east of the country. Yet small incremental developments on the side of existing towns causes a lot of anger for not many more new homes.
What we need is more new towns in places that are currently "green belt" but aren't that attractive countryside. We could have a system where new green belt is added, square mile for square mile, for every new town that is built. And we should make sure these new towns are built with smart planning and housing density in mind.
We probably need to recreate the New Town Development Corporations. They'd have the support of Labour and the Heseltine wing of the Tory party. 70% of Parliament?
I think debating whether the £350m a week poster was a lie or not during the referendum campaign, exhaustively, is pointless.
And yet it's clearly not pointless.
It was a lie.
The guy that invented the lie says it crucial.
The Brexit headbangers still claim black is white
Bloody hell. There are so many valid arguments against Brexit that a thousand monkeys with typewriters would come up with several by lunchtime, but you still manage to home unerringly in on the only two which have no validity at all. There is no doubt the bus thing was massively instrumental in getting a leave result, but what we are looking at is the difference which would have been made by using the correct figure; it is not the difference made by the claim overall, because there is nothing illegitimate in saying "we give huge sum x to the EU every week, let's spend it on the NHS", if your x is valid. Nobody claims that x was under 100m, and the claim that the difference between the correct figure and 350m changed lots of votes - i.e. that there are significant numbers of people who would be swayed by 350m a week but would say naah, 250m a week is neither here nor there, let's stick with Brussels - is almost certainly nonsense. With numbers this large 250m a week does not have a markedly different "feel" to me than 350m a week, and I am not a thick prole (nor a leave voter) whereas on your case all leave voters are thick proles. So why do you expect them to discriminate so finely between the two figures?
I agree. The £350 million a week for the NHS wasn't the biggest lie of the Leave campaign.
The biggest lie was the one that the EU would be desperate to do a post Brexit deal on our terms.....
Brexit was only ever a right wing ideological take over of the Tories by people who cannot cope with liberalism or progress....to be so alienated from the EU...on the whole an urbane, progressive and liberal grouping, you just have to be an zealot nutjob......
That's one. Another was that Brexit would be free of consequences apart from, just maybe in the worst case, a short term and limited blip. A third was that Brexit was Britain opening to the world, unlocking opportunities so we could be better off without a moribund and decaying Europe.
Theresa May - We ask for our leaders to be honest and candid... But when they admit to crying because they've blown an unloseable election it just comes across as self-serving and a tad... Pathetic?
It's ludicrous. If it was combined with an apology and admittance she'd screwed it all up, cost colleagues their job and weakened the country then fine, although she'd have to resign, this is just poor me, poor me nonsense.
She apologised to the entire parliamentary parties and apologised to the colleagues whose seats had been lost. Some people just have such bitter hatred of Theresa May, someone who has shown loyalty, diligence and character her whole career, they refuse to acknowledge it.
I think a big part of it is because she is female. People dislike politicians on the other side of both sexes, but there is always a nastiness to it when it's a woman involved.
Yes but she did that after Brady ordered her to. It wasn't her natural response. That's the problem. There's nothing wrong with her functionally as a politician , it's just not the time for that sort of politician. Empathy and likeability are key right now. She'd have made a good 2010 PM, or as the successor to Blair, but we are past the post Blair knee jerk and back on a likeability junket.
It was her natural response and she was always going to do it. Brady nor anyone else "ordered" the Prime Minister to do anything.
Read my post below. This "likeability" bit is just subjective. People liked May just fine until a manifesto came out that threatened their homes/inheritances. When May gets back on to governing and Jeremy Corbyn next comes unstuck, the polls will move again and suddenly there will be stories about how May regained her mojo by finding her true comfortable self again. Of course, it will take longer for the narrative to switch because the media class is full of arch-Remainers that still think we should ignore democracy, but that's part of the circus.
On likeability I'm agreeing. It us subjective and right now subjectively, she's way off the pace. As for her natural response.... ok, maybe ordered is a bit cheeky, but there is no doubt the apology did not come until after a meeting with Brady and his telling the media to 'watch thus space . So, regardless of her natural inclination, the optics suggest otherwise. And that's what informs opinion and VI.
Theresa May - We ask for our leaders to be honest and candid... But when they admit to crying because they've blown an unloseable election it just comes across as self-serving and a tad... Pathetic?
It's ludicrous. If it was combined with an apology and admittance she'd screwed it all up, cost colleagues their job and weakened the country then fine, although she'd have to resign, this is just poor me, poor me nonsense.
She apologised to the entire parliamentary parties and apologised to the colleagues whose seats had been lost. Some people just have such bitter hatred of Theresa May, someone who has shown loyalty, diligence and character her whole career, they refuse to acknowledge it.
I think a big part of it is because she is female. People dislike politicians on the other side of both sexes, but there is always a nastiness to it when it's a woman involved.
Yes but she did that after Brady ordered her to. It wasn't her natural response. That's the problem. There's nothing wrong with her functionally as a politician , it's just not the time for that sort of politician. Empathy and likeability are key right now. She'd have made a good 2010 PM, or as the successor to Blair, but we are past the post Blair knee jerk and back on a likeability junket.
If that was the case, she wouldn't have been polling what she was polling in April. That is to say, less than three months ago. Empathy is absolutely always essential in a PM because it's how you judge what others are up to, what they need, what they can be bought off with, when they'll accept a defeat as part of the game and when it won't be forgiven. That's as true of colleagues as it is of the public at large. And of EU partners.
It's not the public who've changed; it's that more information has become available to them.
Oh, just like George Osborne's political career....
George Osborne has fallen further and further in my opinion of him in recent months. You can look at people like Michael Gove and Dominic Raab who were shut out of May's cabinet. They got on with being good constituency MPs and backbenchers, and continued to work for the Conservative cause. Osborne threw a wobbly, made his life about revenge, and then set about trying to harm a Conservative government and let in the most left wing Prime Minister the UK could ever have. And all this to a woman who served the Cameroons loyally for years, never stepping out of her brief or offering barbed criticism to the press.
Oh, just like George Osborne's political career....
George Osborne has fallen further and further in my opinion of him in recent months. You can look at people like Michael Gove and Dominic Raab who were shut out of May's cabinet. They got on with being good constituency MPs and backbenchers, and continued to work for the Conservative cause. Osborne threw a wobbly, made his life about revenge, and then set about trying to harm a Conservative government and let in the most left wing Prime Minister the UK could ever have. And all this to a woman who served the Cameroons loyally for years, never stepping out of her brief or offering barbed criticism to the press.
If your going to take revenge you'd better dig two graves...
There was no train station in the 1970s , although the train from eastleigh airport ( 6 minute drive by car) now called Southampton Parkway took the same time as today. There are hundreds of small towns like Hedge End around the country where normal people live and work quite happily and maintain a very good standard of living, especially compared to the 1970s and 80s. There is just too much doom and gloom written on this site which is not relective of vast swathes of the UK.
This all comes back to land and housing. ...
This, a million times this.
Of my close Oxford mates (say 15), all in our early 30s, only 4 of us have our own houses. Myself not included (though I life with my gf, who does). Only 2 of them did it without parental help. The ones who don't are not in any way extravagant. They often baulk at anything more expensive than Sainsburies or Cafe Rouge, or shared holidays in rented villas with mates to keep the costs down. They don't go on regular minibreaks to Venice. Or get smashed every weekend. And they're all in demanding jobs, publishing, charity lobbying, tech.
My life is comfortable largely because of the luck I've had in building an online bookselling business at exactly the right time: from a macro point of view, as the market exploded, and from a personal POV at the right time of life, in my 20s, when I could cope with taking very little out of the business for many years. Those who have bought houses are either management consultants, lawyers, or doctors.
If it beyond the majority of the academically elite to buy a modest house by the age of 30 in the current interest rate environment, then I think something is wrong. Largely because this suggests it will be beyond the majority of millennial Brits to do so without, and in some cases even after inheritance.
Contrast this to my Dad, who has a non-graduate management-accountant junior bought a house at 27 with 7-8% interest on his mortgage.
If the Tory party can crack housing, and the personal aspiration and empowerment that goes with it, we'll be in power for a generation. If we can't, we'll be out of it for just as long.
On the flip side of things today, isn't Sturgeon and Corbyn meeting Barnier a bit like Cameron turning up in Georgia in 2008?
It's a bit unfair Barnier meeting with opposition figures in the UK. May cannot do the same as the EU doesn't have opposition figures. Just people under different labels cheering on the same Commission agenda.
There was no train station in the 1970s , although the train from eastleigh airport ( 6 minute drive by car) now called Southampton Parkway took the same time as today. There are hundreds of small towns like Hedge End around the country where normal people live and work quite happily and maintain a very good standard of living, especially compared to the 1970s and 80s. There is just too much doom and gloom written on this site which is not relective of vast swathes of the UK.
This all comes back to land and housing. ...
This, a million times this.
Of my close Oxford mates (say 15), all in our early 30s, only 4 of us have our own houses. Myself not included (though I life with my gf, who does). Only 2 of them did it without parental help. The ones who don't are not in any way extravagant. They often baulk at anything more expensive than Sainsburies or Cafe Rouge, or shared holidays in rented villas with mates to keep the costs down. They don't go on regular minibreaks to Venice. Or get smashed every weekend. And they're all in demanding jobs, publishing, charity lobbying, tech.
My life is comfortable largely because of the luck I've had in building an online bookselling business at exactly the right time: from a macro point of view, as the market exploded, and from a personal POV at the right time of life, in my 20s, when I could cope with taking very little out of the business for many years. Those who have bought houses are either management consultants, lawyers, or doctors.
If it beyond the majority of the academically elite to buy a modest house by the age of 30 in the current interest rate environment, then I think something is wrong. Largely because this suggests it will be beyond the majority of millennial Brits to do so without, and in some cases even after inheritance.
Contrast this to my Dad, who has a non-graduate management-accountant junior bought a house at 27 with 7-8% interest on his mortgage.
If the Tory party can crack housing, and the personal aspiration and empowerment that goes with it, we'll be in power for a generation. If we can't, we'll be out of it for just as long.
I've taken the plunge and attempting to become a first time seller
Oh, just like George Osborne's political career....
George Osborne has fallen further and further in my opinion of him in recent months. You can look at people like Michael Gove and Dominic Raab who were shut out of May's cabinet. They got on with being good constituency MPs and backbenchers, and continued to work for the Conservative cause. Osborne threw a wobbly, made his life about revenge, and then set about trying to harm a Conservative government and let in the most left wing Prime Minister the UK could ever have. And all this to a woman who served the Cameroons loyally for years, never stepping out of her brief or offering barbed criticism to the press.
She even stayed loyal during the EU Ref backing Remain despite quite clearly being quite a Eurosceptic herself and speculation beforehand that she'd be a Leaver. Which she quite clearly is now.
Of my close Oxford mates (say 15), all in our early 30s, only 4 of us have our own houses. Myself not included (though I life with my gf, who does). Only 2 of them did it without parental help. The ones who don't are not in any way extravagant. They often baulk at anything more expensive than Sainsburies or Cafe Rouge, or shared holidays in rented villas with mates to keep the costs down. They don't go on regular minibreaks to Venice. Or get smashed every weekend. And they're all in demanding jobs, publishing, charity lobbying, tech.
My life is comfortable largely because of the luck I've had in building an online bookselling business at exactly the right time: from a macro point of view, as the market exploded, and from a personal POV at the right time of life, in my 20s, when I could cope with taking very little out of the business for many years. Those who have bought houses are either management consultants, lawyers, or doctors.
If it beyond the majority of the academically elite to buy a modest house by the age of 30 in the current interest rate environment, then I think something is wrong. Largely because this suggests it will be beyond the majority of millennial Brits to do so without, and in some cases even after inheritance.
Contrast this to my Dad, who has a non-graduate management-accountant junior bought a house at 27 with 7-8% interest on his mortgage.
If the Tory party can crack housing, and the personal aspiration and empowerment that goes with it, we'll be in power for a generation. If we can't, we'll be out of it for just as long.
Absolutely correct. A generation of young people, other than the ones with better off parents, currently feels lost and powerless. If they get the opportunity to have a reasonable house with a garden, with a reasonable commute to a decent job, they will remember this time very, very positively and reward the government that provided it to them. If we don't, our politics will head in a Latin American direction, with an anti-capitalistic population that swings between different types of populism.
We need to be aiming for 300k new homes a year, with most of them family homes.
There was no train station in the 1970s , although the train from eastleigh airport ( 6 minute drive by car) now called Southampton Parkway took the same time as today. There are hundreds of small towns like Hedge End around the country where normal people live and work quite happily and maintain a very good standard of living, especially compared to the 1970s and 80s. There is just too much doom and gloom written on this site which is not relective of vast swathes of the UK.
This all comes back to land and housing. ...
This, a million times this.
Of my close Oxford mates (say 15), all in our early 30s, only 4 of us have our own houses. Myself not included (though I life with my gf, who does). Only 2 of them did it without parental help. The ones who don't are not in any way extravagant. They often baulk at anything more expensive than Sainsburies or Cafe Rouge, or shared holidays in rented villas with mates to keep the costs down. They don't go on regular minibreaks to Venice. Or get smashed every weekend. And they're all in demanding jobs, publishing, charity lobbying, tech.
My life is comfortable largely because of the luck I've had in building an online bookselling business at exactly the right time: from a macro point of view, as the market exploded, and from a personal POV at the right time of life, in my 20s, when I could cope with taking very little out of the business for many years. Those who have bought houses are either management consultants, lawyers, or doctors.
If it beyond the majority of the academically elite to buy a modest house by the age of 30 in the current interest rate environment, then I think something is wrong. Largely because this suggests it will be beyond the majority of millennial Brits to do so without, and in some cases even after inheritance.
Contrast this to my Dad, who has a non-graduate management-accountant junior bought a house at 27 with 7-8% interest on his mortgage.
If the Tory party can crack housing, and the personal aspiration and empowerment that goes with it, we'll be in power for a generation. If we can't, we'll be out of it for just as long.
Bit of catch 22 in housing. With 3d printing, kit housing and things like shipping container conversion there is the ability to mass produce very affordable housing of good quality, but that would have a catastrophic effect on the bricks and mortar market. On the other hand, why are we building houses that cost 200,000 when we can build them for 10 or 15 grand and sell at 3 times that figure? So you could sort it, but you'd hollow out wealth, and the price politically would be extreme.
I had no real idea what a complex nightmare the mechanics of brexiting would turn out to be. To be fair, there was a limit to how much Remain could have made of this without being accused of running even more of a Project Fear than they actually did.
The reason Remain didn't point this out is because pro-Europeans have been pretending for years that the EU was this small thing that wasn't very intrusive into our lives and society. When actually they had allowed it to become deeply enmeshed without ever asking the British people.
Inveigled into our lives by promoting common standards for nuclear transport instead of 27 separate standards bodies. Inveigled into our lives by a common medicines agency instead of 27 separate ones. Inveigled into our lives by organising tarriff free trade across our ports, allowing increased volumes almost administration free. Those little hidden but vital jobs that folks in offices have always done, but which are denigrated from the Brexiting man in the pub viewpoint as not front line, not important, should be cut.
So, are they important, or not?
Sorry, many remainers on here, including myself, did put precisely this, hidden but essential, vision of the EU"s main role, enmeshed but certainly not intrusive, and were scoffed at roundly last year. Don't turn round now and say, omg Euratom was a central plank of the evil masterplan we weren't warned about, because that is just so much highly polished crapulence.
Oh, just like George Osborne's political career....
George Osborne has fallen further and further in my opinion of him in recent months. You can look at people like Michael Gove and Dominic Raab who were shut out of May's cabinet. They got on with being good constituency MPs and backbenchers, and continued to work for the Conservative cause. Osborne threw a wobbly, made his life about revenge, and then set about trying to harm a Conservative government and let in the most left wing Prime Minister the UK could ever have. And all this to a woman who served the Cameroons loyally for years, never stepping out of her brief or offering barbed criticism to the press.
If your going to take revenge you'd better dig two graves...
Still, it's a very silly point. Yes of course if you tweak growth down and don't tweak spending down, you eventually run out of money. However, the premise makes no sense, since of course governments would tweak spending down in such a scenario (or, if they didn't, the markets would take matters into their own hands).
Still, it's a very silly point. Yes of course if you tweak growth down and don't tweak spending down, you eventually run out of money. However, the premise makes no sense, since of course governments would tweak spending down in such a scenario (or, if they didn't, the markets would take matters into their own hands).
Makes you wonder why drivel like this is this in the FT
Because leaving the EU means we automatically leave Euratom? And we're leaving the EU because we have a referendum and the country voted to leave?
Honestly, you Remainers...
Switzerland participates as an Associate Member.
Yep. The day we leave the EU (and Euratom) we'll rejoin Euratom as an associate member and nothing will change.
We may well remain in Euratom as a full member, though more probably, membership will be transferred to associate status. But I agree, unlike with the EU, it's likely that nothing much will change there unless it becomes a lever exercised for other purposes and a deal can't be done because of disagreements about the EU.
A third was that Brexit was Britain opening to the world, unlocking opportunities so we could be better off without a moribund and decaying Europe.
Surely it will take 20-30 years to know whether that was true?
It certainly is not true in the short and medium terms. There is absolutely no reason to believe that selling less to Europe for instance will result in selling more elsewhere, which was the claim made at the time. (Somewhat less in fact, given globalisation of trade). All things being equal the same applies long term. As you go further out the less likely things will be equal. It doesn't guarantee things will get better, they could get even worse. The main point is long term you have stopped worrying about whether you would have been better off if you had made a different decision decades earlier.
But, PS, as someone famously said, long term we are dead. It's the short and medium terms that matter.
Of my close Oxford mates (say 15), all in our early 30s, only 4 of us have our own houses. Myself not included (though I life with my gf, who does). Only 2 of them did it without parental help. The ones who don't are not in any way extravagant. They often baulk at anything more expensive than Sainsburies or Cafe Rouge, or shared holidays in rented villas with mates to keep the costs down. They don't go on regular minibreaks to Venice. Or get smashed every weekend. And they're all in demanding jobs, publishing, charity lobbying, tech.
My life is comfortable largely because of the luck I've had in building an online bookselling business at exactly the right time: from a macro point of view, as the market exploded, and from a personal POV at the right time of life, in my 20s, when I could cope with taking very little out of the business for many years. Those who have bought houses are either management consultants, lawyers, or doctors.
If it beyond the majority of the academically elite to buy a modest house by the age of 30 in the current interest rate environment, then I think something is wrong. Largely because this suggests it will be beyond the majority of millennial Brits to do so without, and in some cases even after inheritance.
Contrast this to my Dad, who has a non-graduate management-accountant junior bought a house at 27 with 7-8% interest on his mortgage.
If the Tory party can crack housing, and the personal aspiration and empowerment that goes with it, we'll be in power for a generation. If we can't, we'll be out of it for just as long.
Absolutely correct. A generation of young people, other than the ones with better off parents, currently feels lost and powerless. If they get the opportunity to have a reasonable house with a garden, with a reasonable commute to a decent job, they will remember this time very, very positively and reward the government that provided it to them. If we don't, our politics will head in a Latin American direction, with an anti-capitalistic population that swings between different types of populism.
We need to be aiming for 300k new homes a year, with most of them family homes.
Martin Jacques argues that the historical tide has already turned. The end of the neo-liberal consensus.
There was no train station in the 1970s , although the train from eastleigh airport ( 6 minute drive by car) now called Southampton Parkway took the same time as today. There are hundreds of small towns like Hedge End around the country where normal people live and work quite happily and maintain a very good standard of living, especially compared to the 1970s and 80s. There is just too much doom and gloom written on this site which is not relective of vast swathes of the UK.
This all comes back to land and housing. ...
This, a million times this.
Of my close Oxford mates (say 15), all in our early 30s, only 4 of us have our own houses. Myself not included (though I life with my gf, who does). Only 2 of them did it without parental help. The ones who don't are not in any way extravagant. They often baulk at anything more expensive than Sainsburies or Cafe Rouge, or shared holidays in rented villas with mates to keep the costs down. They don't go on regular minibreaks to Venice. Or get smashed every weekend. And they're all in demanding jobs, publishing, charity lobbying, tech.
My life
If it beyond the majority of the academically elite to buy a modest house by the age of 30 in the current interest rate environment, then I think something is wrong. Largely because this suggests it will be beyond the majority of millennial Brits to do so without, and in some cases even after inheritance.
Contrast this to my Dad, who has a non-graduate management-accountant junior bought a house at 27 with 7-8% interest on his mortgage.
If the Tory party can crack housing, and the personal aspiration and empowerment that goes with it, we'll be in power for a generation. If we can't, we'll be out of it for just as long.
Bit of catch 22 in housing. With 3d printing, kit housing and things like shipping container conversion there is the ability to mass produce very affordable housing of good quality, but that would have a catastrophic effect on the bricks and mortar market. On the other hand, why are we building houses that cost 200,000 when we can build them for 10 or 15 grand and sell at 3 times that figure? So you could sort it, but you'd hollow out wealth, and the price politically would be extreme.
Doing anything to increase supply and decrease costs of housing directly adversely impacts current owners both financially (negative equity) and in amenity (the NIMBY factor). These are mostly Tory voters, and hardest hit will be the JAM families mortgaged to the hilt on a rabbit hutch. It is why the Tories will do nothing about it.
There was no train station in the 1970s , although the train from eastleigh airport ( 6 minute drive by car) now called Southampton Parkway took the same time as today. There are hundreds of small towns like Hedge End around the country where normal people live and work quite happily and maintain a very good standard of living, especially compared to the 1970s and 80s. There is just too much doom and gloom written on this site which is not relective of vast swathes of the UK.
This all comes back to land and housing. ...
This, a million times this.
Of my close Oxford mates (say 15), all in our early 30s, only 4 of us have our own houses. Myself not included (though I life with my gf, who does). Only 2 of them did it without parental help. The ones who don't are not in any way extravagant. They often baulk at anything more expensive than Sainsburies or Cafe Rouge, or shared holidays in rented villas with mates to keep the costs down. They don't go on regular minibreaks to Venice. Or get smashed every weekend. And they're all in demanding jobs, publishing, charity lobbying, tech.
My life is comfortable largely because of the luck I've had in building an online bookselling business at exactly the right time: from a macro point of view, as the market exploded, and from a personal POV at the right time of life, in my 20s, when I could cope with taking very little out of the business for many years. Those who have bought houses are either management consultants, lawyers, or doctors.
If the Tory party can crack housing, and the personal aspiration and empowerment that goes with it, we'll be in power for a generation. If we can't, we'll be out of it for just as long.
Bit of catch 22 in housing. With 3d printing, kit housing and things like shipping container conversion there is the ability to mass produce very affordable housing of good quality, but that would have a catastrophic effect on the bricks and mortar market. On the other hand, why are we building houses that cost 200,000 when we can build them for 10 or 15 grand and sell at 3 times that figure? So you could sort it, but you'd hollow out wealth, and the price politically would be extreme.
The cost is the planning permission-available land, not the building materials. I know people who live in £1m homes that, were they to sell, they'd be immediately demolished for a block of flats.
Because leaving the EU means we automatically leave Euratom? And we're leaving the EU because we have a referendum and the country voted to leave?
It doesn't. It would be possible to leave the EU while remaining in Euratom, though the EU probably wouldn't like it because it would end the practice whereby since 1957, all three original Communities expanded or contracted together.
The question on the Brexit paper was only about the EU. I doubt that many people will want to die in a ditch over the ECJ's jurisdiction of Euratom matters.
There was no train station in the 1970s , although the train from eastleigh airport ( 6 minute drive by car) now called Southampton Parkway took the same time as today. There are hundreds of small towns like Hedge End around the country where normal people live and work quite happily and maintain a very good standard of living, especially compared to the 1970s and 80s. There is just too much doom and gloom written on this site which is not relective of vast swathes of the UK.
This all comes back to land and housing. ...
This, a million times this.
Of my close Oxford mates (say 15), all in our early 30s, only 4 of us have our own houses. Myself not included (though I life with my gf, who does). Only 2 of them did it without parental help. The ones who don't are not in any way extravagant. They often baulk at anything more expensive than Sainsburies or Cafe Rouge, or shared holidays in rented villas with mates to keep the costs down. They don't go on regular minibreaks to Venice. Or get smashed every weekend. And they're all in demanding jobs, publishing, charity lobbying, tech.
My life is comfortable largely because of the luck I've had in building an online bookselling business at exactly the right time: from a macro point of view, as the market exploded, and from a personal POV at the right time of life, in my 20s, when I could cope with taking very little out of the business for many years. Those who have bought houses are either management consultants, lawyers, or doctors.
If the Tory party can crack housing, and the personal aspiration and empowerment that goes with it, we'll be in power for a generation. If we can't, we'll be out of it for just as long.
Bit of catch 22 in housing. With 3d printing, kit housing and things like shipping container conversion there is the ability to mass produce very affordable housing of good quality, but that would have a catastrophic effect on the bricks and mortar market. On the other hand, why are we building houses that cost 200,000 when we can build them for 10 or 15 grand and sell at 3 times that figure? So you could sort it, but you'd hollow out wealth, and the price politically would be extreme.
The cost is the planning permission-available land, not the building materials. I know people who live in £1m homes that, were they to sell, they'd be immediately demolished for a block of flats.
And on the original point, the net result of the same money chasing the same number of properties is that you'd likely just end up with houses built of lesser materials selling for the same price.
Mr. John, Barnier meeting opposition leaders is dodgy.
Why is it dodgy? It's Barnier's job to get the UK gov. on the rack and he'll do whatever it takes. Anybody with even a cursory knowledge of his palmarès would know he's a ruthless machine politician. He's only meeting the doddery old fuck and the puppy mutilator to shit up May.
Comments
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/885410010167226370
No doubt this afternoon Don and Macron will be doing "business"...
Lefties suddenly very quiet about Macron?
Kevin Maguire's a quite peculiar, pathetic little man.
The actual issue you have revealed there is the typical UK one that companies aren't willing to train people and pay them properly once trained...
I would argue that if you have adequate financial provision and your health, it's a grand time to be alive and no serious person would gainsay that but I suspect many of us feel a nagging sense that too many people don't have that security or health and for them life is difficult.
It's not "doom and gloom" to point out the problems in society and argue about the best possible solutions - indeed, I'd argue it's a sign of a healthy and balanced society that we consider these issues.
There were homeless people in the 1970s, there are homeless people now. It's not to ignore progress to say people live better now than they did 40 years ago but it's not wrong to discuss housing and ask why there are homeless people and what we can do to help.
You are right to argue one-sided pessimism is foolish, so also is one-sided optimism.
That said, the chronic undersupply of housing is surely a strategic national priority at least as great as (say) the need to go ahead with HS2 - and we appear quite happy to ride over planning restrictions, and find the money, for that.
A smaller example might be the willingness of the government to underwrite around £3bn last year in local authority commercial property speculation (not development), at the same time as maintaining strict cash limits on their ability to build new council housing.
Not so keen on Marcon now perhaps?
Health, social care and pensions expenditure are all very heavily age dependent. We have an increasing number of elderly, with a steady* number of people of working age supporting them. If we do not tax them more heavily, or get sick elderly people to fund themselves via a "dementia tax", then we should expect those services to become more strained.
* contrary to popular perception, the population is increasing at both ends of the scale (elderly and children) but not of working age. Immigration is smoothing out the bumps of our population pyramid, by maintaining a constant working population. This is the explanation for why we have skill shortages at the same time as an increasing population.
see section 5:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationprojections/bulletins/nationalpopulationprojections/2015-10-29#changing-age-structure
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVOzMZ4IrMA
The problem is that in this country, housing is so expensive that for many people the income growth has not been high enough to keep up. That contributes to many people, especially among the young, having to save a huge amount for a housing deposit, and increasingly higher rents eating into their ability to save that huge amounts. It makes people feel powerless and that they're on the wrong side of a rentier system, where other people are getting rich from their labour. And it's not just first time buyers. There's a lot of people in two bedroom flats that can't see a three bedroom place ever being in their reach. Their whole lives are put on hold for years and decades, as they can't even think about starting families until they have more space. They interpret this as the whole of capitalism not working, when really it's as simple as not enough houses for the surging population.
We need radical reform to build enough houses, or else we'll become an ever more polarised and angry society. I don't want a planning free-for-all, which would end up with horrible urban sprawl ruining the south east of the country. Yet small incremental developments on the side of existing towns causes a lot of anger for not many more new homes.
What we need is more new towns in places that are currently "green belt" but aren't that attractive countryside. We could have a system where new green belt is added, square mile for square mile, for every new town that is built. And we should make sure these new towns are built with smart planning and housing density in mind.
As someone on here said a while ago we thought we was joining a "common market" not Hotel California....
I think a big part of it is because she is female. People dislike politicians on the other side of both sexes, but there is always a nastiness to it when it's a woman involved.
Churchill was undoubtably the man of the moment in 1940-41, but the rest of his career is much patchier. His actions in WW1, in Iraq in 1920's, opposition to Indian Independence, and later actions during the war, and his 1951 government all lead a lot to be desired. Idols often have feet of clay.
My grandmother lost an uncle on the day of the landings at ANZAC Bay, not born in Oz, but serving with their forces as he was working there in 1914. Australians also feel that Churchill denuded the Far East of troops and modern equipment, leading to a real threat to Australia itself in 1942. It is a large part of why Australia became more aligned with US foreign policy than British in the post war period, sending troops to Vietnam, for example.
He's natural, she's awkward and people are starting to want someone friendly and empathetic, not someone who has to choose her words deliberately. It's just not her time. It's the Boris and Clarke's of the Tory party that beat fit the national mood. Or maybe Damian Greene. Bit wooden but likeable chap. Or that housing minister that broke down talking about Grenfell. Natural heart, not cold Tory pragmatism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFd8mgxAg5U
(Note Osborne on one side and Theresa on the other)
There's nothing wrong with her functionally as a politician , it's just not the time for that sort of politician. Empathy and likeability are key right now.
She'd have made a good 2010 PM, or as the successor to Blair, but we are past the post Blair knee jerk and back on a likeability junket.
Edit - yes it's a subjective interpretation. All politics is when it comes to the electorate. It's the individuals view of the personalities and policies on offer.
Read my post below. This "likeability" bit is just subjective. People liked May just fine until a manifesto came out that threatened their homes/inheritances. When May gets back on to governing and Jeremy Corbyn next comes unstuck, the polls will move again and suddenly there will be stories about how May regained her mojo by finding her true comfortable self again. Of course, it will take longer for the narrative to switch because the media class is full of arch-Remainers that still think we should ignore democracy, but that's part of the circus.
Honestly, you Remainers...
As for her natural response.... ok, maybe ordered is a bit cheeky, but there is no doubt the apology did not come until after a meeting with Brady and his telling the media to 'watch thus space . So, regardless of her natural inclination, the optics suggest otherwise. And that's what informs opinion and VI.
It's not the public who've changed; it's that more information has become available to them.
Of my close Oxford mates (say 15), all in our early 30s, only 4 of us have our own houses. Myself not included (though I life with my gf, who does). Only 2 of them did it without parental help. The ones who don't are not in any way extravagant. They often baulk at anything more expensive than Sainsburies or Cafe Rouge, or shared holidays in rented villas with mates to keep the costs down. They don't go on regular minibreaks to Venice. Or get smashed every weekend. And they're all in demanding jobs, publishing, charity lobbying, tech.
My life is comfortable largely because of the luck I've had in building an online bookselling business at exactly the right time: from a macro point of view, as the market exploded, and from a personal POV at the right time of life, in my 20s, when I could cope with taking very little out of the business for many years. Those who have bought houses are either management consultants, lawyers, or doctors.
If it beyond the majority of the academically elite to buy a modest house by the age of 30 in the current interest rate environment, then I think something is wrong. Largely because this suggests it will be beyond the majority of millennial Brits to do so without, and in some cases even after inheritance.
Contrast this to my Dad, who has a non-graduate management-accountant junior bought a house at 27 with 7-8% interest on his mortgage.
If the Tory party can crack housing, and the personal aspiration and empowerment that goes with it, we'll be in power for a generation. If we can't, we'll be out of it for just as long.
Given the Conservative form guide it should take two or three years to get to three or four crooks or deaths.
We need to be aiming for 300k new homes a year, with most of them family homes.
So you could sort it, but you'd hollow out wealth, and the price politically would be extreme.
Inveigled into our lives by a common medicines agency instead of 27 separate ones.
Inveigled into our lives by organising tarriff free trade across our ports, allowing increased volumes almost administration free.
Those little hidden but vital jobs that folks in offices have always done, but which are denigrated from the Brexiting man in the pub viewpoint as not front line, not important, should be cut.
So, are they important, or not?
Sorry, many remainers on here, including myself, did put precisely this, hidden but essential, vision of the EU"s main role, enmeshed but certainly not intrusive, and were scoffed at roundly last year. Don't turn round now and say, omg Euratom was a central plank of the evil masterplan we weren't warned about, because that is just so much highly polished crapulence.
Still, it's a very silly point. Yes of course if you tweak growth down and don't tweak spending down, you eventually run out of money. However, the premise makes no sense, since of course governments would tweak spending down in such a scenario (or, if they didn't, the markets would take matters into their own hands).
But, PS, as someone famously said, long term we are dead. It's the short and medium terms that matter.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/06/why-jeremy-corbyn-new-leader-new-times
Very interesting phrase here 'water stressed countries'
May be the beginnings of a marketing campaign
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-4692574/Morrisons-sell-British-meat-homegrown-plans.html
The question on the Brexit paper was only about the EU. I doubt that many people will want to die in a ditch over the ECJ's jurisdiction of Euratom matters.
It remains the UK nuclear industry’s view that retaining Euratom membership will best serve the national interest.