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Comments
Gove's got Talent
Govie Sure!
The only way is Gove
The public votes as to who they like most and they get to leave and the least popular is left abandoned on the island.
What's Gove but a second hand politician?
Alison Moyet - We all need a Gove revolution
Joy Divisin - Gove will tear us apart
I happened on the crane index reports for last year a while back: central Manchester construction is about 50% ahead of Birmingham. Commercial they are about level, but Manchester's residential boom is much stronger (as an indication, under construction and ground being cleared projects will relegate current tallest Beethams Tower to 5th by the 2020s - one core is higher as of a couple of months ago.
I'm not totally convinced as to why the moor fires are top of the news: the mile or so near Buckton Vale is the most tightly built to the backing moors, with the vale set into the moors. If the fires spread a lot of the property nearest the moors in other places has low pasture as some species of firebreak Set against that though there is not even a hint of rain in the 7 day forecast and a consistent easterly breeze that will push fires towards inhabited areas.
It will all be fine for the Tories and Brexit - Gove will come through. Travis.
Gove
Gove on your side!
Cos you got Gove
Gove
Gove on your side!
She like to Sajid Javid
We like to Sajid Javid
We like to Javid!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/06/27/time-playing-nice-eu-britains-good-faith-exploited-europeans/
My years as a journalist were spent editing publications decidedly less prestigious than the Tele but still... that's pretty weak sauce.
https://twitter.com/MsHelicat/status/1012085485542559745?s=19
https://twitter.com/nicktolhurst/status/1012079610203459585?s=19
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=11858
Including the German football team.
If this country is serious about sorting itself out it needs the dementia tax.
The dementia tax did not play at all in a GE always destined to split on brexit lines. (Yes I know Corbin is not a remainer but his party was seen to be more soft bexits than hard brexits. The manner in which May called the election, to crush remainer saboteurs and no deal better than bad deal, played more of a part than dementia tax)
Lengthy article but shows the current state of play.
Why should someone who is worth milions - because they own a certain sort of asset (a house worth millions) - get free home care paid for by taxes on working renters and those paying down huge mortgages. Yet someone who rents a council flat but has £40k cash in the bank - perhaps recently inherited from a friend - have to pay the entire cost of their home care?
The current system is nothing short of evil!
Not sure making a virtue of cutting inheritance tax for the average upper middle class person, but simultaneously raising it for all those with assets of any appreciable value to almost 100%, if they die slowly and in a way which requires mainly social care rather than health care, is easily defensible, though.
What shouldn't have happened is putting a proposal out that had not been argued for, that people knew nothing about etc - either make a policy in advance and then make the case for it or pledge to hold a review into it before taking action.
Since this policy had not been scrutinised it would have been entirely reasonable to put into the manifesto something about holding a review into the cost of care homes and leave it at that.
Scrutiny should mean: (a) understanding it, (b) working out its implications, and (c) providing a coherent and fair summary of its pros and cons. There was none of that.
Still, the media are the media. Expecting them to provide scrutiny or objectivity is like expecting Trump to be presidential. Theresa May and her advisers should have known that, and got there first. Instead they did nothing to prepare the ground, didn't even brief Conservative MPs on the policy, and wasted days whilst Caroline Lucas and even Labour had the field to themselves with their dishonest attack lines. It was a spectacular political failure on the part of Theresa May - she even achieved the remarkable result of enraging and losing the votes of those who would have benefited from the policy.
Why should working taxpayers - many of whom rent - have to fund you in retirement from age 67 - because you aren't prepared to downsize from your £3m house to a £2m property to release cash to pay your bills. Its not turn government's job to preserve inheritances or bankroll the asset wealthy in their dotage?
If you don't like it - don't claim benefits! A house can be turned into a cash in the same way as any other asset - you sell it or place a charge on it or do equity release.
Gove inspired.
Den Mann beisst der Hund
Had the proposal come out three months earlier it could have been subject to proper debate and initial misconceptions could be cleared up. There's simply no time to do that during the campaign.
If we want to sort this out, it needs explaining over time. That includes an information campaign on our long-term demographic position.
Which would necessitate a case made for immigration, rather than chasing easy headlines.
https://twitter.com/foxinsoxuk/status/978302412363624448?s=19
Get even more immigrants ?
Personally if I had thought Remaining would guarantee the permanence of the UK Union I would not have voted Leave, but I don't think it would have. Certainly fresh pressures are being exerted as a result of Brexit, but best case scenario that testing fire will prove strengthening in the end.
In any case the question no longer seems to be about backing remain, since that ship has already sailed through parliament.
As to who gets to keep the name in the event of a split, I imagine that would depend on who flounced out - I recall similar discussions over what a split Labour might call itself.
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2018/06/should-williamson-get-the-defence-spending-rise-he-wants-plus-introducing-next-tory-leader-run-offs-our-monthly-survey-is-out.html
What is your solution?
Even almost all Brexiteers want to keep the union, it is only on a forced choice of staying in a Federal EU or allowing Scotland and NI to depart they would choose Brexit which they would argue would be the only way of keeping a truly independent UK anyway.
In any case it is a false choice given the poor SNP results in the post Brexit GE particularly
So what do we do when they get old ?
More and more and more and more immigrants ?
An immigrants ponzi scheme ?
It is not just a matter of cost, Social care requires a workforce. It is an area where little can be automated.
I know this is radical idea which cannot be countenanced by most people.
If you want to do a major change like this it takes time to argue through the merits and flaws before proceeding.
I'm a Tory because I believe in individual freedom, and meritocratic low and fair taxes.
I'm a republican for the same reason. That which makes me Conservative makes me believe in an elected Head of State. Others disagree but that's what makes us people and not robots. People are more complicated than a single box.
And all those extra immigrants themselves require housing and public services and accrue benefits under the welfare state.
Now lets look at your low fertility period of 1965-1985 - people born then will now be in their 30s, 40s, and 50s with more populous groups already entering the workforce.
As to automation that might well be the case in some areas but when immigration has been used as a way to reduce capital investment forgive me if I have my doubts.
Currently it is 68 for anyone retiring past 2038.
Cardiff 21
Bury St Edmunds 11
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40658774
And I'm sure that wasn't the first time it had been changed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE06rNkxlks
British car production rose 1.3 per cent in May as rising demand at home offset a small drop in exports.
Some 137,225 vehicles were made last month, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.
Cars made for domestic use rose 12.8 per cent to 29,918, while exports fell 1.5 per cent to 107,307.
Another two dozen states will restrict it more than it is now.
And the rest will see no change.
I think this may be a "be careful what you wish for" for the Republicans, though.
Bizarrely that sci fi scene of a spaceship interior looks incredibly dated rather than futuristic in part because of that now.
A lack of consensus about what is going to make this country poorer for the coming generations, and lack of consensus around viable long term solutions to those problems. Demographic time bomb. How globalisation is making a mug of us. The slide from industrial to post industrial workforce.
For decades our governments answer to the demographic timebomb has been immigration. How unpopular that policy, and unpopular changes it will bring to society is clear in the brexit vote. Problems caused by barely mitigated transition from industrial to post industrial workforce also clearly there in both Brexit vote and election of trump.
We are about to transform from an unproductive nation suffering at the hands of globalisation, literally being raped by the same places we raped during our days of Empire, to a Global Britain, some sort of economic superpower enjoying only the best of globalisation, none of its worst. Whilst detail on how this is actually achieved is still sketchy, excuse my scepticism.
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1012133864402309120